myice

Round 2 / Second Year Student with Adcom present / On-campus (Published January 7th, 2010)

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, not gloom of night shall keep me from my appointed interviews! Borrowing that from the USPS, I figured that was a pretty good recap of my weekend. Friday night, Danielle and I had dinner with friends and we didn’t get back until pretty late. We slept in until about 9ish on Saturday, which was a welcome relief from the stresses of the past week. The original plan was to drive up to Ithaca on Sunday and stay at the Statler hotel, which is a hotel on Cornell’s campus that is student run. The only problem was the huge freaking blizzard that was scheduled to hit the northeast on Saturday. I didn’t think much of it at first until I spoke with my mother (who lives near Philly) who informed me that 8 inches of snow had just fallen in the first hour of the storm. It was right about that time that I panicked…

My fiancée and I started running around the apartment packing everything for the weekend. It was about 11:30 and the storm was supposed to hit NYC around 1, so there wasn’t much time to waste. I quickly called and booked a room at the Courtyard Marriott Ithaca, for the night (because I didn’t really want to pay another $250 to stay at the Statler for an additional night). We made great time up to Ithaca and didn’t see a drop of snow. The trip had started very well…

We found a local bar to eat at called “The Rose” and had a pretty good meal, with the locals seeming very friendly. It was pretty cold at night, so we didn’t hang around for very long. We made our way back to hotel and went to bed.

Sunday brought another day. We wanted to explore a little, so we went to an early movie to see Avatar (in 3D). I highly, highly recommend this to anyone who might want to see it. The theater in Ithaca was pretty spectacular. We only paid $11/person for a 3D movie. I am used to paying that for a normal Saturday movie in NYC…pretty good snack choices as well.

We then went to check into the Statler hotel. It is a beautiful hotel and they gave us a room with a view of the valley that is below Cornell. The campus is very much an IVY league campus, with brick and old stone throughout the buildings. We settled in and watched some football. After watching the Jets choke their game away, we went to the hotel restaurant. It was a very nice Italian place with a nice view of campus. After dinner we settled back into our hotel room and I tried to get some sleep before the big day…

It was no use, 10 o’clock turned into 11, into 12…I finally fell asleep around 12:30, only to wake up at 2:30! After some restlessness, I went back to bed around 3:30 and woke up at 7, so not terrible, but not a great night’s sleep either. I got up, ordered some breakfast and got dressed for my interview.

I arrived at around 8:50 for my 9:15 interview and waited in the admissions office until my interviewer arrived. I was supposed to be interviewing with an adcom, but was told that she would be joined by a 2nd year student. I didn’t know if this was good or bad, but I had to just roll with the punches. The 2nd year student arrived (along with the adcom) around 9:20 and after introductions, we made our way to a conference room.

The 2nd year told that this was going to be very conversational and that he would be conducting the interview under the supervision of the adcom. He started by telling me about himself and about his time at Johnson. Then we started the interview. Here are the questions that he asked, I don’t think you are going to find them as helpful because he tailored the interview to my work experience and the flow of our discussion.

Tell me why you chose your college.
Tell me about your internship at Bear Stearns.
Anything you saw that made you not surprised that it went out of business?
Tell me what ICAP (current company) is and what you do.
What 3 changes need to be made to fix the financial system?
Do you like the VaR model?
What is its main drawback?
What other schools are you applying to and why?
What is the main difference between Tuck and Johnson in your eyes?
Tell me how your teammates would describe you as a team member? (work and ex. curricular)
Asked me a long hypothetical question about morals and wanted me to detail my thought process for him.
Any questions for me?
The interview lasted for almost an hour and after that time I was escorted back to the admissions office. After that I met with Randall Sawyer, the assistant dean of admissions. We chatted about life in Ithaca and what having a partner there would mean. It was a really nice talk and it really helped with some of my concerns.The only bad part about the conversation was Randall telling me that I would still have to wait until Feb 15th to hear anything back. I had hoped that it would be rolling instead of a deadline…

With the interview and my interaction with some of the students, Johnson has zoomed past Stern to #1 on my list (of 2). I really loved the scenery of Ithaca and the small town feel. I think it would be the perfect place to spend 2 years and I am really hoping that I get some good news in February!

myice

Round 2 / Telephone / Adcom (Originally shared by Choc Heaven. Published March 16th, 2009)

I had my Johnson (Cornell) interview last night, which lasted for 40 minutes. It was on the phone with an ad-com representative, and was a blind interview. The questions were pretty routine:

Why MBA, why now, what are your post-MBA plans?
Discussion on your career to date, what roles you have had, skills learned etc.
Example of a time when you had a conflict in team and how you reacted to it.
Example of a leadership situation - where you had to convince a colleague or team about something they disagreed with.
Why Cornell? This I feel is the most important aspect for Johnson. They really want to see how motivated you are to attend Johnson, whether you'll be a good fit, and whether you actually have an idea of what they prize themselves on
What 3 adjectives would I use to describe you to the Admissions committee?
What student clubs are you interested in?
What Immersion Program will you join?
Any questions for me?

myice

Round 2 / On-campus / Adcom / Accepted! (Published February 9th, 2009)

I interviewed on campus in January. School was not fully in session when I visited, but all the first year students were around for their Immersions. As such, walking around at Sage Hall, I was able to converse with multiple current students regarding their experience.

I would highly recommend doing the info session BEFORE the interview. I found it very helpful, and was able to relate what I saw during the information session to answer questions of why I was a good fit at Cornell during the interview.

My interview was with an adcom member in the late afternoon. She was very cordial, and being my first MBA interview experience, it was very simple. Having read all the previous Clear Admit interview experiences, and having practiced my answers out loud extensively (probably 3 or 4 run throughs with another person) I was prepared for all of her questions.

They included:

Walk me through your resume/life story.
Why MBA?
Why now?
Why Cornell?
What immersion would you be interested in and why?
What 3 qualities do you believe a leader must have? Which of these is your weakest?
Tell me about the most difficult professional experience you've had.
What other schools are you applying to and why?
What questions do you have for me?
She also went over a couple of the activities that I had listed on my resume. If there is something regarding your extracirriculars you would like to talk about, I advise putting it on your resume. Also, a couple of these questions were in response to something that I said, so it is possible to lead the conversation in the direction that you desire.

I was accepted in R2 with a partial scholarship. Good luck to everyone!

myice

Round 2 / Alumni (Published February 6th, 2009)

I had applied to R2 and I had the alumni interview. He had not seen my application. The alumni was very friendly and the interview was mostly in the form of conversation.

Walk through your resume
Why MBA and why Now
Short term/Long term goals
Why Johnson School of business
Most difficult decision in my professional life
Most innovative solution
Example of motivation in professional life
Style of leadership
challenging thing in the job
Any questions for me

myice

On-campus / 2 yr student / Round 2/admitted with scholarship (Published on February 4, 2009)

I had a interview on-campus at the Cornell Johnson School yesterday for the November application round. To my surprise, the admission staff didn't even mention other options, just let me choose which time is OK for me to have the interview on campus. I drove up the morning before from New York City (4 hour drive), toured around the campus, talked to some students I contacted before and stayed at the super8 motel downtown(cheap but great). On campus parking is free for admission visitors, so don't worry about parking. Just drive to one of the four info booth and identify yourself as admission visitor they'll give a parking permit, a map and a clear direction about where to park, how to get there. (the staff in the info booth was a pretty blonde student worked as a part-time!)

My interview was with a 2nd year student who had already signed his offer, so he really spent some time reading my resume and made marks and prepared specific questions. We talked in one of the breakout room (no. 121). Although it's a blind interview, I found the interview a little bit challenging than other reported interviews but the interviewer was nice and I believe I've also prepared well. It lasted about 50 minutes.

Questions Asked:

I've read through your resume and let's start with your most recent one, ok?
The employment gap? what did you do?
Why MBA?
why now?
which specific area and location are you interested in? (related to my goal)
what's your 3 strongest strengths and weakness?
How will you work in a difficult team situation, when someone don't even care to contribute?
What other schools are you applying to?
what activities will you join if admitted? anything specifically interested in Johnson?
What questions do you have for me?
In addition to these questions he asked many follow-up questions that were specific to my responses.
I also scheduled a class visit / information session / lunch (only 7 dollar coupon for 1 person, other schools I visited even provided for my girl friend) / tour with current students, which I found not so helpful.

When I drove back to NY in the afternoon, the snow came. The Pocono Mt was all in snow and very difficult to even see the road. The location of Ithaca really is a problem for some others, but I'm OK.

myice

Adcom / On-campus / Round 2 (Published February 3rd, 2009)

I interviewed on-campus at the Cornell Johnson School last week for the November application round. I drove up the night before from New York City (4 hour drive) and stayed at the Holiday Inn hotel downtown. The morning of my interview I found easy parking at a municipal parking garage in Collegetown and walked up to campus (5 minute walk) instead of trying to find on-campus parking. My interview was with a member of the Admissions Committee in their office. He had a copy of my resume and a report from the application reader. I found the interview to be very conversational and a great experience. It lasted about 45 minutes.

Questions Asked:

Walk me through your background
How did you end up at your current job?
What do you do for fun outside of work?
Why Cornell?
Why do you want an MBA?
What do you plan to use your MBA for?
How would your friends describe you?
What other schools are you applying to?
What are you reading right now?
What do your parents do?
What questions do you have for me?
In addition to these questions he asked many follow-up questions that were specific to my responses. I paired my interview with the information session / lunch / tour with current students, which I found extremely helpful. However, I could not attend a class given my timing constraints. I came away in love with Cornell's campus. Ithaca seemed like a great place to spend 2 years if you're looking for somewhere a little more rural, like I am after spending 4+ years in NYC.

myice

Round 2 / Adcom / On-campus (Published January 28th, 2009)

I found the Johnson School very helpful during the application process. When I was asked to interview, they assigned me a contact in the admissions office and also provided a login to a portal to search for students using various criteria (clubs/ undergrad institution / nationality / similar post-MBA interests) etc. - you can reach out these students who have volunteered to help prospective applicants.

My interview was on campus in Ithaca. I was interviewed by a student and adcom. Blind interview - they just had a copy of my resume. Standard questions, very conversational - most questions were based on my prior response. 1 hour.

List of interview questions (quite standard)

Resume walk through
Why MBA, why now?
Why Johnson School?
leadership examples?
teamwork examples?
Post-MBA plans - short and long term?
How will I contribute and be an active member of the Johnson community?
My strengths?
My weaknesses?
how will my friends describe me?
time for questions
Ithaca is an absolutely beautiful place! Very impressed with everything - smart and friendly students, the classes I sat in on were interesting with good class participation - and my interview was handled extremely well too.