myice

我分享一下我的Ross Alumni Interview

Conversational interview 30mins

walk thru my resume

Discuss myself

why MBA

short & long term goal

why Ross

what else B-schools I applied

challenge during the work

Q&A 15mins

Summer Intern

MBA Life

Why she chose Ross

myice

Round 2 / On-campus / Second-year Student (Published February 26th, 2009)

I interviewed on campus with a current student. The interview lasted 30 minutes. It was very conversational and the following topics were covered:

Tell me about yourself.
How did you choose your current employer?
Tell me about a leadership experience.
What about Ross made you apply?
Why do you want to get an MBA? What are your goals?
What do you hope to get out of an MBA?
Have you heard about the Wolverine Fund (this was in response to a discussion about venture capital).
What is your dream job coming out of school? In 10 years?
What do you do outside of work?
From there we had a conversation about college football, Ann Arbor, and his opinion of my recent admits. Like I said, it was very conversational and quite enjoyable.

myice

Round 1 / Off-campus / Alumnus (Published November 19th, 2009 courtesy of Indian86)

I had an [blind] alum interview for Ross in India this November'09. He was very cool person, and he told how the interview would proceed. About 50 minutes for the interview, and 10 minutes for me to ask him questions

List of interview questions

Walk me through your resume in about 6 minutes? (Had some cross questions such as why I left company X, why I joined Y. Why left X only in 1 year)
International exposure - working with counterparts in country X? What did I learn from them? Their charachterstics, etc
Other cross questions from resume such as how I reached this 20% productivity in my org, how I quantified it? How I measured this figure?
Some hypothetical questions about my interest in a sport - such as Even with 1 billion people, why India is lagging in this sport? What would I do if I become sports secretary for this sport so as to make sure India triumps in this sport?
Questions on long term goal, short term goal, why ross, why mba?
Which clubs I will join?
What I have done to connect with Ross?
What does Leadership means to me?
Failure at Work?
Challenging time in Life?
The interview was much interactive, with time given to think for response, cross-questions, probing, etc. I was surprised by hypothetical questions, and too much probing. Overall it was a nice Experience. Alum was very friendly, and he treated me well.

myice

Round 1 / Phone interview / Second year student (Published January 21st, 2010)

Phone Interview, however have visited before for a recruitment weekend; Beautiful, new building and they really do a great job of selling the school to prospectives.

Tell me about yourself.
Tell me about your role on a team.
Tell me about a time when you had a professional failure and what did you learn from it.
Tell me about a time when you received negative feedback from a supervisor and how did you respond.
Tell me how you dealt with a team member who was under-performing.
What 3 adjectives would your friends use to describe you and why.
The interview seemed pretty straight forward. There were no tricks although it wasn't articulated to me how long the interview was so I only had the chance to ask 1 or 2 questions before being cut off at the end. Must have been an OK interview because I did get admitted last week. Prepare before hand and have really good reasons why you want to go to Ross.

myice

Round 1 / Off-campus / Alumna (Published January 21st, 2010)

My interview was with an alum who is actually working in the field I'd like to be in after graduation (automotive marketing). I expected it to be pretty informal (she pretty much told me to dress casually – not business-casual, just…casual, so I showed up wearing nice jeans and a sweatshirt), but it seemed like she's had quite a bit of experience with these and had a list of prepared questions (and a manila envelope with them) which were mostly HR-type stuff: resume walk-through, strengths, weaknesses, tough situations at work, leadership experience, extracurricular activities, why Ross, why marketing. She threw me for a loop when she asked me if I had considered any other program at Ross other than the Full-time and why not. The strength question was in a form of "if you had to describe yourself to your future classmates, what three words would you use?" We talked for about half an hour, after which she said that the official part was concluded and opened it up for a Q&A. She told me quite a bit about the school and even though the "on the record" part was done, I didn't really let my guard down and exhibited a pretty decent knowledge of the school even when asking questions.

All in all, it was pretty dry, but certainly friendly and she warmed up after we discovered a common ground. I thought it went pretty well considering my more than mild distaste for HR-type interviews.

Result – denied. Not even waitlisted. Considering the fact that my stats were very decent (720 GMAT/3.4 GPA/5+ years work experience, etc), I was quite upset. My thought process now is that the interview probably did me no favors.

myice

Round 2 / On-campus / Second year student (Published February 1st, 2010)

what should I know about you? (threw me a but off; took it as "walk me through your resume"
why an mba
what if you don't get in? (back up plan/try again/figure it out thru experience)
why ross
tell me a time that you failed
tell me about a time you were in a team that dealt with a lot of obstacles (be sure to include what you learned for next time!)
tell me about a time you showed initiative
how would you be involved outside of class?
there might have been others, but she said my initial review covered a lot of what she needed (had a checklist/form she was trying to make sure she had info for) 30 min total, 5 min for questions she said i did much more research on ross than she had! (maybe that's a good thing?) the admissions desk by phone had told me the person would have seen my app; but this felt like a pretty blind interview!

Other notes:

Stayed the night in Lamp Post Inn. On the older/simpler side, but cheapest best option. And find if you get in late and leave early! Free breakfast - basic bagels, coffee, jams/butter/cream cheese, quaker oat packets to make, break, english muffins, juice (starts at 6am)...owner is nice, retired, graduated from ross in '60's..... 5 min/ 9 buck (w/ tip) taxi from campus. Call blue cab or yellow cab the day before for a pick up.
was told by tour guide that tho they say it doesn't matter about doing interviews off campus, they really like it if you come to campus. they want to see you excited about the school
if you haven't been before, highly recommend "VIP" with q&a, tour, class & lunch (all with ambassadors) 8:30-1...My interview was at 2pm and that was fine; got me energized!
if you have luggage you can leave it in the office closet, and they're very casual; I wore jeans and boots and changed into suit before interview

myice

Round 2 / Off-campus / Alumni (Published February 6th, 2010)

Only a thirty minute interview! It was practically over before it began.

The alumn with whom I interviewed was very nice. He asked all the basic questions - walk me through your resume, why Ross, why now, etc. He also asked the basic leadership questions, e.g. tell me about a leadership role, etc. We talked about the MAP program a bit, but that's probably because I mentioned it as a reason to go to Ross, and then most of my current work is international so we talked about the diversity of Ross (e.g. high proportion of international students). I explored his reasons for wanting to go to Ross and his opinion of the school. We talked about the new building and Ann Arbor and then I just asked him more about how Michigan fit into his career goals.

Hope this is helpful to other people interviewing! I apologize for not remembering more of the questions I was asked (it was a few weeks ago) but I hope the general impressions/flow of conversation will be somewhat useful. Good luck with interviews!

Update from 3/9/10 - I was just admitted to Ross. So excited - yay!

myice

Round 2 / Off-campus / Alumni (Published February 12th, 2010)

Interview was with alum Gautam Rao in Hyderabad. He’s a nice guy. The building you meet him in is pretty ‘humble’/’down to earth’ which makes a change from the generally corporate powerhouse setting I’ve had other interviews in.

It was supposed to be 30 mins but he said he would allocate 45-60 mins. It actually ran 65 mins. Questions were:

In six mins run through your CV
Tell me about what you did at all these jobs
How was it working for this firm and getting laid off
Tell me about your travelling
Tell me about your charitable experiences
Tell me about a professional failure
More in depth about what you do at your current firm
Why Ross?
Long term Short term goals
Why MBA?
Why now?
And a few mins for me to ask him a few questions
That’s about it really. Hope this helps.

myice

Round 2 / Phone / Adcom (Published February 26th, 2010)

I just finished my phone interview (I am living in Asia) with an admissions committee representative. I called right on time and was transferred to a very nice lady. She was conversational but the interview still felt like an interview instead of a chat. She started by saying she may not have had access to my application (is that a yes or no?) so it's ok if I repeat the examples and information that I had used in my application. Also, I was calling with an internet phone and there was lag between responses. A few times I couldn't hear her clearly and she seemed to have the same problem. So although it may be expensive, my advice is to definitely play it safe and use a landline to call. Interview questions:

Walk me through your resume.
What are your goals and how does an MBA fit in the picture?
Why Ross? I mentioned the usual action-based learning (MAP, RLI), flexibility of curriculum, various centers (William Davidson Institute, etc), largest alumni network of any business school in the world, I also mentioned the fact that all the UMich alums I've talked to, regardless of which school and how long ago they graduated from, show fierce pride in the school. She really warmed up to this comment and agreed that all students who graduate from the school are extremely loyal to it.
You mentioned one of Ross' strengths was the focus on team work, can you give me an example of when you worked in a team, what was your role and how did you contribute?
That was a very good example, I'm wondering if you can give me another example, or perhaps this happened in that first example you gave, of when you were in a team and you had a member that was not performing well? What did you do?
I forgot the exact wording for this question, but it was one of those give me an example of when you took initiative and made a difference (preferably in a team).
I understand you don't know what the other applicants are like, but how are you unique, what can you bring to the table that sets you apart from others?
What do you do during your free time?
Are there any questions that I haven't asked that you think I should? I think I really botched this one. I felt there was still so much of me that I wanted to share, but I couldn't come up with just one question that would allow me to give all these answers. So I told her "I can't think of a specific question but I can think of many answers that I wished to have given". Either she couldn't hear me well through the not-so-great connection, or she didn't like the answer, because she just laughed a bit and moved on to the next question. I felt I really lost a great opportunity to sell myself more.
Any questions for me? I asked her two questions:
The first one was whether the jobs students take upon graduation are more centered in the Midwest. Her first response was for me to check the stats on the website (oops!), but then she went on to say a lot of students find jobs all over the country and abroad, and that although Ross is located in the Midwest, that doesn't mean your career opportunities are only limited to here. She did say a lot of students in Finance find jobs in Chicago while Marketing students go to Minneapolis.

My second question was what did she think was the biggest strength and weakness of the Ross program? In terms of weakness, she say previously it was the old building because it was not an environment that helped to foster team work and interaction, but now that is taken care of with the new building. The second weakness, which they are working on now, is not enough global representation. The school currently has plans to open Ross offices in India and China in 2011, where they will be able to recruit students, form partnerships with local companies, and find more career opportunities for graduates. For strengths, she talked again about the emphasis on teamwork, and not just teamwork among students, but also among faculty and other people involved in the program. She is quite proud of this distinction and advised that I should ask other schools about their teamwork to see if other programs also go so far in terms of collaboration. She said students openly help each other find jobs, even if they are competing for the same job. She also mentioned the fact that the new building is environmentally sustainable was because some students pitched the idea to the school, originally there were no such plans.

So overall, I didn't get any curveballs, but I don't think the interview went great. I has answers ready for all the questions, however I think they were pretty standard answers, not enough to differentiate myself and make myself sound unique. The fact that the connection wasn't that great was also a big minus. I was already talking pretty fast because I was nervous, and I think I sounded like I had all my answers memorized (which isn't a good thing), my answers were pretty long too. Oh well, now I just have to wait and keep my fingers crossed, hope this information is useful to someone!

myice

Round 2 / Off-campus / Alumnus (Published March 11th, 2010)

My interviewer was very relaxed and friendly, and had loved his Ross experience. We met at a coffee shop for just under an hour.

List of interview questions:

Tell me about yourself.
Why Ross?
Have you visited the campus and seen the new building? (I had not, but emphasized my attendance of local events)
How do you feel about moving [from NYC] to the Midwest?
Can you tell me about a time when you dealt with a struggling team member?
Asked me to elaborate on two of the bullet points on my resume on my current position.
How do you hope to become involved on campus at Ross, aside from MAP?
After the Q&A, we talked about his MAP experience and chatted about Ross in general, the admissions process, etc. He was very happy to share his insights and encouraged me to contact him with any further questions.

Decision: Admitted!