Kellogg MBA 面试汇总（2009-2010）

myice

In @ Kellogg 1yr MBA Program（附背景和面经）
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In@Kellogg加我的申请心得（Essay写作，interview准备等）
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myice

回复 46# stream


    所以面经超多，哈哈

stream

Kellogg的政策是每个申请人都可以面试。。。。。。。

nymphl

谢谢分享！！！

myice

Round 1 / Adcom / On-campus / Accepted! (Published Dec 8th, 2009)

Written on 10/22 in Kellogg cafeteria, 20 mins after interview.

Interview on campus with Adcom; 45 minutes. Small office, seated facing each other in padded midback chairs with armrests, no table in between. Interviewer has a copy of your resume, you don’t… be ready for that.

Interviewer was a very nice woman from the admissions committee in her late 40s/early 50s. Introduced herself and went over interview format. And opened off with “tell me about yourself”.

Asked very open-ended questions and prodded with some subtle follow up questions in a few cases when I was a little over-broad. Gave me a lot of verbal and nonverbal feedback (nodding, taking notes) when I hit points she liked. This let me adjust what I was talking about to drill down deeper on areas of interest.

Be ready to talk for 80-90% of the time, the questions are very open ended and are there more just to prod you into some direction. The interview is really pretty undirected and you are basically expected to pitch yourself.

Kellogg questions –

Tell me about yourself? A: I'm married, I'm from X. I'm a manager at a software company with a background in consulting.
I see that your job is X, what does that really mean, what do you do? A: I do XY and Z. I report to Q. Here are some typical things that I do.
So your job involves a lot of leadership. Tell me about some of your other leadership experiences. A: Highschool leadership in academic competitions, Military leadership, student leadership, community leadership. Touching about 90 seconds on each. This was a stronger area for me but I made an effort to be concise, get everything in, but not let it take up too much time.
What is the accomplishment you are most proud of in your career. A: Told a story about when I helped redevelop a failing product. Impact to the company, impact on myself.
Your community involvement involves working with a lot of different organizations. Tell me about one specific project you’ve worked on. A: Picked the highest profile one, for which I won an award. Before and after story involving vision and leadership.
Tell me about your time at your undergraduate university. A: Focused on why I picked my little known program. Talked about mentoring as a part of my university’s mentor program. Talked about the radio show I used to host. Talked about intramural sports.
How would you contribute to Kellogg? A: My background is very deep and multifaceted in technology. I bring that along with the ability to actually communicate that and pass along that knowledge. I would contribute in the consulting and net impact clubs, as these best fit my background and future plans.
What else do you want Kellogg to know about you. A: My upbringing – Blue collar, self made, motivated. How deeply I have researched the program. Passion for Kellogg education model with specific examples like GIM trips, case studies, experiential model etc. That I flew to Kellogg for my interview because I wanted to show my commitment and passion directly to the Adcom face to face, rather than an alumnus (which was true).
Do you have any questions for me. A: I said no, and that I think that I have answered them all already through my own research and through alumni and current student contact. Interviewer agreed. I then use the question I always ask at the end when I am the interviewer “What should I have asked you that I didn’t”. This was NOT a hit. Interviewer was a little caught off guard and said something about teamwork and hands on learning. Clearly flailing…. Kinda had to step in and save her. This is the one part of the interview I would take back if I could…. But it was more undesirable awkwardness than a faux pas, not really a dealbreaker.

Post mortem – This interview went very well. My criteria - If I could have a “do-over” I wouldn’t take it, because I couldn’t imagine doing it differently (with one minor noted exception). Thinking on my feet and filling up a lot of meeting time by talking is something that I do alot in my job, and that made this format right up my alley. If that is you, do your homework on the program, know your story, show up ready, and you will be fine. Either way, pick a storyline, get a mock interview partner and practice practice practice telling it from memory. You can largely script this one if you want to, so tell your story over and over again verbally until you become really comfortable with it. Have your partner tell you what works and what doesn’t. Make a “best of breed” storyline and do your best to mold it into the interview when you get on the spot.

Decision – Accepted!!! Got a call from the Adcom on 12/7/2009.

myice

Round 1 / Adcom / On-campus / Accepted! (Published Dec 14th, 2009)

Adcom seemed experienced and probed at all the right points.

Walk me through your resume - with highlights of each. She checked that everything I spoke about was from the resume; asked a couple of follow up questions.
What are your career goals? Drilled down into my long term career goal; not sure if this was to catch me off guard or to really understand my goals.
Why do you want an MBA? Why Kellogg?
What would your teammates say about you?
What kind of a leader are you?
Discuss a failure in a team context
What is a weakness you have?
How do you see yourself contributing to Kellogg community?
Do you have any questions for me? I asked her about things Kellogg was doing in response to the current economic climate. She gave me a long answer.
Interview had an open-ended feel to it. She would often see me speaking and stay quiet, allowing me to take it the way I wanted. I used all these instances to show her why I loved Kellogg and also displayed my detailed knowledge of the school and its offerings. Its important to know your story cold - especially Why MBA, Why Kellogg and Walk me through your resume. I practiced these by saying them out loud to myself over a hundred times in the week leading up to the interview.

myice

Round 1 / Adcom / On-campus (Published January 4th, 2010 by DreamChaser)

I selected to do the interview on campus during the Kellogg Preview Weekend (which btw, is an awesome event that you should check out, see my post on KPW). I wasn't sure if I was gonna interview with a student or an Adcom. But it looks like on Saturday you interview with student (I am not 100% sure about whether you always interview with Adcom during the week days though). I ended up in one female Adcom's office for the interview. She was very friendly and that relaxed me a little bit because I was quite nervous since Kellogg was my first interview. The interview started off with the most standard question about walking through the resume. I went a little far into explaining why MBA, and my interviewer actually smiled at the end of it and told me there was specific question for that later (I thank her for not interrupting me while I went off for that would have throw me off a little). All the questions were pretty standard Kellogg questions, even the leadership style one I have seen on accept.com interview reports. The interview lasted about 30 minutes and the interviewer left enough time for me to ask questions. Overall, the interview was like a relaxed conversation with the interviewer occasionally probing on points of interests. Because of my profile and my answers, the interview end up focusing a lot on leadership and team work, which allowed me to fully showcase my strengths. I felt that the Adcom is very experienced and asks lots of follow up questions. She also kept writing notes the entire time but kept good eye contact in between and had lots of positive confirmation through body language (nodding, smiling, ect.) Overall, I thought I did quite well and the admission later confirmed that.

My 2cents for interview rep: read interview reports from accept.com and clearadmit, prepare those questions, and prepare all of them. I always think it's good to over prepare than under prepare. Just make sure your answers don't sound rehearsed. Know your story, of course, but also know your strengths, and try to showcase as much as of it during the interview. And lastly, stay relaxed, don't get throw off by odd questions, just be confident and be your best self. Good luck!

Here is the list of interview questions that I remember:

Walk through your resume starting from undergrad experience?
What is your biggest accomplishment at work?
Leadership experience at work?
Follow up question on my leadership experience such as my specific actions and leadership style.
How has your leadership style progressed since college (through work and a specific extra-curricular activity)?
What role do you play on a team?
Tell me about xxx (a specific extracurricular activity on my resume).
Why MBA?
Why Kellogg?
What unique contribution can you bring to Kellogg?
What clubs do you plan to participate in while at Kellogg?
What do you do for fun?
Anything you want to say that we haven't talked about?

myice

Round 1 / Alum / Off-campus (Published January 13th, 2010)

Overall a very relaxed interview experience. It was off campus and the alum and I scheduled the interview during the week at the alums office.

Alum started off telling me about the role of the interview and asked if I had any questions. I asked about alums background and then alum asked about mine. I talked about this for about 5 minutes. Alum asked fairly expected questions including:

Tell me about a team experience and a challenge you have faced
Why MBA?
Why Kellogg?
What are your career goals?
Which clubs will you get involved in?
Then I asked a few questions and we parted ways. I think it went pretty well.

myice

Round 2 / Alum / Off-campus (Published January 15th, 2010)

The interview questions are quite straight forward.

Why MBA? Why Kellogg?
Why now?
Detail questions about every corner of my resume
You have to be familiar with everything on your resume even your job at five years ago. Go to detail and prepare examples to support. The alumnus is very nice and did great job of Kellogg brand marketing. It was a very nice conversation.

myice

Round 2 / Alum / Off-campus (Published January 25th, 2010)

We met at a local coffee shop with a relatively new alumni (2007). He was friendly and professional. Dress attire, business causal. Lasted 1 hour.

Why MBA? Why Kellogg?
Why now?
Tell me about a team experience
Greatest work accomplishment
Detail questions about my resume including how I acquired my diverse set of projects Know your resume, why Kellogg, and why MBA. Know exactly why you want to go to Kellogg and how you'll add to the community. Be prepared with questions for the Alumni.

My best advice is know the basics and understand what qualities Kellogg is looking for in an applicant. If your resume doesn't convey all qualities of an ideal applicant, be ready to supply antidotes of those qualities to present a well rounded applicant.