Just finished my Wharton interview. I did the interview with an alumnus in my local city in Virginia. Overall, the interviewer was very nice and quite talkative. He made a lot of comments when I was talking about my career goal of going back to China in the financial services industry. He also offered me advices to be open with other career choices if I get in the school. The interview lasted for about 45 minutes, probably 15 minutes was him talking. The guy was very comfortable to talk with, very impressive, I wish I can leave such an impression to the people I talk to in the future. I guess a top MBA experience will help tremendously on that front.
Here are the questions, hope they will be helpful to other applicants here,
- Career progression, why you made the choices? How you got here and where you are going?
- What are the biggest challenges you see in realizing your career goal? ( I talked about my career goal of going back to China and work in the financial service industry towards the end of the first question, that's why he asked this question. I talked some general challenges faced by the industry and some personal challenges )
- Why MBA, why Wharton?
- What made you successful? ( he spent about 40 seconds asking the question, his original question was sth like "you've had a great career success so far, there are a lot of other folks how also had really impressive career achievements, blahblah, what do you think that made you stand out from the pool? )
- Give me an example of making an important decision in your career/life. What kind of risk you took.
- Talk about a disappointment in your life, how you handled it?
- What do you do for fun
When I answered question 6, I felt he was asking more about a disappointment in my life, not necessary in my career. But I didn't prepare such an example,  , so I still talked about a failure in my work and what I learned from it. I guess I didn't do very well on this particular one because after I finished, he said something like "let me push for the other direction again", then he asked question 7. I guess he wanted to see the other side of me. this could be a lesson learned.
Another experience I want share is don't be afraid to ask the interviewer to clarify the question. In my question 5, the interviewer spent 3 minutes asking the question, to be honest, I was a bit lost ( he probably realized his rambling too, ). After he finished, I clarified the question by rephrasing it back to him before I started to answer it. That helped a lot.
I am so glad that I am done with this process ( rewarding, but painful too ). Hopefully I don't have to repeat it again next year.
Hope everybody the best luck! | 
