Acing the MBA Interview: A Necessary Component to Successful Business School Admission
With very few exceptions – (most notably Kellogg) – top business schools invite only a selected pool of applicants to interview for a place in their MBA programs. Receiving an invitation to interview is a milestone on the road to business school admission. While not a guarantee, it’s a positive step toward receiving an acceptance email or phone call!
Interviews are an extremely important part of the business school application process and serve several purposes as schools continue to ascertain whether the applicants fit the criteria of who they are looking to admit.
What you Need to Know about the MBA Interview
Business school admissions interviews are one of three qualitative components that an applicant has control over when they decide to pursue their MBA – the others being the candidate’s essay packet, and to a somewhat lesser degree- their letters of recommendation. As nothing (or very little) can be done to change history, which in this case means the quantitative components of an applicant’s profile (GPA’s, GMAT scores and CV), being asked to interview means an applicant has successfully scaled the first and perhaps most daunting summit on their trek to gaining admission at their business school of choice: getting noticed by the admissions committee.
While applicants are rarely denied admission based solely on their MBA admissions interviews, many have tipped the scales against themselves by not being as prepared as they could have been.
When you consider the number of applicants vying for a limited number of seats at top MBA programs, you should also consider that the interviewer’s job is focused more on “weeding out” than on “selecting”.
With that in mind, and knowing you’ve passed the first hurdle, being accepted to your business school of choice becomes yours to lose, so be prepared.
How Admit Success Helps Candidates Ace the MBA Interview
Admit Success helps prepare you for your business school admissions interview in three steps.
- We talk through strategies.
- How to best answer each category of question you will be asked – and we know them all.
- How to graciously handle a distracted interviewer pressed for time
- How to engage your interviewer on a level that will leave a positive impression well after the interview has ended.
- We set-up mock interviews.
- You’ll go through practice interviews as many times as necessary until your answers are interesting to listen to and provide the interviewer with a clear indication of who you are – and what you will bring to the MBA classroom and MBA community.
- We do a final walk-through as close as possible to your interview date.
- We provide peace of mind.
- We help you find your center, the comfort zone in knowing you’re fully prepared to respond to any question in a compelling manner.
- We train you to be yourself, which is after all who the interviewer wants to learn about.
- We provide “after-care”. We are not only interested in your impressions of the interview; we want to help with your MBA interview thank-you letter.
Don’t Wait Until you get an MBA Interview Request Letter to Start Business School Interview Training!
Book a package of MBA interview coaching hours with us and we’ll contact you right away to set up a schedule.
Or, consider an all-inclusive MBA consulting package which includes MBA interview coaching, for every school that asks for one.
