Wharton interview experience

Last year, I was lucky to get an invitation for interview with Wharton. I was ecstatic and it was hard to convince myself that it wasn't a dream. It took me like a week to come out of that haze. At that time, I was in France on a critical project and it got hard for me to concentrate on both my project and my interview preparation.

I was fortunate to get a Hub Interview at Mumbai and I had 3 weeks to prepare. Frankly speaking, I couldn't start preparing till I came back to Bangalore. So, I had only 2 weeks to prepare. I started with studying my essays and updating my resume. I made sure that I knew my story well. Moreover, I went through the interview feedback and experiences of applicants on clearadmit.com and accepted.com. I think these are great resources that help you understand everything about interviews - preparation, questions, and more.

I flew to Mumbai from Bangalore a day before the interview. Later that day, I had an opportunity to talk to a Wharton alum, who works with Lehman Brothers in London. This was an hour long tele-conference. Believe me, you must talk to alumni to know the school. It's simply great to know stuff from them, they are really passionate and at the same time portray a realistic picture. He started with academics and went on to explain about faculty, philly, buildings, clubs, students, internships, career opportunities and other tit-bits. He advised me to be calm, confident and most importantly "be myself."

The interview was at McKinsey office and was scheduled early in the morning. It was amusing to see fellow applicants dressed in formal suits and ties. We mingled well and discussed quite a few things. During these discussions, we found out an interesting trend. We realized that a common set of applicants had received invites from the top schools such as Wharton, HBS, and Stanford. So, we always compete with a few serious contenders from a geographic location. That was interesting!

The interview was only for say 15- 20 minutes and the interviewer really didn't ask me anything extra-ordinary. I was a little disappointed because I had so much to talk about but didn't get an opportunity. (So, It is good to at least know the highlights of your career/story that you want to put across. Else you might hit upon all kinds of details that are not important and run out of time.) Moreover, I was surprised because I interviewed with an alum. I was hoping it would be someone from Adcom as it was a Hub interview. But guess there was only one representative from Adcom and the remaining were alumni. The alum was very nice and made me feel absolutely comfortable. Although, he didn't really show any reaction on his face.

The interview took this course -->
1. Walk through of the resume: So..I mentioned it very clearly ..what i was doing at my company, my role, my career progression, and a few important events and awards. Then I explained him how and why I started my first venture at the age of 19. Why i started my other non-profit venture and how i went about building it. After this..he told me.. "Very impressive! Great!" This was a thumbs up to me!

2. Then he asked "So where do you want to go from here?": Here I explained my passions...my vision...my goals.....and how i had already started working towards my goals..

3. He asked me "So how do u wanna go about it?" Here i mentioned...mainly about general management and entrepreneurial management and how an MBA would help me realize my vision.

4. Next question "Why Wharton?" So, i gave my reasons..and told him how I have been researching the school. Also, I mentioned that I was in touch with a few alumni, who helped me understand Wharton.

5. Next question "So which schools have u applied to?" : I told him HBS, Stanford, and of course Wharton. So..he was like "Good" ...and he asked me whether I have heard from any of these schools...I told him Wharton was the first one.

6. Then. he was like.."Any Qs for me?" I was taken aback here..because I hoping this was just the beginning. In any case, I was sure that he had understood the crux of my profile and my vision. So..I asked him.."What has your experience been in Wharton? and why did you choose Wharton?" ..and he explained me a few things. Moreover, he mentioned that he had applied to the same set of schools that I had (H, W, S).

7. The next question was a bouncer!!! I asked "What do you think about Wharton's entrepreneurial management?" and then he counter questioned me saying "give me a list of 5 companies... which u admire the most and..in which u want your company to be considered in the future." I gave him the list and the reasons as well. He said "Great! let us go through the list. 4 out of 5 companies that you mentioned have founders who have no formal business education. Then how do u think Wharton will help u?" I knew that I had to come up with something realistic and convincing. I gave him some honest and practical reasons. And at the end he said "fine!"

He wished me all the best for the process and said.."sure u will do well" That's it..!
I couldn't judge much from that but I was happy that I put across my case well.

Hope this post will be useful for Wharton applicants!
Cheers!
Vanquisher