Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.
This time of year, business school candidates will start to interview with their target MBA programs. Many will inevitably fret and ask themselves, “What if I don’t know the answers to the interviewer’s questions?” The good news is that, as our title for this blog entry states, a business school interview bears no resemblance to a TV quiz show. The admissions officer, alumnus/alumna or student who will interview you will not ask you about esoteric topics and will not expect you to answer questions pertaining to management disciplines, about which you will learn more in the first year of your MBA program. The vast (vast!) majority of interview questions will pertain to your life and experiences—in other words, the interviewer will be asking you about you—so you will already have the answers in hand as you start the interview.
As your first step in preparing for your interviews, take time to reacquaint yourself with your own story, especially as you have thus far presented it to the school in question—go back and reread your essays, contemplate pivotal moments in your life and consider your major accomplishments and failures. By doing so, you will have the basic knowledge necessary to perform to your fullest during your interview.
