Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Reminiscing my Ross interview

I had my UMich-Ross interview last week. I got the interview invitation right before Thanksgiving and had to complete my interview before Dec 9. The alum whose contact I was given turned out to be busy till Dec 9th and hence suggested that I approach the school for another contact. I did this. At this point I must say that both the alums passed out from the school in the new millennium and held very senior positions in the firms they were working.
So the day my interview was scheduled, I got a ride from my husband. It was the first time I was seeing the city traffic. Thanks to our thoughtful planning and early start we reached the rendezvous point, a coffee shop, a good 45 mins early. I used that time to relax and grab a cuppa coffee and some breakfast (the interview was scheduled early in the day).
I was waiting for my interviewer. After sometime when I started texting him, he showed up. We took a table at the coffee shop and started the process.
1) First he explained to me about the process (it reminded me of my Kellogg interview) and then asked me to walk him through my professional career. I did the same – spend around 3 mins I guess.
2) Then he asked me Why Ross. I answered it and it kinda led to Why MBA. Very specific questions about long-term and short-term goals.
3) A leadership experience at work
4) A situation in team when my team member was not performing well. How did I handle it.
5) Specific questions about my non-profit volunteer work I was doing since the past 9 months. He asked me couple of leadership questions about this activity.
6) And the most hated questions - What would I do if the MBA thing doesn’t work out this year.
This is the list of the questions I remember. I might have skipped a question or two, but not more. Overall I think I answered them with comfort and I’m hoping my interviewer could see how I was focused on my goals and purpose for an MBA and how much I’m in love with Ross :)
Then I asked him a couple of questions about his Ross experience and MAP. He spend around 8-10 mins answering my questions. When he started talking about his MAP experience, I chipped in and conveyed how I had forgotten to mention about MAP before and how I believe it to be very necessary for a career changer like me. Hope my being forgetful didn’t affect anything negatively :-$
The total process went a little over 45 mins. It was a blind interview, i.e. my interviewer had only my resume , that I sent him. He had not seen my application and essays. I think this is the best way to evaluate a person’s admissibility into a school. Conduct a blind interview. Then match the interview report with the application. If they are both coherently positive sounding then take in the candidate.

6 comments:

  1. Dreamer,

    Congrats on what sounds like a successful interview! Best of luck as you await the decision. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions about Ross!

    Matt
    http://twitter.com/thieleman1

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  2. Thanks for dropping by Matt. I also appreciate your offer to answer my queries :)
    Cheers
    -D-

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  3. Thanks for the nice comment on my blog! Wish you the best of luck with Ross and other schools! Ross is a great school and I have a couple of friends attending right now and rave about it. Let me know if you want to get in touch with any of them :)

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  4. Thanks for the offer to help DreamChaser :)

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  5. Thats sounds like it went well. All the very best.

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