Chicago Booth: Interview Transcripts & Notes
Advice from Former Booth AdCom:
Booth interviews are conducted blindly. All they have is the resume, and often it's a skim before starting the interview because most/many are conducted by students or a recent alum who supports the Admissions team. It's rare that an Admissions Committee member conducts the interview.
You should be able to answer: why an MBA, why now, and why Booth? Have very clearly outlined ST/LT goals, and your career trajectory should make sense (UG experience + career to date + a Booth MBA = ST goal ==> LT goal).
, Rd 1 Interview, with Alum
- Walk through my resume
- Why do you want to go to b-school?
- What is your job and role like?
- What is your working relationship with your manager like?
- Would I be willing to move to NY?
- No behavioral questions really
Booth Interview Report
In-person with 2nd year student, and lasted about 1 hour (I asked questions for the last ~10 minutes)
Why business school? Why now? (emphasis on this question, but maybe since I have less work experience)
Why Booth?
Why did I switch roles within the company (to another department)?
What are your ST/LT goals?
How do you plan to get involved with the Booth community?
Describe yourself as a leader.
One time you received feedback, and how you reacted to it.
Biggest challenge at work?
What’s one thing you want to continue doing as well as one thing you want to stop.
Any questions?
Lots of follow up questions in between questions.
Booth Interview Report
- Introduce yourself/talk about Resume
- Why Booth
- Why an MBA
- How would you become involved at Booth/extracurriculars?
- Long term/short term goals
- Plans for my internship.
- Tell me about a time when you asked for help.
- Questions for Interviewer
- Tell me about yourself
- Why MBA? Why now?
- Why Booth? What about Booth that excites you?
- Tell me about a time you convinced someone
- How do you plan to deal with "FOMO" at Booth?
Blind Interview, Zoom, Second-Year Student
- Resume walkthrough (tell me about yourself)
- Why MBA? Why Booth?
- Followed-up on this question in more detail later, asking why I need an MBA if I don't need it for progression at my firm
- Three words to describe yourself, with explanation/narrative behind each
- Talk about a time when you had a disagreement at work and how you handled it
- Talk about a time when you worked with people from diverse backgrounds
- Talk about a time when you showed leadership in your community
Chicago Booth Blind Interview, second year student
It was incredibly conversational, and she really only asked a few “canned” questions:
- Why Booth
- Impact you hope to have at Booth
- A time when working on a team went well
- A time when working on a team went bad
It lasted about 35 minutes, and we primarily just talked about my resume and my plans for the future.
Chicago Booth Interview Reports
- Why Booth
- Impact you hope to have at Booth
- A time when working on a team went well
- A time when working on a team went bad
The interview lasted about 35 minutes, was friendly and conversational, and we primarily just talked about my resume and my plans for the future
Blind interview with a 2nd year student.
Overall, the interview was straightforward:
- Tell me about yourself
- Why MBA?
- Why Booth?
- Short and long term goals?
- talk about a time with a challenge, ambiguous situation (with some follow up questions on the experience)
and then Q&A.
Blind interview with a second year student.
- Walk me through your resume
- Specific questions about my resume
- Why did my boss give me the summer intern supervision opportunity
- What was my leadership style with the summer intern
- Why do I want MBA
- What specific things do I want in Booth
- Outside the work -- asked me to walk through my resume
on-campus (part of Booth's Super Saturday event)
Interviewer: Recent alum (most of the interviewers present were second-year students but there were some recent alums, as well) Demeanor: friendly and welcoming though slightly nervous Duration: 60 minutes. Took 2 minutes to briefly share his background and then ask me an ice breaker question about what I do for fun outside work. Reserved 15 minutes for Q&A at end. Note that I was never asked to provide a resume walk through or share my story, so I looked for opportunities to weave in the critical points in other questions, when relevant.
Questions:
- What do you do for fun outside work?
- How would your friends describe you?
- How have you gotten to know Booth?
- What led you to first consider applying to Booth?
- What led you to enter your current industry?
- How have you attempted to build relationships in your current organization?
- What are your long-term goals (he allowed me to share my short-term goals, as well)?
- Why do you need an MBA?
- Why Booth?
- What would you get involved with at Booth?
- What qualities do you bring to Booth?
- What motivates you?
- Tell me about a time when you had to work with a difficult team member.
- Tell me about a time where things didn't work out as planned.
- Tell me about a time when you had to motivate a group of people.
- What is your ideal team structure?
- What is your leadership style?
- How do you typically contribute to a group?
- Anything you wish I had asked or would like me to know?
- Any questions for me?
- Do you have any questions about Booth?
- How do you feel about your performance on a team?
- What role do you most like to take?
- How would others at work describe your contributions?
- How would others describe your personality?
- How about outside of work?
- Why do you want to go to business school?
- Why now?
- Why Booth?
- Walk me through your resume.
- Tell me about the recent reorg.
- Why do you think you maintained your position?
- Are your bosses supportive of your business school plans?
- What are the qualities of a great leader?
- What are your three strengths?
- Three weaknesses
- Why business school?
- Why Booth?
- Why business school?
- Why Wharton?
- Why now?
- What are your long term plans?
- What do you like to do outside work?
- What do you think will be the biggest changes in business in the next ten years?
- What steps would you take to infuse the culture of your company with ethics?
- Why do you want to go to Booth?
- Tell me three important things about yourself.
- Why did you choose those things?
- What are your weaknesses?
- What are your short and long term goals?
- Why are these exciting to you?
- Why do you think you will succeed?
Second year student with no prior knowledge of my application (he hadn't
read my resume either and asked me for a copy, seems to be the norm).
- Asked me to walk through my resume.
- Proved me about my leadership style.
- What had been my key take aways throughout my career.
- What mistakes had I made and how did I correct them going forward.
- Short and long-term aspirations and a lot of probing as to why these where important.
- Why Booth is a good fit and why now.
That was pretty much it. He wrote a couple of notes on my resume as we went along and kept it pretty chatty. The interview itself took about 30 - 40 min with about 10 min of Q&A.
- Tell me a little bit about yourself.
- Let's go into the details of your resume. Walk me through it.
- Why are you seeking an MBA?
- Why Booth?
- When did you have to really deal with a challenge?
- When did you have to bring people over to your side?
- How do you characterize your leadership style?
- What are other tipping points in your life?
- How will you know if your MBA will be a success and what do you plan to do here?
- What do you bring to Chicago GSB that is different from other candidates?
- Any questions for me?
- Why do I want to give up accomplishments as [previous career] for an MBA/why [X] as a chosen field
- What do I need to learn from an MBA program after all my previous education
- Why U of C
- What clubs would I contribute to
- What would I contribute to my classmates' education
- What do I hope to learn from my classmates
The interviewer was a second year student. The questions were the usual.
- Walk through your resume'.
- Why MBA?
- Why now?
- Why Chicago?
- Since I am focusing on mortgages, we talked a little about what is going on with the crisis in general.
- What do I do outside work?
- How will I contribute to the GSB?
He then let me ask questions. Overall, the interview lasted 40 minutes with the last 10 min. spent with me asking questions. The overall tone was conversational.
I had an interview on campus with a second year student - Forest Himmelfarb (on the 08 viewbook). The interview lasted 35 minutes of which 25 were questions directed at me, and 10 minutes discussing Chicago GSB. It is a blind interview, meaning the interviewer has not read any of your stuff.
- Talk to me about what you have done and why you made those choices
- What did you learn from starting your own business?
- What are some of your strengths?
- What kind of value set would you look for in your peers?
- What will you bring to them that is distinctive?
- What is your impression of Chicago?
- He then talked about his experience and I intervened occasionally to say that I felt aligned with that, etc...
It was a positive interview, although I think it is very difficult to establish rapport in 30 minutes with someone whom you don't know and has not read anything about you. I think the strategy is to get the person to like you (and not your accomplishments) as he will be appending his views to the overall application.
- Walk me through your resume
- What do you think of the culture here?
- Describe a difficult teamwork experience
- Why Chicago, why MBA?
- What 2 extracurricular activities would you be involved in?
- What is your career plan?
My Chicago GSB interview was very informal. He basically asked me to explain whatever I wanted to and then gave me his thoughts about the school. Then the general why MBA ? and Why now. Thereafter we just chatted about his experience at GSB .
Alumni Interview
- Talk me through your resume
- Why do you want to get an MBA?
- What attracts you to Chicago?
- What would you want to pursue there?
- What other schools did you apply to?
- Tell me about what you do outside work.
Followed by a few minutes for me to ask questions.
(I interviewed on campus. My interviewer was a 2nd year student).
- Walk me through your resume starting from the time after high-school
- Why MBA? Followed by some specific questions on my venture.
- I mentioned my community activity involving open-source software. At this point he went into a 'case mode':
- "Do you think Linux will succeed as a technology? Why?" He challenged several of my assumptions and conclusions, but in the end he seemed happy with my response.
- Why entrepreneurship at GSB?
- What courses will you take?
- Any questions for me? I asked him about other GSB entrepreneurs he knew of and what they are doing today. I also asked him about how the uniquely flexible curriculum has helped him specifically.
In the end he offered me his card and asked me to let him know over e-mail if I had any questions or if I missed anything.
• Goals • Why MBA • Why now • Why the GSB etc • How your co-workers would describe you. My interviewer asked me how my supervisor would describe me, which threw me a little. • I was asked about a difficult problem I faced that I had to solve. • At the end, I was asked if there was anything else not covered in my application or interview that I wanted the adcom to know.
• Why MBA • Why now • Why Chicago GSB • What other schools are you applying to • Tell me a time when you led people • What do you do in your spare time • How would your potential classmates and your current colleagues describe you • What makes you unique • How would you contribute to the school? He pressed me on some of my answers to the questions
• Looks like you have stayed all of your life in the same region. Why do you want to come to Chicago now? • How were you active while in college? • (The interviewer was impressed by my grades). Asked if I was part of any honors programs? • Looks like you started as an Intern at your first company. What exactly do you mean by co-ordinated activities between two groups? • Walk me through your work experience at your current company. • Do you give presentations in front of customers? Have you ever spoken at conferences? • Are you responsible for P&L? • How do you go about determining what new R&D item to request? What method have you found the most effective in understanding customer's requirements? • With respect to outsourcing do you think India and China just emulate what they see in the West, or do they come up with their own innovations? • Do you think that there is a danger with outsourcing in terms of the quality of goods that are manufactured oversees. Would they be of the same quality as those made in the US? • Why does Ford Motor Company still build its own products? Why not just outsource all manufacturing? Boeing is going that route isn't it? • You obviously have a lot of experience. Why do you want to get an MBA? Typically, MBA graduates would make a lot less money that you probably already do. • Why now? • What is the thing that most motivates you in life? • Why Chicago?
• Tell me about yourself. • Why do you want an MBA • What are your goals • Why GSB/why now? • What would you like to tell the committee that you haven't been asked in your apps or your interview • What specifically do you bring to the GSB community? • What three adjectives will co-workers use to describe you? • And what three adjectives will colleagues from <my extra-curricular activity> use to describe you? Why are they different? • In five years, what three adjectives do you hope people use to describe you?