The following is a report from an applicant who was invited to interview at Chicago Booth. The applicant shares their Booth MBA admissions interview questions:
I applied as an international student and interviewed with an alumna in Ghana. Before hand, I made sure to check out my interviewer (I really recommend this). I looked her up on LinkedIn and also asked a friend at Booth if she knew her. Researching the interviewer helped because we began on a very good note and I was able to ask more specific questions about her career and Booth.
We met at a coffee shop and the interview was more conversational than formal..from what I’ve heard, Booth wants to ensure that you REALLY know why you want to attend this school and from the tone of the interview, I could tell that the interviewer wanted to see if I had taken the time to understand Booth instead of mentioning all the surface stuff on the website. She also took time to go through my resume which I sent two days before so she had a lot of questions written down and was genuinely interested in getting to know me. Some of the questions asked were:
1. Tell me about yourself..this lead to why mba, why now and why Booth?
2. Tell me about a time when something you’ve suggested at work wasn’t accepted and how you overcame that?
3. What are your short and long term goals?
4. How would your colleagues or clients describe you?
5. How do you approach a new set of people, what has helped you in being able to successfully get along with a group of people?
6. Tell me how an economic or social circumstance beyond your control has affected you and how you’ve been able to deal with that? (I think this question stemmed mainly from the fact that she works and lives in Ghana and that I am from an African country as well)
Overall, the interview went great. I asked my questions as we were talking, that way, the interviewer also opened up to me and I didn’t have to wait till the end to shoot a bunch of questions at her. I was really nervous but I would say just try your best to relax and breathe. Another thing I’ve noticed is that Booth is really checking to make sure that you are being yourself, they don’t want any fabricated stories or anything and like I mentioned before KNOW THE SCHOOL. Call the admissions office, get in touch with a student, read news articles on the website. Those really helped me.
For more Chicago Booth MBA admissions interview reports, visit the Booth interview archive!
