Interview Reports
Yale SOM
Below are MBA admissions interview questions and experiences submitted by Yale SOM applicants. If you interviewed at Yale, we encourage you to submit a report detailing your experience!Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 3 / Video interview
Last week, I did the video interview. Here are the questions as I remember them:
- What would your colleagues and friends say are your strengths and weaknesses?
- Please describe a creative solution that you have come up with for a problem.
- With businesses becoming more global, does the importance of local culture decrease or increase?
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 3 / Video interview
Hi, I took the Round 3 video interview.
1. What contribution did you provide for your company?
2. If you have a struggle with classmates, how will you solve it?
3. What is your biggest concern of the Admissions Committee in evaluating your application?
Good luck!
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round2/ AdCom/ Off-campus
Conversational. Lasted for 40 mins. Very polite interviewer. He told me that he had only seen my resume, not the rest of the application, so he might be asking questions that I might have already answered in my essays and other parts of the application.
1. You have varied experience [read as job switches], can you please take me through them? (basically a resume walk)
2. What’s your long term goal, why MBA and what do you want to do after your MBA?
3. Leadership example!
4. What is that you don’t like about your job, something you wish it wasn’t there/ you don’t have to do it any further? (it took him some explaining)
5. Anything you would like to know more about Yale SOM?
6. What does interest you beyond work?
7. Anything else you would like to tell us that we haven’t covered?
After interacting with AdCom, I am even more excited about attending Yale.
Best of Luck!
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Second-year student / On campus: Super Day
Super Day included about 150 interviewees and a full day of events.
- 10am breakfast
- 11am intro with dean
- 1145 ‘mind games’ a mini class with a professor
- lunch
- tour
- closing reception
You step out whenever you have your interview.
My interviewer and I actually had mutual friends, small world. The conversation was very informal. I probably ran on a bit since I was so excited/nervous about interviewing.
- Tell me about your current job and how you got it/there?
- Tell me a time when you were a leader?
- Tell me a time when you were behind deadline and what happened?
- Why an MBA and why Yale?
- Any questions for me?
In total it was about 40 minutes long.
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Adcom / Off-Campus
Interview off campus with Yale SOM adcom. Conversational, though I was like the 6th interview of her day so she clearly had pre-set questions. As Yale states, she definitely had not seen anything more than a quick glance at my resume prior to the interview.
1. Why Yale SOM?
2. Time you weren’t going to meet a deadline? What lessons did you learn?
3. Example of leadership and working as a team. What lessons did you learn?
4. Why business school and why now?
5. Anything you want the Admission Committee to know that we didn’t cover?
Friendly interviewer – she was trying to sell me on Yale as much as I was trying to sell them on me. Bring some good questions to ask (applicable to any interview) and be sure you know what sets Yale apart (leadership for business and society)
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Second-year student / On Campus
I was really excited to visit SOM and felt that it was a great fit from what I had reach/heard from former and current students. The on-campus experience unfortunately was a disappointment. We spent most of our time crammed in two rooms with nothing to do, and the class visit was a painfully boring lecture. The class visit was followed by a campus tour which was hampered by the fact that the tour guides seemed like they didn’t even like the campus or New Haven (one of our tour guides noted that there is “absolutely nothing to do in New Haven”–not exactly the school’s best salesman to introduce to prosepective students. The campus tour ended with a lunch where none of the second year students spoke to myself and 3 other interviewees. We did not get a chance to see any of the new building, but we were told we could walk by ourselves if we’d like.
After the lunch, I had my interview. It was with a second-year student. The interviewer was very, very cold and did not seem interested in anything I said. It was all behavioral questions–tell me about a time you faced a deadline, tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss, tell me about a time you improved something in your office. It was all over the place and the only question that was straight-forward was “Why SOM.” I did not feel prepared for the questions and did not think it went very well.
I was accepted in the first round last week. I do not plan on going.
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / AdCom / On Campus
Hi all
Pretty standard questions mostly:
- Explain why you choose your undergraduate school and what you did there.
- Explain how you got to your current job.
- If asked, how would your boss or client describe you?
- Tell me about a time you worked on a team.
- Questions?
Good luck all !
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / 2nd-year Student / On Campus
Had a really chill and nice second-year student for my R2 interview. We went through the following questions:
- Tell me the basics about you (in a couple of minutes)
- Some follow-up questions about transitions. Why did you decide to do X job after graduation? Why Y job after that?
- What is one of the main challenges at where you’re working now?
- Tell me one major strength and weakness.
- What were the “big take-aways” of XYZ experience? E.g. life lessons, how you changed, what you learned.
- What accomplishment were you most proud of in XYZ job/activity?
- What are your future plans after MBA?
- Why SOM?
- Questions for interviewer
Interviewer responded to a lot of my comments about SOM with confirming thoughts. Generally the interview was very supportive and positive. You can tell everyone is really passionate about the school and its close-knit culture. It lasted a bit over half an hour. Would be thrilled to get in!
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 (Consortium) / 2nd-year Student / On Campus
Interviewed with a current 2nd student, blind – I actually met him prior
List of interview questions:
- Where are you from?
- How was your undergraduate experience?
- Why an MBA?
- What do you want to do after your MBA? (long-term and short-term goals)
- What do you want to do during your internship?
- Name your leadership experiences
- Tell me about a difficult team experience.
- Why Yale SOM?
- Are there any questions that you wished I asked?
- Are there any questions for me (student)?
Commentary: Very conversational We spent a lot of time just talking about his experience and what I wanted to get out of the program
Hope that’s helpful
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / 2nd year student / On-campus
I interviewed on campus. My interviewer was friendly and took lots of notes. The questions:
- Please walk me through your resume.
- Describe how you work in a team.
- What do you want to do after Yale?
- Where do you see yourself in 20 years?
- What do you offer/bring to the table?
- Describe your perfect day/what do you do for fun?
She stressed that the interview was about finding candidates with the right fit for SOM. It was more of a conversation than an interview, and we chatted a lot about her experiences.
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / 2nd year student / Off-campus (Skype)
I was invited to interview one month before the decision deadline. My interviewer called me through skype. He seemed very casual and friendly, telling me that all he had seen was my resume. Here are the questions I was asked:
- Please tell me about your job.
- Please walk me through your resume.
- You mentioned that you were able to [one major achievement], could you please explain to me more about that?
- He asked me follow up questions regarding my resume and based on my previous answer.
- Why Yale?
- Why MBA?
- Since we got limited time left, I will leave time for you to ask me some questions.
Throughout the interview, he was very courteous. He apologized if he kept asking questions which were already answered by my essays. He thanked me after the interview and told me he would send me an email (but for some reason I didn’t receive it. Maybe I misheard him.) I felt the interview was too rush as he asked very few questions and wanted to end the interview strictly within 25 mins. There were a lot of things I wish I had told him which I didn’t have a chance to.
RESULT: ACCEPTED!!! (I knew my result online at 5.12pm EST of the decision deadline Dec 15, 2011)
Yale SOM
| MEAN GMAT | 719 |
| MEAN GPA | 3.51 |
| CLASS SIZE | 228 |
| % FEMALE | 36% |
Round 3 applicants received admissions decisions on May 16t...
Recent Tweets