Archive for the ‘HBS Interview Intelligence’ Category

HBS round 3 interview invites, 100 out, how many more?

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

I am an HBS round 3 applicant and I haven’t received an invite for an interview today. Only 100 invites were sent out today vs. 750 on the first day for Round 1 and 2, each time with another 50-100 later on.

How many more invites do you think HBS will send for Round 3 applicants given past experience?

I knew Round 3 was more competitive, but was expecting HBS to at least make 100 admits from R3, i.e. ~200 interviews.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated!!!


past exp. not much guide here since current  hbs interview notice [w. one big 700 invite day each round and then some dribble] is new, in prior years interivew invites used to spirt out over two weeks each round, and then dribble off.

Given that, we only have Her Majesty’s pronouncements, which have been accurate for round 1 and 2. As to Round 3,

we got two posts:

1. Apr 3, 2009 (12 hours ago)

 

I’ll make this short and sweet – today we sent out about 100 interview invitations to Round 3 candidates. There will be some more, but I don’t know when, to whom, or exactly how many.

Bottom line, 100 invites sent today, which is ‘many’ of the total but not all.

If you want to warm yourself w. the idea that in Rounds 1 and 2 when they sent out 750 or 700 on BIg Bang Day and then sent out 50-100 more and turn that into a fraction of 1/7 (of post Big Bang invites per round)  and apply it to 100 to get like 14 more  well, be my guest. I put more faith in the ‘many but not all’ locution, and guess (and it is only a guess) it will be more like 10 (and a lot of those are big foot poundings).

I believe in her numbers as to the 100, leading to sort of 60 R3 admits and then 10 more interviews leading to another 6 or so, for grand r3 total of ~66.  

Dean Light says MBA class to increase ‘slightly.’ We say slightly means ~30. Good news for Waitlisters and Rich Kids?

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

HBS TO INCREASE MBA CLASS ‘SLIGHTLY’ –DUH, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN ????

AMPLIFICATION TO THIS POST:

SOME ALUMS WHO READ THE POSTS ABOUT INCREASED HBS CLASS SIZE  HAVE NOTED THAT INCREASING THE  SECTION SIZE BY FIVE KIDS PER 90 KID SECTION [OF WHICH THERE ARE 10 AT HBS EACH CLASS] COULD PROB. BE DIGESTED PRETTY EASILY FROM THEIR EXPERIENCE, SO CLASS BUMP COULD GO FROM 900 [THIS YEAR] TO ~950 NEXT YEAR [5 KIDS PER SECTION] BUT THAT HAS GOTTA BE NEAR OUTSIDE –SO CURRENT THINKING IS 930-950 FOR NEXT YEAR’S CLASS SIZE.

WHAT WE WILL NOW CALL, IN LIGHT OF DEAN LIGHT’S LETTER, THE 2010 CHARGE OF THE SLIGHT BRIGADE  

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IN A FEB 19TH LETTER TO HBS ALUMS, DEAN LIGHT SAID THAT HBS PLANNED TO INCREASE INCREASE THE MBA CLASS ‘SLIGHTLY’ WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???? TO WIT, IN THIS PARAGRAPH [FULL TEXT OF DEAN LIGHT LETTER IS BELOW]

 ”We are exploring revenue opportunities, too. We plan to increase the size of the MBA program slightly this fall, and we are developing new Executive Education programs we anticipate will do well.”

 ——————————————————————————–

 First of all, I assume it means they will take slightly more kids for entry this fall, and not that they will announce an increase of more kids this fall for year after that. You can construe the grammar and context all you want, but the fact is, HBS and Dean Light (in particular) are always iffy and fuzzy about such projections, and the letter itself is one of those thumb-sucking jive sheets w. a mix or real bad news, sprinkled with projects and projections, and no doubt outright lies, typical for this genre. And what genre is that????? Dean’s Letter to Alums, showing bogus transparency as a way of fishing for more donations. Translation, dont bet the ranch on any stat therein. Moving right along. What it cert. does not sound like they are doing is ADDING A SECTION [~90 kids] b.c. 1. that strikes me as a super big deal; and 2. 90 on top of current enrollment of ~910 is not exactly slightly. But if they do not add a section, how many kids are they going to add. hmmm check this out????

HBS class of 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
enrollment 898 898 895 895 914 907 901 900

 what strikes me about above is that enrollment can jump 6 or 7 kids (in 2008 and 2009) and a whopping 19 kids (2007) WITHOUT ANYONE SAYING ANYTHING. And those are numbers I consider to be ‘slightly’ –so of course, like any good dean, Dean Light may have been informed that due to app. increases, etc. class of last year class (2010, e.g. first year class NOW) of 900 would go to say 914 (as it was for class of 2007) a sort of normal fluctuation, and he opportunistically puts this fact in his bogus transparency letter to make it seem like it was all planned.

Assuming that inter. is too snarly for you, what would slightly be in the above context?  925, 940, 950???? Adding 40- 50 more kids is like adding 5 kids per section, and that does begin to bang on the bars a bit, e.g. diff. between 90 vs. 95 kids per section. Esp. since all those kids are cutthroat hand raisers for airtime, since it is an impt grade component.

An interesting question is if they added a section between 2006-7 when enrollment popped by 19–probably not. they just dispersed those 19 kids and each section went up by 2-3 kids, sorta neglible.

Sooooooooooo, my guess as to what will happen next year? They add 3 kids per section, for an enrollment of 930 which is both manageable and also ‘slight’.

BUT: which 30 kids. Given that Deano has said that one driver of adding kids is raising $$$$$, they are going to add kids who dont need fin. aid. esp. of the grant kind. Not sure about loans. HBS often gives cert number of kids free tuition, and in some cases, actual $$$ to come. That may still happen but dont expect any of those dudes to be part of the Light-30???

 In light of Dean Light’s letter, what is the status of need blind admissions??? Expect a long and baloney filled affirmation of need blind admissions as soon as someone tweaks them about contradiction just noted above. (And who would that tweaker be??) 

SOOOOOO, in summary, Dean’s letter is good news for 1. Waitlisters 2. Rich kids (read bankers who have stockpiled two years worth of bonuses, or other rich kids who do not need any kind of fin. aid.) We are in tuff times my friends, and HBS, and Harvard U itself, has, in one quick year, gone fr. princely to prudent and possibly prickly in so many ways.

Sad and scary.

FOR FULL TEXT OF DEAN LIGHT LETTER TO HBS ALUMS, SEE BELOW

(more…)

HBS round 1 Waitlist–no news until Round 2 interviews are over

Friday, February 13th, 2009

HBS ROUND ONE WAITLIST –NO NEWS TIL INTERVIEWS FOR ROUND 2  ARE OVER.

Some convoluted news about the HBS Round One WL from her Majesty’s HBS adcom blog–this important news inserted   amid some jokey  explanation from HRH as to why HBS does not send out dings before Decision Day. 

The entire post, and faux explanation as to why HBS does not send out dings (‘denials’ is the preferred term at the Palace) is mildly funny.  They just cannot oficially ding anyone until they have buzzed every demographic in terms of age, gender, nationality etc. and made sure they got enuf flowers from that bunch. I am sure they just keep going thru each and every application, looking for underserved  demos,  20 adcoms on their hands and knees, lugging back up every file fr. Albania and N Korea not to mention Sri Lankan men, and also, no doubt the cry will go out to find files  which has been pre-graded by “leadership style,”  whatever that means.  The reason they do not send out dings before decision day is that they do want to keep some flexibilty in terms of numbers, etc. and allow kids who know bigfeet to have them pound on the table. At Wharton, which does send out dings along w. Int. invites, the situation is diff. b.c. they interview way more kids per year, sorta 3000 or more vs. 1800 for HBS

======================

More About Round 2

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html#post-2009-02-12

Here’s a question I’ve been asked a few (hundred) times in the past few days:

Why doesn’t HBS send out denials at the same time we issue interview invitations?

We don’t send out final decisions until the notification date because we need to see the results of the interview process before we extend offers to join the waitlist. After we’ve finished interviewing, we want to make sure we are still considering enough candidates from certain profiles – which include nationality, gender, industry background, leadership styles…and other dimensions – to compose the overall portfolio of next year’s class. This is why it is important for us to keep EVERY round 2 applicant under consideration until notification day. I know this process isn’t perfect, but I am absolutely certain that it’s thoughtful and thorough.

HBS round 2 interview invites: 750 with ~100 to come

Monday, February 9th, 2009

NO invite today–here is what happened in Round 1. HBS DID send out ~100 invites, after first 750,  as Adcom notes below, via standard email notification, in what seemed to me, two squirts and some dribble  (as well as special phone invites and last minute deals as alluded to above on this thread, but those were outliers). Soooo,  My guess is, they will send out 50-100 more invites, sorta random (not military! per se) among the usual suspects, including bankers, consultants, etc. etc. and also some oddballs. –altho I agree, if you dont have an invite yet, things look grim as a matter of pure statistics. SK

the latest fr. Her Majesty about Round 2 offers. This pretty much parallels round one practice, where in fact, they DID send out more interviews, in a couple of spurts, altho I dont have exact numbers, but it could have been 100 as advertised. [exact words of this msg Round 1 were  "Today we sent out about 750 invitations to interview. I think we will ultimately send around 850 by the notification date, January 21. I can't predict when this additional 100 invitations will go out nor to whom." ] Compare that to below, “I think there will be between 50 and 100 additional invitations sent between now and April 2′ which seems to lower the number (100 in Round 1, versus 50-100 in Round 2).  All this confirms, a bit, my intel about round one admits being 500+, and R2 apps being level w. last year vs. R1 apps being up 20-25 percent. My guess is, TOTAL ROUND ONE apps were mabye a bit more than R2 (a flip of usual situation) and stronger (as usual). SO they will accept more R1 kids. Duh, maybe 25-50 more than average. Not sure what it means for WL.

Hello to Round Two Applicants

from HBS MBA Program

Today we are sending emails to about 750 applicants inviting them to interview. Detailed information will be included in the email. I think there will be between 50 and 100 additional invitations sent between now and April 2. These will be sent out as files are reviewed – not on a designated day or days.

As I’ve said before, I know that the business school application experience is anxiety-producing. We are trying hard to minimize anxiety and stress while preserving a time-intensive selection process in which the applications you invested so much in are carefully reviewed by multiple members of the Admissions Board.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

HBS round 2 interview invite D-day is Feb. 9th

Monday, January 26th, 2009

BELOW IS TODAY’S ENTRY FROM HBS ADCOM BLOG ANNOUNCING THAT SECOND  ROUND HBS  INTERVIEW INVITES WILL START  GOING  OUT ON FEBRUARY 9TH. 

WHILE IT IS UNCLEAR HOW MANY INVITES WILL BE SENT THAT DAY, IF THE PATTERN FOLLOWS ROUND ONE [SEE THAT BLOG ENTRY UNDER IT] THAT  WOULD MEAN THAT A BIG CHUNK OF INVITES WILL GO OUT ON FEBRUARY 9TH, WITH SOME DRIBBLE AFTER THAT, AND A SMALL GROUP OF WL KIDS BEING NOTIFED OF WAIT LIST [WITHOUT INTERVIEW] ON DECISION DAY.

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html

Round 2 Interview Invitations

Date: January 26, 2009

Greetings…

Here’s the plan:

On February 9 we will send out invitations to interview. The invitation will come in an email from HBS MBA Admissions and will contain detailed instuctions about how to sign up for interviews both on campus and in hub cities. Please be assured that if we see you haven’t signed up for an intervew by the end of the week, we will contact you by phone…thus there’s no reason to be anxious about lost emails, etc.

Shortly afterward, I’ll update you here as to how many invitations have been issued and how many we expect will go out between February 10 and the April 2 notification date.


THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN ROUND ONE THIS YEAR, AND FROM THE LOOKS OF IT, ABOVE WILL FOLLOW THAT PATTERN, ALTHO NUMBERS MAY BE FEWER

Round One Interview Invitations

Date: November 11, 2008

Today we sent out about 750 invitations to interview. I think we will ultimately send around 850 by the notification date, January 21.

I can’t predict when this additional 100 invitations will go out nor to whom. It is possible that candidates invited in the next few weeks will not have extensive options to interview in hub cities; we will make every effort to work with them to schedule an interview which is convenient.

The Admissions Board continues to review written applications and discuss cases until the January notification date.

I also anticipate that around 100 Round One candidates who have not been interviewed will be invited to accept a place on the wait list in January. As their cases are further considered, they may be invited to interview.

We are trying to be as transparent as possible about this anxiety-producing process. I hope I am clear in my continued message that this is a “selection” process designed to bring a talented and diverse mix of students into the classroom. There are no hard and fast rules and there are many more qualified candidates than we have capacity to admit.

HBS phone interview, post call jitters, what do they mean

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

I enjoy reading your posts.  I have a question about a recent HBS interview.  The interview took place about two weeks ago – just before the holdays – and was over the phone (the phone had a delay b/c it was via satellite).  It was late in Cambridge and early the next morning where I am.  The interview lasted just over 30 minutes and was quite intense.

Bottom-line is that the interview felt very rushed.  It was difficult to develop a rapport with the interviewer which sort of threw me off base for the first five minutes of it.  Because of this, I came away from the call feeling like it was my worst one so far.  After reviewing the questions in my mind following the call, I feel like I did better than ok on substance.  However, given the rushed feeling of the interview, I did not really have the opportunity to express myself or even fully explain my answers. 

So, is this normal?  If you were me, what would you be thinking right now?  

hmmmmm, I would be feeling mostly OK, as a matter of mind, altho pissed emotionally as you seem to be, but that describes A LOT of post HBS interviews, even face-to-face jobs. The real issues w. HBS interview is,

1. did you DISQUAL yourself by dint of poor English language ability, or MIND FREEZE, or DRIVEL Attack.

THAT IS MOST IMPT, AND HAPPENS ABOUT 15 percent of the time. If that happens, YOU DO NOT GET IN.

2. Did you substantively answer any REAL questions –about goals, or how you did x or y. Not BS questions like “Tell me about dealing w. a conflict?” but real questions, like HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY DO WHAT YOU SAID, GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF SOMEONE WHO HAS DONE THAT?” OR “We get lotsa kids who say they want to go to Africa and start microfinance, why should we believe you?”

A LOT OF TIMES, YOUR APP DOES NOT REALLY HAVE ANY REAL QUESTIONS LIKE THAT–SO YOU CANNOT SCREW IT UP.

3. The Beauty Contest part–where you likeable, humane, “our type” in terms of presenting, self-awareness, etc. and did you not piss us off b.c. of being arrogant, etc.

Sounds like you were OK on critical issues 1 and 2 above. and may have had a less than stellar beauty contest part, altho lots of winning kids feel rushed, so hard to say.

good luck and drop me a line after D-Day. :-)

hbs interview lasts 40 minutes, what does it mean?

Monday, December 29th, 2008

Hi Sandy,

I had a question RE my HBS interview. I applied in R1 this year, and did my interview a couple weeks ago with an AdCom on campus. I had read almost everywhere that the HBS interviews are very strict as far as time constraints i.e. the adcom essentially kicks you out when the 30 minutes are up. My interview, however, went over by about ten minutes, as we were chatting about the auto bailout, the credit crisis, etc. This was after we had already spent the first 30 minutes handling the typical HBS interview questions.

My question is: is my interview going over the typical 30 minutes a good or bad sign? or does it just mean nothing much?

thanks in advance! I am impatiently awaiting my HBS result on Jan 21
HAHA, IT MOSTLY MEANS INTERVIEWER DID NOT HAVE ANYONE SCHEDULED AFTER YOU.

ALTHO, SURE, IT MEANS INTERVIEWER DID NOT REALLY HATE YOU EITHER. ALTHO I SOMETIMES WIND UP TALKING TO KIDS I HATE DURING MOCK INTERVIEWS IF THE TOPIC INTERESTS ME, OR KID KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT IT, OR IF THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTERACTION  JUST FLATTEN OUT AT THAT POINT, FOR EASIER SAILING. 

I WAS ONCE REALLY HUNGRY AND EATING A HOT DOG, WHICH HAD A PIECE OF BONE IN IT, AND CRACKED MY TOOTH. MAJOR BUMMER, BUT I KEPT EATING. SOMETHING LIKE THAT GOES ON IN INTERVIEWS. ALTHO I WILDLY DIGRESS. [DENTIST THE NEXT DAY ASKED ME IF I KEPT THE BONE, WHICH I DID NOT,  AND THERE WENT MY LAWSUIT].

ANYWAY, DONT BOTHER FULLY UNDERSTANDING THE ABOVE, ALTHO IT IS COMPREHENSIBLE. BOTTOM LINE FOR YOU: IT MEANS NOTHING . MOST INTERVIEWS, IF NOT STACKED UP, SORTA BACK TO BACK,  WILL LAST 10 MINUTES EXTRA, BECAUSE IT TAKES UNBELIEVALBE DISCIPLINE FOR INTERVIEWER TO GO INTO FINAL LANDING GLIDE PATH 5-10 MINUTES BEFORE REAL ENDING TIME, SO THAT WHAT HAPPENS IS  10 MIN WRAP UP B.S.  PROCESS BEGINS AT END OF 30 MINUTES, AND IT DRIBBLES OVER. BUT IF INTERVIEWER DOES HAVE ANOTHER INTER. SCHED. WHAT HAPPENS IS MORE LIKE COITUS INTERUPTUS [SORRY BUT PERFECT ANALOGY] AS INTERVIEWER JUST NEVER GOES INTO GOOD-DYE BLAH, BLAH BUT  JUST FEELS THE UPSWELLING ALARM/THRILL OF THE HALF-HOUR POINT COMING ON,  AND ZAP, JUST  PULLS OUT, SAYS SORRY, BUT WE JUST GOTTA STOP,  AND OFF YOU GO. FEELING RUSHED, CUT OFF, LET DOWN, BEMUSED, ANNOYED, DISORIENTED,  AND UNCONSUMATED. SECURITY CAMERA AT DILLON WHICH CAPTURES KIDS WITH EXACTLY THAT  POST INTERVIEW CONFUSION  CLD  MAKE QUITE A MONTAGE OF ODD FACES. LIKE A FISH-EYE LENS,BUT YOU WOULDNT NEED THE LENS.

The fact that did not happen to you, well,  it dont mean zip.

Does it matter who interviews you: senior adcom or newbie???

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

Happy to be corrected by Sandy but thought I’d chime in.

From my experience in banking the borderline candidates get interviewed by the more experienced interviewers/senior people. I would imagine the same would happen with ad comm.

The why is easy: for a borderline candidate two things need to happen. One, you need to make sure that the senior ad comm members would sign off. Two, you need to make sure the interviewer is confident enough to say yes if they are indeed good.

Easiest way to get senior ad comm to sign off is to get them to do the interview. If the candidate is great the interviewer will have enough experience to see it and clout to get them through. This protects the school – making sure top class people get through.

There is also a risk with giving borderline candidates to less experienced ad comm members. Simple fact is that they need to go in to bat for people. If you are inexperienced you will be less confident in arguing your case against more seasoned members. This means that candidates who interview with less senior members inherently have a less powerful advocate at the table. Making borderline candidates go to senior members protects them too. Meanwhile “slam dunk” candidates are easy training for less experienced ad comm members – bar a major screw up in  the interview you should be fine.

Exception (and I’ve seen this professionally) if Daddy is a very important person then the candidate is more likely to get a senior interviewer – just so the admit / ding rests on senior shoulders.

===============

INTERVIEWING W. SENIOR VS. NEWBIES. RESPONSE TO PRIOR POSTS.

hmmmmm, I think you are over-complicating the process and under-estimating logistics problems of interviewing 1800 kids for H and W: they dont pre-sort borderliners and then assign them to adcoms in training  or senior people as you suggest, esp. not at HBS where applicant gets to pick date and time, and getting ANY adcom there is major logistical hassle. And what you do you say about HUB interviews or HBS Menlo Park interviews, where ALL candidates get filtered thru the same adcoms. I agree that in VERY RARE cases, e.g. Bush’s body guy a  couple of years ago, who did not have a college degree http://hbsguru.com/media_econ.html –that guy was interviewed at HBS outside the normal channels, but man, that is 1-3 case a year stuff.  IN most cases (99 percent), kids are linked up to adcoms sorta randomly, and the interview is just another piece of data (esp. impt at negative data, e.g. adcom says you would have hard time in case method), and interviewers do not “advocate” for kids, they often dont even know what outcomes are, til they get print out. I’m sure in some cases, Director might go back to interviewer for more info, but at that pt, it is pssble that interviewer has scant recollection of kid, quite frankly, beyond notes, which capture the big pieces. I interview A LOTTA LOTTA kids doing mock interviews ever year (100+) , and despite spending a very intense hour or so w. each, and going over files, 2 months later, exp. is way less distinct. The scheme you are proposing in your post makes some kinda abstract sense, but 1. the interviews are not that impt, 2. schools dont have the implementation ability to do it anyway, or dont think it is worth the hassle.  Also, to some extent, newbie adcoms are trained R3 where they often sit on interviews, and also in 2+2 interviews, over summer. At Stan, sometimes R3 kids are interviewed twice (by dif adcoms, also happens rarely at H), which I think is some kinda holistic benchmarking on part of adcoms. Then they kinda say, “this is nuts, what are we bothering w. this for………….just interview the flippers and be done w. it.”

HBS interview: what to expect

Friday, November 28th, 2008

I have my HBS interview on Monday.  Do you have any last minute tips for what to expect?


Is an HBS interview a make-or-break interview?  How do they view it?  Does the adcom generally know which of the candidates that have been invited for interview that they want?  Or do they make their final decision based on the interview?


It can be a  break exp. but not a make exp, if you screw it up, and blather, or cannot explain yourself, or piss off the interviewer: YOU WILL BE DINGED.

 Of the 1800 kids they interview that happens in maybe 180 cases (10 percent). OF those 180, maybe 80 actually know it was a disaster, and walk out REALLY BUMMED, no fooling. Like a kid who wrote me, in response to my wondering about initial report, if this person was just having normal second thoughts, “I cannot tell you how  bad it was…………..”  That convinced me. THAT KID WAS DINGED. (Phone call w.kid, and details of back and forth really did it). Of the 100 kids of the 180 SCREW UPS who DO NOT KNOW they screwed up, it will be a matter of irritating the interviewer, w. a pattern of evasions, jargon, sports talk, bravado, tin ear replies, and interviewer is not the type (and most are not) who overtly expressly dislike but rather  just silenty says, “Keep it up, it’s your funeral……………….” That report gets written up as answers were evasive, arrogant, not aware of audience, etc.etc.

Of the remaining 700 kids who get dinged anyway and are not part of the above 180–their interviews were mostly non-events, but after interview they lost out to better candidates in their silo, however defined, see DeeDee’s explanation of this above.

What interview does not do, IN MOST CASES, is get you in, e.g. turns a marginal app. (by interviewed app. standards) into AN ACCEPT, altho who knows, I imagine if you are borderline, and some guy very similar to you has ok inter. and you have boffo interview, well, maybe you will get in, but that dont happen as much as you might predict.

What to expect: interiewer will be courteous but not empathetic, or gushy, or even warm; inter. may take lots of notes, which can be disconcerting, you will walk out saying, “that was an anti-climax, I did fine, but I did not get a chance to unroll my super leadership answers, or boffo stuff I researched about treks, or my great OTHER failure not in my app…..it was just a chat, and pleasant, with only one substantive team question at the end, s what gives??” WHat gives in most cases is you did fine, and your admit will be determined by rest of app.

HBS interviews–how to prepare

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

I have a question about Harvard interviews. Unlike the adcoms from many other schools, HBS’ admission committee conducts majority of the interviews. My understanding is that the committe will be aware of the whole application at the time of the interview, including all of the essays that have been written by the applicant. Now my question is the following: what is your opinion about using the some stories from the essays to answer some of the interview questions?________________________________________

HBS INTERVIEWS.

You are correct that HBS interviews, unlike almost all others, are based on adcom having your entire app. in front of them, including essays, and not just resume.

Sometimes they say, “tell me about ANOTHER accomplishment not in your Essays. So be prepared for that.

But basically, you are overthinking this, often questions drill down on essays, e.g. “how did you get team to follow you when you did X, ” or “would you do anything diff. about situation in Essay X now?”

More often, questions are in some 3rd space, that has nothing to do w. app. E.g.,  where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 15 years? What will challenges be, what will you do if that does not happen???  How do you define sucess? How have you accomplished so many things? Tell me about greatest leader at work and why? Tell me about something you are proud of since application was submitted?

To the extent that Q could use Essay example, e.g. What are you most proud of? And you want to regurg. some story fr. essays, you need to be able to spin it towards impact and meaning? And then interviewer might cut you off, and say, “What else are you most proud of?” Bascially —you can assume interview knows app and essays, and DOES NOT WANT TO HEAR THAT STUFF. ALTHO IT ALL COUNTS. So, be prepared for answers about other accomplishments, other set backsk, other ways you were leader, but mostly be prepared for conversation to be in some 3rd space that oddly does not deal w. app much. That is most common outcome, alhto 10- 20 percent of time, they drill down on one or two essays. So be prepared for that too. 

  HBSGURU.COM DOES GREAT MOCK INTERVIEWS FOR HBS–I’VE INTERVIEWED MORE HBS KIDS THAN MOST ADCOMS!!!!