Simon School of Business-Interview Experience

Hey Kkkkkkkiran,
I know you must be eagerly waiting for this mail…My experiences out of Simon’s interview….


Well well well…..2 rounds interview…..and that also for an MBA admission…..and that also for an USA B-school…Difficult to believe…isn’t it….but it actually happened today during Simon School of Business – University of Rochester interview at Taj Palace in Mumbai….

Reached 15 minutes before the scheduled time…considering the area around churchgate and Gateway of India was all blocked because of Mumbai marathon, this was a big achievement…..

I entered inside Taj with one gentleman, who also seemed to be late for something and was in hurry. He was also looking for the same rooms, which were booked by Simon for interviews…he happened to be one of the alumnus..:)…and when my name was called upon, he was the person who was all set to take my interview….

Before I actually get into the details of my interview, few things about interviewees…there were about 20+ prospective students who had turned upon for interview….frankly speaking, considering that this school is not famous among Indians, I earlier thought that the count should be three or four…but 20+ was pretty decent number…..and most of them with pretty good GMAT score (average 700) and work experience (average 2.5 years)…

5 guys I met were from infosys pune…now I understand why the attrition rate of infosys is constantly increasing…;)…when I was getting proud of TCS on this factor, a lady rushed into me saying that she is also working with TCS and has come for interview….:(…

95% of the prospective students were from IT background…there were 2 guys who had “finance” background…

Ok….coming back to interview.

Interviewer was Mr. Ashok Narain (he had done his MS from Simon, MBA from IIM (K) and is working as Deputy GM at RBI) …frankly speaking, I was a bit tense initially but as interview proceeded, it was too facile for me as there were not many questions for which I had to give an extemporaneous answer.…:)

Questions asked were as follows:

Whats your GMAT score? ---- I felt proud to answer that…:)
How much experience you have?
Why Simon?
Why MBA? Why now?
Why career switch?
Which all other schools have you applied?
How many hours you work in your current job? – I answered as 40 hrs per week….
Are you ready for 60-70 hrs week efforts required in Simon? --- this question was tricky but I should admit that I handled this with panache…:)
How would you contribute to Simon?
Any questions?

Interview lasted for about 20 minutes and over all, it went pretty cool and I was satisfied at the end of interview but then Mr. Ashok’s statement came as surprise for me, “Jailendra, Please wait outside. After lunch, we would have second round of interview with other alumnus.”…..

Second round??????

Anyways, I went back to meet other interviewees and found it was the same case with everybody…

During lunch, we had a kind of casual discussions with all other alumnus(there were in total 4)…we were also distributed a pen, post-it and a cigarette case (all Simon trademarked)….well cigarette case is just going to be a nugatory showpiece for me as I don’t smoke…:)

After lunch, mine was the first one to be called for round 2 interview….now the alumnus divided themselves into a pair of two each…second round interview questions were:

Discuss about yourself? --- I think I messed up a little bit here…I could have answered in better way…I was deploring my answer later on….
Which other schools u have applied to?
If you get admit to all, which one would you choose? Very tricky question and I think my answer was possible fallible.
Any questions? - I had depleted all my questions in Round 1 and in informal talks with alumnus during lunch.

It didn’t last long…5-10 minutes…I think it was the same case with others as well….but I believe I had performed better in round 1 as compared to round 2…
Alumnus also told that there would be two interview feedbacks send to adcom…

Overall my feel….alumnus were pretty impressive…very helpful and were ready to answer all queries…and I think most of us were pretty satisfied with simon school…i think I am all set to go to my safe school (if I get admit) if I don’t get an admit to any other school.
Keeping my fingers crossed till feb 15th when results would be released….

And ya….there I met Miss Aditi (one of the two from finance background), who has promised all of us to take finance classes for those who get admits to university of Rochester before we join the university and this is irrespective of her admission but I know she is all set to rock rochester…..

Next target…CMU-tepper – 2nd feb – telephonic interview…..

And Kkkkkkkiran...i am sorry for grammatical and spelling mistakes in this post as i am writing in hurry...:)...

That’s it…
bye
jai