MIT Sloan MBAn Interviews

MIT Sloan MBAn Interviews

MIT Sloan MBAn Interviews are taken by invitation only. An invitation to interview signals that student application has reached an advanced stage of consideration, but does not guarantee admission.

The interview is both behavioral and technical.  As part of the technical interview, students are asked math, probability, statistics, and/or computer science questions relevant to fields of data science and analytics. Students will also be asked behavioral questions that help schools to learn more about how students work with a team, make decisions, and solve problems.

Those invited to interview will be asked to submit a response to the following question, prior to the interview:

Please describe a recent analytics/data science project that you have worked on and include up to three presentation slides that best represent your work. The slides may include data visualization examples but must be uploaded as a PDF. The project presentation slides must be in English. Details for submitting your response will be included in the interview invitation.

Interview are taken by MIT Sloan’s admissions committee. In each round, MIT Sloan staff travel to numerous hub cities and conduct all admissions interviews for that round over the space of several days. If you are unable to travel to a hub city, you may request a Skype interview. The interview duration is 45-60 minutes.

MIT Sloan Frequently Asked Interview Questions

1. Do you have any recent accomplishments you want to share?
2. Are there any changes to your resume since you submitted it?
3. Walk me through your resume. (EXPECT FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS)
4. What do you do outside of work?
5. What exactly do you do on a daily basis?
6. What accomplishment in the past year at work are you proudest of?
7. What’s a personal goal that you’ve set for yourself recently.
8. Why MS BA?
9. Why now?
10. Why did you decide to apply to Sloan?
11. Where else did you apply?
12. How will you decide where to go?

MIT Sloan MBAn Interview Questions – 1

1. The first question was ‘any update’?

I discussed promotion that might be coming and she said I can send her an update later in the week.

2. How would I introduce my work to someone I met at Starbucks?

I started with saying that think of the hardware inside a phone for wireless  communication standards (CDMA, 2G, 3G, 4G), and then went on to explain how as systems engineer I define specs at systems level to make those hardware and then narrowed down the specs for different.

Follow up question: how do you earn your credibility with different teams (senior members in it)

I was told that technical competency and collaborative approach gave them confidence in me. To elaborate I gave an example: how I interacted with the team in China when they pushed back against the proposed systems solution overhaul. I encouraged them to interact with customers to gauge their reaction for new change. Once they were convinced that customers are open to new solutions that gave them confidence in my approach. This daily back and forth communication helped us in building trust. and then i traveled to China to resolve more issues and meet the team.

3. Tell me about a time when you advocated for a reason in a meeting

I  went back to the system’s solution overhaul. I said that I would like to give the background for my previous example through this answer. In meeting with project leads and managers from other teams I pushed for this new solution.

Follow up question: how long was this existing solution for?

I said for 3 generations ( I had explained to her the meaning of generation in my updated answer).  Then I went to say how the leads were having concerns about the reliability and complexity of the new solution. I told them that as the patents for this new solution has been improved that means technically it’s a sound solution, and I agreed to the fact that complexity will increase but we have to do this experiment to be competitive in the market. The China team is already in touch with customers and since they are open to this new solution we should try it. Customers really liked it and found it very flexible despite being more complex during the initial setup.

4. Tell me about a time when you were given unreasonable responsibility

I talked about my job at Qualcomm. I was leading a next-gen project for 2018. Normally staff engineers with 7-8 years of experience lead this.

follow up question : weren’t you overwhelmed

I said yes I was a bit intimidated but I only had asked for this responsibility as I wanted to move to the next level. and this responsibility is playing a big part in putting me on the promotion track within 1 yr 10 months with this team.

Another follow up: how do you get confidence to do this? I said my past successes give me confidence. even in the NFC team I was new and I didn’t even know the technology but I succeeded there. and then mentorship from senior members in the systems team helped me to get going. My manager also trained me in the initial days. so all these together enabled me to feel confident. I have two parts to address. I already made one presentation last week.

Another follow up: how did it go? I said- it went well. I was presenting to VPs and above so I had some feedback and action items to follow up on.

5. Why MBA? Why Sloan?

I talked a lot on this. in the end she said…”looks like you have done your research very well

6. Any questions for me?

I asked two questions-

1. How does a new batch every year affect the core culture at Sloan?
2. How has been your 10 years experience at Sloan?

MIT Sloan MBAn Interview Questions – 2

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. Why are you a New York Yankees fan?
3. One of your recommenders described you as a quiet leader. What are your thoughts on that?
4.  Tell me about a time when you decided to set a goal for yourself.
5.  Tell me about a time you led a project at work.
6. How did you realize that the team was struggling in silence.
7. Who do you get advice from at work?
8. What advice would you give a new hire about prioritizing his or her work at Amazon?
9. Tell me about a time when you failed.
10.  Tell me about a time when you feel you made a positive impact on a culture (team culture, company culture).
11. Why MIT Sloan?
12. Why LGO?
13. Which partner companies are you most interested in?
14. Anything you thought I might bring up that I didn’t?
15. Any questions for me?