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Best Wishes for Your Success,

William "Josh" Hohman
Stanford GSB 2005
ExpertCollective.com

Top 10 MBA

Learn more about Best MBA Program and get admitted to the school of your dreams.

Competition for Top 10 MBA programs is incredibly stiff. As the job market constricts, more professionals are considering going back to school which means more applicants for every opening at the best MBA programs. To make your application memorable you need to distinguish yourself with excellent undergraduate grades, a polished resume, and something extra that makes you unique. Once you have collected your transcripts and made your resume as good as it can be, start looking for that something extra.

Many of the Top 10 MBA programs will have both group and personal interviews as part of the admissions process. If your resume and application are good enough to get your foot in the door, you had better be ready to shine during the interview process. You will not be able to anticipate and practice for all of the potential questions an examiner might use, but you can certainly review the basics and think about some general examples of your successes that you can use for multiple question scenarios. During the group interview, it is important to consider that you are being judged not just on what you have to say, but on how well you interact with your peers. You want to make an effort to stand out and steer the discussion as a leader, but you do not want to come across as rude, overbearing or pushy. A few well thought out comments at the appropriate time will get you much further than dominating the conversation by rambling on. A candidate that rambles and interrupts others may be memorable, but it wont be for the right reasons.

By planning your thoughts before the interview, you will be able to contribute, but also and more importantly you will be able to spend your time critically listening to others so that you can expand or build off their ideas. This gives you a perfect opportunity to demonstrate leadership and team building skills to the interviewer by showing that you appreciate the views of other and are able to synthesize different ideas and steer energies in a useful way. You can save personal stories and specific details about your experience for the one on one interview.

Assuming that you make it through the group interview round for a Top 10 MBA program, you can expect to be invited back for a one on one interview. This is the opportunity to talk about yourself and your accomplishments. Have examples rehearsed of some of the things you are most proud of. They do not all have to be work related. If you have held leadership roles in your church or other community organization, this is the perfect time to highlight those accomplishments that might otherwise be difficult to explain on a resume. Not only does this demonstrate your ability to lead, but it shows that you have outside interests and the drive to do something about things you care about. That is a characteristic that interviewers will be sure to remember, and in a good way.