Interview Advice from Our President – Paul Bodine

When a school invites you to interview, the window between the time you receive the
invite and the actual interview date may be as short as a week to 10 days, depending
on the available interview slots.
That doesn’t mean you can’t begin to prepare for the good news now. To get started,
identify your top 7-9 strongest stories, using your essays, resume, and recommendation
letters. Rehearse talking about these stories in an introspective way for about 2-3
minutes each. Practice this with family and friends first to get used to the setting, timing,
and storytelling. Repeat at least five practice sessions to build your confidence when it
comes time for the actual interview.
Any preparation you do for any school will be good practice for any other school.
However, it’s good to know what types of interviews each of your schools conduct. For
example, MIT and GSB both do ‘behavioral’ interviews (‘Tell us about a time when …’),
so any interview preparation you do for GSB will help you prepare for MIT and vice
versa; whereas HBS’s interview is very different. Nevertheless, no preparation is ever
wasted.
To more closely simulate the real interview feel and process, Admitify offers interview
preparation sessions when you purchase a school package. You can also purchase a
one-hour practice session separately (or in addition to your school package). For the
best preparation, we recommend practicing with multiple Admitify coaches to get
you used to interacting with different personalities. Be sure to schedule your practice
session at least a week before your interview so that you can take in and further
practice with our feedback. Contact us today to schedule your practice session.