NYU Stern MBA Interviews

NYU Stern Frequently Asked Interview Questions

1. Tell me something about yourself?
2. Walk me through your resume?
3. Why MBA? Why NYU Stern school?
4. Why MBA now or Why MBA at this stage of your career?
5. What is your short & long term goals?
6. What is your Plan B if consulting/Investment banking does not happen?
7. What are your key strengths? Can you give some examples please?
8. What is your biggest weakness ? Can you give some examples please?
9. How can you add value to the Class?
10. Why should we take you?
11. One reason that we should not select you?
12. Interests and Hobbies – Be prepared!.. questions as basic as “Why do you do poetry (or any other activity” may be asked.
13. Some Situational & Behavioral Question
    • What would you describe are your greatest achievement to date?
    • Give me an example of a time you faced a conflict while working on a team. How did you handle that?
    • Give me an example of a time when you did not meet a client’s expectation. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?
14. Case questions are fairly common in MBA interview especially for consulting aspirants. Below are a few sample for to practice for:
    • How many Golf balls can fit in a Boeing 747?
    • What’s the global market size for smartphones?
15. Do you have any Question for us?

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 1

Showed up to the admissions office, and was greeted by the receptionist who hands you a folder containing lots of information regarding professional and extracurricular offerings, plus customized affinity group flyers for organizations you indicated interest in on your application (i.e. Stern in Africa). You also get a name tag + an ‘IQ+EQ’ t-shirt, just for showing up – how nice (and they have all sizes).

My interviewer was part of the AdCom, and warmly greeted me around the start-time of the interview, and we made small talk initially. She introduced herself and gave a bit of background as to how she got to where she is today. Then we dived into the questions, but throughout it was very conversational and laid back, and I really felt like she had gone through my application inside and out and wasn’t asking basic questions that were obvious from my resume / essays / application.

Questions:

1. Tell me about yourself
2. What are your top 3 companies you’d like to pursue internships / jobs at if you pursue your intended career path?
3. How will you approach finding a job once you’re at school?
4. Tell me about a time in or out of work where you disagreed with someone else’s decision but had to go along with it (she said she preferred a non-work example even!)
5. Why NYU?
6. What will you get involved with on campus (presumably extracurricularly, so do your homework on the options)?
7. If I were to relay 2-3 things to the AdCom that you bring to the table above all else, what would those be?
8. Any questions you have for me? (had only time for one question)

Conclusion:

Overall, this is a place where the school really wants you to succeed and do well. The fact they gave me “NYU Swag” shows they are courting me just as much as I am courting them. It was not a stressful interview at all, and you should see it as an opportunity to confirm their decision to have you in for an interview.

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 2

I was interviewed by a member of the admissions who also happened to be a part-time MBA student at Stern. It was pretty straightforward and relatively casual. No curve balls. Questions included:
Tell me about your self
What are your ST/LT goals?
Why MBA and why Stern?
What have you done so far to prepare for your goals?
What will you be doing at Stern to further prepare/achieve your goals?
What will you contribute to the Stern community?
If I called your boss/co-workers and asked about you, what will they say?
How would you describe your leadership style?
I asked a couple of questions at the end
I actually really enjoyed my interview. The interviewer seemed genuinely interested in my stories and to learn about my goals. It was a long interview because it was more of a conversation, rather than me just answering questions. I received a call exactly three weeks after my interview and was accepted.
My two cents – make sure to prepare few good stories/anecdotes that you can spin to answer any questions and really know how to effectively communicate your goals. Good luck everyone!

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 3

I was invited to interview in December and scheduled my interview for early January. Stern wants students to attend in person and interview on campus. I booked a hotel for the night before my interview near Penn station. My interview was in the morning so I took the time to walk down from Penn to the business school.

Upon arriving, I checked into the admissions office. I was given a personalized folder that included information on the areas of interest I had indicated as well as clubs that I might be interested in based on my essays. It was a very welcoming environment and shows that Stern cares about the people they interview.

My interviewer was incredibly kind. We started off with some small talk about how I got down to NYC, how the New Year was going before jumping into some more structured questions:

1. Tell me about yourself?
2. Tell me about your current role?
3. Tell me about a recent project you worked on?
4. How would the senior leaders you interacted with in this recent project describe you?
5. What type of team environment do you like working in?
6. What strengths would you want to see in your classmates?
7. How would you get involved with the school?
8. What other clubs would you be interested in joining?
9. Beyond snowboarding, what other activities do you do?
10. Any questions for me?

Overall the interview went quite well although I didn’t feel at my most confident and stumbled through a few of them. Everything on their end was very professional yet friendly. I never felt intimidated, and instead felt quite welcomed. When I was preparing to leave I was handed a Stern t-shirt. It was a great experience and better than the others I had received. Stern showed that they care about their applicants.

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 4

I was interviewed by an adcom at the NYU Stern building. I sat in her office. It was very relaxing and conversational.

The interview with the adcom was application-based.

I was asked the following:

1. A) tell me about your background
2. B) why MBA?
3. C) why stern?
4. D) any questions for me?

The interview was very conversational. We were very casual and the chat was smooth. NYU seems to focus on its location in NYC a lot so you should know how this will benefit you.

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 5

My interview lasted 35 min. More or less anticipated the questions:

Please describe your career progress.

Describe conflict situation at work and how you resolved it.

Why Stern?

What are your expectations? How are you planning to use your MBA?

What are you bringing to the table? What experiences could you share to contribute to student body at NYU?

I have attended the info night at the campus the day before and was able to speak to how I relate to issues brought up by the panel of current students – coming to work early, studying at lunch. Using days off to prepare for finals, etc.

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 6

I interviewed for Stern Tech MBA program last month on campus.

The entire interview process is pretty conversational, and lasts for 30 mins with admission.

1. Tell me about yourself/experience
2. Post MBA goal
3. Why Stern tech
4. Asked about the course I mentioned in the essay
5. Asked about one project on the resume
6. Teamwork experience
7. How do you plan to leverage school career center resource?
8. And why undergraduate/graduate school and major

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 7

Very casual interview. Adcom is super nice. Very standard MBA interview.

Questions:

1. Tell me about your current role
2. Why MBA now?
3. What do you do besides work?
4. Leadership experience/greatest accomplishment
5. Strengths and weakness
6. What do you expect from Stern?

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 8

Was a very easy going interview with a number of standard questions. Started off with an icebreaker about my undergrad experience. From there we went all over the place with some standard questions and some I hadn’t considered but were interesting:
• Questions about résumé items
• Why MBA?
• Short Term Goal after MBA?
• Why Stern?
• Give me a 15 second elevator pitch for consulting (my short term goal)
• After 2 years, what do you want your fellow students to say about you?
Conversation was 20 minutes and then left 10 minutes for me to ask questions and discussion.

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 9

Prior to the interview I was told that Stern’s interview style was very much a two-way street between interviewer and interviewee. In other words it was very conversational.

Luckily I still did my homework as this was not at all my experience. Although the admissions counselor was gracious and polite her questions were formal and pointed and were certainly not conversational.

Some questions I was asked:

What is a typical workday right now at my job?

If I had 6 months after school to affect change at my current job what would I do and why?

Why did I want to go back to school now?

Why Stern?

What do I think makes a leader/ how am I a leader?

What would I say my biggest failure to date was?

When was a time that I saw an inefficiency at work and resolved it?

What would I say my greatest accomplishment to date was?

What would I like my summer internship to be?

If I got that internship, what three things would I bring to the company that would make me stand out?

Where would I most like to travel/ study and why?

My interviewer clearly knew a lot about me before we sat down. She did not take any notes so it appeared that she was looking more at the big picture. I think it is very important to have done your homework regarding the school- know the faculty you are interested in working with, etc. I also think that she was impressed with my answer for summer internship choice as I was able to cite things about the corporations that would currently make internship experience there useful. This clearly showed that I did my homework and also demonstrated that I had a pulse on what is going on in the business world these days. I would highly recommend having a fine-tuned answer for this.

All in all it was a pleasant experience. I left it not totally convinced one way or another. Good news was I did indeed receive an admissions letter 5 business days after!

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 10

Total interview time: 30 minutes

Questions:

Tell me about your move to New York.

Why do you like New York?

Walk me through your résumé.

How would your co-workers describe you?

Why do you want an MBA?

Post grad goals?

Three companies you want to work for?

What do you do for fun?

It was the most basic, ridiculously shallow interview. I felt like I did not have the opportunity to really show who I was and why I was special because the questions did not leave room for that. It was like they had a book of questions to choose from and they chose them completely at random, so the interview was all over the place. And the adcom was not at all interested, or receptive, seemed like they wanted to be somewhere else, and I was a terrible inconvenience on them. Like talking to a wall. When I asked questions at the end I was given the most canned, rehearsed, unthoughtful answers.

It was a terrible interview overall and makes me really wonder how they get good candidates. But maybe they just hated me. On the other hand, super easy interview to do.

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 11

Type of interview: application based interview. I had the feeling that the interviewer had a very detailed knowledge of my application file, as she referred several times to my answers in the applications, to elements of my essays and to very detailed data points of my résumé.

List of interview questions:

Why MBA? Why now? Why Stern?

Please explain why did you decide to choose X as your current job + around 6-7 follow-up questions regarding my current job.

What do you see yourself in 5-10 years?

Describe an occurrence in which you managed a workplace conflict/made a positive impact?

How would you contribute at Stern?

The interview was rather formal. There was almost no small talk, and the interviewer was really deep diving into her questions. She was really pushing me and bringing me out of my comfort zone as she was really burying me with questions and constantly asking for details.

Outcome: admitted for R3 with merit scholarship.

NYU Stern Interview Questions – 12

R3 Applicant…Invited to interview on Feb 18th. Interviewed at Mumbai off campus today. It was a very friendly interview with an Adcom member, also a part-time MBA student at Stern. Interview was not blind.

Questions:

– How does your day look like in your office?

– What is your proudest moment at work?

– Failure at work

– A time you had to resolve a conflict at work with a team member/client

– What would your teammates tell about you if asked?

– Short term and long term goals

– Expectations from Career center at Stern and how do you expect to contribute to accomplish the goals you have set

– Why Stern

– What are 3 transferable skills that would help you to transition at Stern and post MBA job.

– In the terms of global ready, which is one country you would like to travel from Stern given a chance

– Queries for her.

Got a cool T Shirt! Interview took 20-25 minutes. Hoping to hear some good news in 2-3 weeks ?

All the best for others interviewing in Mumbai. Hope it helps.