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USC Marshall MBA Interviews

USC Marshall MBA Interviews

Your goal is to convince your interviewers that you’re not just qualified, but an exceptional candidate for an MBA program. Strengthen that argument by determining four or five key points that you want to emphasize during the interview.

Each of your main ideas should highlight how you exhibit vital skills and characteristics for business leaders like:

  • Problem solving
  • Strategic planning
  • Analysis
  • Teamwork
  • Communication
  • Initiative
  • Organization
  • Time management
  • Networking

To know more visit USC Marshall website to know about some Tips for your MBA Interview.

Who will interview you, and how long will the interview last?

Like most business schools, the USC Marshall interview is taken by a Career Management Team. The interview is usually done by one member from the team. The interview typically lasts for 25-30 minutes or may extend to 35-40 minutes in some instances.

Will the interviewer have read my application?

It is always safer to assume that the Panel members have access to your complete application. In most instances, they would have read it completely. Unless the school specifically says that it will be an blind interview. Mostly North American Business schools in US and Canada have an  Blind interviews, European and SE Asian schools conduct interviews via Alums or panels which have full access to your entire application. 

How can you prepare for your interview?

Like most MBA Interviews, your interview will mainly revolve around a pretty similar set of MBA interview questions. You can never predict what questions will be asked, but with enough research, you can predict what are the most commonly asked questions in these interviews. We have created a short FAQ list below to get you a jump start, and we also have a free guide linked below to help you prepare for these commonly asked interview questions.

USC Marshall MBA Frequently Asked Interview Questions

Professional experience-related questions

  1. Tell me something about yourself, or Walk me through your resume.
  2. What are your short-term and long-term goals?
  3. Why MBA? or Why now? or Why an MBA at this stage of your career?
  4. Why USC Marshall?
  5. What is your Plan B? in case your primary goal does not happen?

Personal qualities-related questions

  1. What are your key strengths? Can you give some examples, please?
  2. What are your key weaknesses? Can you give some examples, please?
  3. How can you add value to the Class? or Why should we take you?
  4. Any reasons why we should not select you?
  5. Interests and Hobbies related questions – why do you do it, what have you achieved/learned?

Frequently Asked Situational & Behavioral Questions

  1. What is your leadership style? Can you give an example of a project you led?
  2. What would you describe are your greatest achievement to date?
  3. Give me an example of a time you failed.
  4. Give me an example of a time you faced a conflict. How did you handle that?
  5. Give me an example of a time when you did not meet a client’s expectations. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?

The last one – Do you have any questions for us?

  1. Can you please tell me how international exchange students and schools are assigned?
  2. How club leadership is selected?
  3. Any other questions you may have in regards to the program.

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 1 

I just finished my skype interview with an admission committee member, Elaine. Information from google says she’s the Associate director of MBA admissions. The interview was very conversational and I felt very relaxed. Surprisingly, I wasn’t asked to walk through my resume and the interview walked through each section with me in real time. My interview lasted for 35 minutes.

Here are the questions I received:

1. Walk me through your resume (mine was as stated above)
2. Why MBA?
3. Why is your English really good? – given my demographics it was not a surprise that the interviewer was surprised.
4. What role are you going to be taking after the MBA?
5. What can you contribute to your classmates?
6. You’re super young!? – she saw my birth date!
7. What are your hard skills?
8. What’s the misconception about you?
9. What would your friends say is your natural talent?
10. What’s a frustration you faced while working on a team?
11. What do you do in your spare time?
12. Anything else you want me to know?

Hope this helps. Good luck to everyone!

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 2

Just Interviewed with Laura H over Skype. It was very conversational and fun. Just remember to relax and you will be fine. Be yourself.

Questions were mostly typical:

1. Walk me through your resume
2. Time you had conflict in your team
3. How would you define leadership
4. Why MBA
5. What you want to do with MBA
6. Why Marshall
7. How would you contribute to Marshall / your team
8. Professional achievement that you are proud of
9. Questions for me

In general, Marshall wants to ensure you would enroll – that is what the interview sounded like. All the best to who applied, waiting or invited for the interview and have had their interviews.

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USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 3

Interviewed with a first year student on campus yesterday. It was pretty informal, he asked me:

1. Walk me through ur resume
2. Why Marshall
3. What do you wanna do after Marshall
4. What clubs would you like to join at Marshall
5. Tell me a time when you resolved a conflict on the team, if it’s resolved at all
6. Tell me about a time when you didn’t reach your goal
7. What motivates you?
8. Do you have any questions for me?

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 4

“I interviewed with Nirav Mehta. The interview was very short (under 15 minutes) and I wasn’t sure what to think about it, but I was admitted.

  1. Walk me through your resume, starting with your education in about 2-3 min.
  2. Why an MBA?
  3. Why Marshall?
  4. What are 3 qualities of a leader?
  5. What’s your long term goal? I spoke a lot on my experience in customer success, which led to the next question
  6. What’s the most difficult part about customer success?
  7. Any questions? My background is in construction technology and that’s where we spent most of our time talking. It was very conversational. I kept my answers short and to the point and only had two brief questions that I asked. If your interview runs short, don’t overthink it like I did!”

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 5

So I interviewed at Marshall the other day after doing interviews at Anderson and Haas 2 consecutive weeks prior. Needless to say, between what I do professionally and the fact that I was flying from San Jose for the UCLA and Marshall interviews, I was extremely tired. But one thing that was unique about USC that I really appreciated, given that I’m a really weird candidate in regards to background, was how open the lines of communication were. It was energizing.

Nirav was very, kind, accommodating, and made me feel excited about the prospects of attending USC, despite me applying to GSB, Haas, and Anderson additionally, tough in state competitors.

The interview was very straightforward, same as all MBA programs – walk us through your resume. One aspect of the interview that appealed to me, that was different from my other interviews was how open and flexible it was relative to other programs. That is neither good nor bad – it’s just something to consider when preparing. What I mean by that is when you interview, if you’re a person who knows exactly what you want out of life and can articulate it effectively, your interviewer will allow you the space to express that. Conversely, if you’re someone who may not be as confident in what you want or not sure what direction you want to go, that will be revealed more in a Marshall interview than at least Anderson and Haas. But if you think about it, it’s effectively the same dichotomy with all MBA programs, just variations in the degree to which that dichotomy is engrained in the culture, but not by many degrees of separation.

I had a good time. For being a top program, Marshall’s admissions staff does a really good job helping you feel confident about your application process from sign up to post interview. To be fair, everything I’m mentioning is just based on single interviews across 3 schools, not a large sample size, but I do think that the overall culture will be reflected regardless of interviewer. Hope this helps!”

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 6

Round 1 applicant here. Here is my interview experience. It was a blind interview which means interviewer had not read my application before interview.

Was pretty generic to start with

1. Walk me through resume
2. Why MBA
3. Why USC
4. Leadership example
5. My Leadership Style
6. Since I Have lived in LA so she asked what did i like in LA.
7. What do I like to do in my spare time?
8. Then I mentioned about my passion for road trip, so we spoke about my recent road trips for like 5-8 minutes.

All the best to all the applicants.

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 7

I got the basic questions as well, nothing tricky, and probably the most conversational interview i’ve had with any school, lasted about 45 minutes, with a 30/15 split

1. Started off by going into my work experiences
2. Why did you choose your undergraduate school
3. Why MBA, Why USC? (incorporated ST/LT goals)
4. How would you use skills gained to achieve your goals
5. What would you add to the class at USC
6. What do you do in your free time

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 8

Interviewed with Grace Kim. The interview was extremely conversational but thorough. I can safely say that it covered most aspects of my profile.

  1. Tell me about your current company, (we also discussed the career gap that I had).
  2. Why do you want to do an MBA? Why now?
  3. Post-MBA goals? Long term goal
  4. Why marshall?
  5. Tell me about a time where you faced a conflict.
  6. What is the biggest misconception your coworkers might have about you?
  7. What has been your greatest accomplishment to date?
  8. Do you have any questions for me? Thoroughly enjoyed this interview with grace. She is really friendly and warm.

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 9

The interview was very conservational and relaxed. In addition to the standard questions (Why mba, why now, why marshall, describe a difficult situation and what you learned from it), I also got a few questions that pertained to my recent promotion to manager of my department. How would you describe your management style? Are you more of a project manager or people manager? The last question I got was “tell me the one thing you would want me to remember about you”.

My interviewer also repeated my answers as she understood them, to make sure there were no mis-understandings (this helped me relax quite a bit actually).

Good luck on your interview!

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 10

I had my interview at USC campus. It was very conversational. Prepare usual behavioral questions:

1.Work Experience
2.Leadership example
3.Why MBA
4.Why Marshall and you would be fine.

I loved the USC campus, weather was nice and the campus was full of life…
Gotta wait for the result now..

Thanks

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 11

On campus with a second year student during a mass interview day. The interview was a bit stilted but got more conversational as it went along. After asking about career goals, why MBA/why now/why Marshall and WMTYR, the rest of the questions centered on my resume and follow up questions regarding my responses. I was asked how my boss and directs would each describe my management style. I was also asked what I thought would be most challenging part of the program and what on my resume I was the most proud of. There was plenty of time for questions and my interviewer was in no rush to keep to a certain timeframe. My interview lasted about 45 minutes in total.”

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 12

Interview was blind and very conversational. As a reapplicant, I was on edge. But it just went fine.
Interview questions were typical. Timing will be 30 mins approx. for the interview and 10 mins for your questions.

1. Walk me through your resume.
2. Why MBA?
3. Short Term & Long Term Goals
4. Why USC.
5. Questions for me.

Best of luck everyone

USC Marshall MBA Interview Question – 13

Interview was really relaxed. I met with an Adcom member. We went through the resume and just had a discussion about highlights, how USC fits in, why USC, etc. It was a pretty standard MBA interview–nothing to stress about. I do recommend contacting as many student ambassadors as possible to research the school, and then make sure you cite the people you talked to in the interview along with what they said. I think this was the most important aspect–really showing enthusiasm with alot of solid research. Best of luck!

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