UT/McCombs Interview

I completed my interview for McCombs today. I met with an alum who graduated a couple of years ago at his office. It lasted about 45 minutes and was a very casual conversation. I was a little nervous because the website said the dress code was business or business casual…which could mean a variety of things. My office is casual (I mean casual…I wear jeans most of the time and wore flip flops pretty much every day this summer). Since I would be leaving mid-day for the interview and didn’t want to change, I went with business casual. My boss and direct colleagues know what I’m up to, but people outside our team don’t and I’d prefer to keep it that way. Anything dressier than slacks and a sweater set would draw way to much attention at work. The alum I interviewed with works at a local investment management firm, and while I was pretty sure they’d be business casual (this is San Diego not New York, after all), there was a chance my guess would be wrong and I’d feel uncomfortably underdressed. Lucky for me, I was right.

It was interesting because he asked me if I had trouble finding the place and I said no, I didn’t because I had been there before. He of course asked why and I answered him honestly…I had been there a couple of months ago for the Kellogg information session. Gaaaah! Have now admitted interest in another to school to interviewer!!! Doom. Dooooom. (Yes, I’ve just re-read Bridget Jones Edge of Reason, so that was Bridget-inspired.) Anyway, he put me at ease and said obviously you’re applying other places, don’t worry about it, this interview is just about your fit with UT/McCombs. Phew! A brief summary of the things we talked about:

--walked through my resume
--future career goals/why mba/why now/why McCombs
--talk about experience working as a part of a team in work experience
--hypothetical situation: you’re a part of a team and someone is not carrying their weight, what do you do
--what part of your application do you think could use some improvement
--any questions I had for him about UT/McCombs/Austin

He told me he was going to go off the script a bit and I’m glad he did because I think I was able to genuinely portray myself in my answers to his questions. I felt like it went really well and he confirmed that when he told me he would be strongly recommending me for admission and that he felt I would be a good fit for UT. He gave me his card and told me that he knew I’d be getting admissions and that if I needed to bounce some ideas off him or one of his colleagues (they have quite the range of MBA program representation) to give him a call. Very nice guy and a great representative for McCombs.