ESADE & RSM Interview
ESADE
In late March I was contacted by admissions from ESADE, they wanted to interview me… mind you this was my 1st interview and I was a tad nervous. We set the interview up for April 3rd (my birthday) at 8:00 in the morning, and were to meet in the lobby of a hotel on Lex.
The night before I was a smidge on the anxious side, so as you can imagine I didn’t get too much sleep… the following morning, crutches in tow, I got all snazzed up for the interview and made my way to midtown.
We met at the hotel, and went to sit in a café where the interview was to be conducted, very informal, and made to put the applicant at ease. Of course at the onset of the interview I was a bundle of nerves, ESADE is my No.2 School after IESE, and this being my first MBA interview I was nervous. However, I told the admissions officer I was nervous and she did a great job of calming my nerves.
Questions that were asked during this process included my future career goals, why I want to go to ESADE, I had to give an account of something I accomplished and how I went about getting there, and a time when someone changed my mind on something.
The questions were fairly standard, even though I had a difficult time answering the one about having had my mind changed on something. I took a while to come up with my answer and the admissions person was more then happy to oblige. In addition we talked about the current political climate in the US and Europe, immigration issues, exchanged ideas, talked about Barcelona, its history and such. I think we talked of approximately two hours, and I left the interview feeling quite good. The admissions officer also indicated that she would put me in touch with a ’06 MBA grad from Poland who just landed a job in BCN post ESADE. Could this have been to test my knowledge of the Polish language?
RSM
Next up was RSM – The Director of Admissions contacted me in early April, and we set the interview up for April 10th. The interview would be conducted by a RSM alum, at her office at approximately 6:30pm.
Once again, I got all snazzed up, and having already gone through the process once, I was not as stressed as the 1st time. I arrived at the alum’s office approximately 15 minutes early, and had security call, to notify her I was here. She met me in the lobby and we went into one of their conference rooms for the interview.
The questions were similar, life goals, why I chose them, why an MBA in Europe and not one in the U.S.? And that was about it. Then I was asked if I had any questions, I asked about life in Rotterdam, workloads, closeness to Brussels, exchange programs, and the like. What surprised me about the RSM interview however was how few questions were asked about me, end of the interview I was told that I had a very strong application, and that I should expect to hear something back within a few weeks.
Two down, more to go… at the time I was still filling out numerous applications, writing essays and so on and so forth… while I did feel that both interviews went well, I wasn’t going to stop filling out the rest of my apps. I needed to leverage my weaknesses across schools, and hope for the best. Little did I know I would fill out only two more applications, instead of the five more I had planned on.
If you think about it though, I applied to both schools on March 26th, was interviewed a week later by ESADE and two weeks later by RSM. Quite a quick turnaround if you ask me... I suppose you have to love rolling admissions deadlines :)
In late March I was contacted by admissions from ESADE, they wanted to interview me… mind you this was my 1st interview and I was a tad nervous. We set the interview up for April 3rd (my birthday) at 8:00 in the morning, and were to meet in the lobby of a hotel on Lex.
The night before I was a smidge on the anxious side, so as you can imagine I didn’t get too much sleep… the following morning, crutches in tow, I got all snazzed up for the interview and made my way to midtown.
We met at the hotel, and went to sit in a café where the interview was to be conducted, very informal, and made to put the applicant at ease. Of course at the onset of the interview I was a bundle of nerves, ESADE is my No.2 School after IESE, and this being my first MBA interview I was nervous. However, I told the admissions officer I was nervous and she did a great job of calming my nerves.
Questions that were asked during this process included my future career goals, why I want to go to ESADE, I had to give an account of something I accomplished and how I went about getting there, and a time when someone changed my mind on something.
The questions were fairly standard, even though I had a difficult time answering the one about having had my mind changed on something. I took a while to come up with my answer and the admissions person was more then happy to oblige. In addition we talked about the current political climate in the US and Europe, immigration issues, exchanged ideas, talked about Barcelona, its history and such. I think we talked of approximately two hours, and I left the interview feeling quite good. The admissions officer also indicated that she would put me in touch with a ’06 MBA grad from Poland who just landed a job in BCN post ESADE. Could this have been to test my knowledge of the Polish language?
RSM
Next up was RSM – The Director of Admissions contacted me in early April, and we set the interview up for April 10th. The interview would be conducted by a RSM alum, at her office at approximately 6:30pm.
Once again, I got all snazzed up, and having already gone through the process once, I was not as stressed as the 1st time. I arrived at the alum’s office approximately 15 minutes early, and had security call, to notify her I was here. She met me in the lobby and we went into one of their conference rooms for the interview.
The questions were similar, life goals, why I chose them, why an MBA in Europe and not one in the U.S.? And that was about it. Then I was asked if I had any questions, I asked about life in Rotterdam, workloads, closeness to Brussels, exchange programs, and the like. What surprised me about the RSM interview however was how few questions were asked about me, end of the interview I was told that I had a very strong application, and that I should expect to hear something back within a few weeks.
Two down, more to go… at the time I was still filling out numerous applications, writing essays and so on and so forth… while I did feel that both interviews went well, I wasn’t going to stop filling out the rest of my apps. I needed to leverage my weaknesses across schools, and hope for the best. Little did I know I would fill out only two more applications, instead of the five more I had planned on.
If you think about it though, I applied to both schools on March 26th, was interviewed a week later by ESADE and two weeks later by RSM. Quite a quick turnaround if you ask me... I suppose you have to love rolling admissions deadlines :)
posted by ... j at Monday, May 01, 2006
2 Comments:
good luck with erasmus! RSM has a good program...though you might wanna be a little careful with its brand equity as it is extremely well known in holland...but not that famous in the rest of europe!
cheers
Ash
Thanks, yeah, that's one thing I'm somewhat worried about. Apparently RSM is also growing in popularity in Asia, specifically East Asia - something like 40% of 2006 class was from there.
Regardless, I'm looking for post MBA work in NGO country lending, and although LBS or INSEAD would have been best for this, I chose the schools I chose for very distinct reasons. I'm not too stressed anyways, worst case scenario there's always ABN AMRO.
Post a Comment
<< Home