Three down, two to go

Well, my HBS interview is over and done with, and I had a great time. That makes three down, with Michigan and London Business School to go. I really don't know if I did well or not with HBS, but I had fun anyway. I had to get up at 4:30 AM on Sunday to make the 8-hour drive back from my in-laws to catch my plane to Boston. Unfortunately, they oversold the flight. I got my seat assignment, but to my surprise, someone was already in it. The flight attendant told me to just sit in any empty seat, but within 5 minutes there were none. So... rungee got to fly to Boston in first class. :) It's not a very long flight, but I still enjoyed it.

I took the T (Boston's subway) over to Harvard on Monday morning and walked through the Square and over the bridge to the HBS campus. I forgot how beautiful the campus is. The weather was also gorgeous yesterday, so I sat on the benches between events. I arrived at Dillon, where the MBA Admissions Office is located, about 30 minutes ahead of time. There was a man and a woman in the waiting room, who were also there for interviews. The woman quickly left to go find her interviewer, who was in another building (so you may have to navigate some additional buildings if your interviewer doesn't sit in Dillon). My interviewer was punctual and brought me up to her office. I got the logistics run-down (i.e., I've read your application, we'll talk for 30 minutes, I won't really leave time for questions unless you having something pressing), and we started.

Like Cornfed's HBS interview, my questions were quite specific to my application but not quite in the way I had imagined. My interviewer used what I had in my essays as a springboard to delve further into certain aspects of my candidacy, but she didn't reference any of the items I had written about at any point. In fact, she asked that I stay away from those examples and provide new ones during the course of our discussion (which was a little difficult even though I had thought about it). We covered what I wanted to do in the long term and what I would do when I got there (i.e., what big-picture issues I wanted to take on). We talked A LOT about leadership - another leadership example from work, how my leadership style had evolved, what others thought of my leadership style, what I would do if I were running my current company (I got a little push back from my interviewer on my answer, but I really felt what I proposed was the right thing to do, so I stuck by my answer and explained it more thoroughly). Lastly, she asked me if I had anything else I wanted to discuss (I said I didn't, but now I can think of a few other items I should have said here). A few times, she asked me basically the same question but in a different way, which made me think I had not answered it appropriately the first time she asked. We didn't cover why HBS or even why an MBA... I have to hope that was so obvious from my essays that she didn't feel the need to discuss those topics. She wrote notes the entire time I talked. Usually, I can tell if I'm on track or going in the wrong direction just by the body language or responses from the interviewer, but I really didn't know how I was doing and still don't know if I created confidence in my strengths or confirmed HBS's worst fears about my weaknesses. Guess I will find out on 1/17!

While I was there, I met a friend for lunch in Spangler. I actually saw a few other people I knew there as well. It was fun (food is pretty good too)! I also went to a class, which was awesome. The section representative picked us up... she was really nice... she walked us into the class, found seats for us, and introduced us to everyone. I know I'm a huge dork for saying this, but I really wanted to participate in the discussion. I had heard that people clapped when someone gave a particularly insightful response, but that doesn't really do it justice... it was more like thunderous applause, a standing ovation, and wave! There was definitely a good mix of nationalities and ages in the class, too. The professor had the students vote for how they would solve the problem presented in the case using these electronic buttons in the seating panels at the beginning of class. She didn't have to cold call anyone b/c there were many volunteers (and different people spoke throughout the class). All in all, a good trip!

Now it is time to refocus for my other interviews, which are rapidly approaching!