If you have gotten to the interview stage of the MBA application process, congratulations! It’s a big step. But you’re likely stressed out about how to handle the interview(s)—first and foremost, what questions to expect.
Below, you’ll find a list of 51 real interview questions, sourced from our database. But how do you prepare for 51 (or more) potential questions?
By recognizing that virtually all these core questions fit into a few basic “genres,” with the wording varied but always addressing the same topics.
Following the list, we’ll walk you through these genres, providing a detailed breakdown of each question type—what the interviewer is looking for, and how to prep effectively so you’re never caught off guard.
Here’s a list of 51 interview questions from official MBA admissions interviews, sourced from Menlo Coaching’s client database of first-hand interview reports. These are all real questions that our clients have been asked in their interviews at top schools.
There are 51 questions here—but, as you’ve likely noticed, not really 51 distinct topics.
Obviously, you won’t be asked 51 questions in your interview (well, maybe at Harvard)—but you might think that, since you don’t know which questions will come up, you’d better be prepared for anything.
You should certainly be thorough in your interview prep, but thankfully that becomes easier once you recognize that the vast majority of the most frequently asked questions are just slight variations on a few basic ideas.
You’ll see the highest return on investment from your prep work if you focus on nailing down your answers on a few key topics, which can then be adapted to any wording variations in the questions.
We like to think of MBA interview questions as fitting into four key genres that reliably show up in virtually all interviews—often in this order:
Let’s take a closer look at each of these genres.
This is a question you will get in some form in nearly every MBA interview. It’s as vague-sounding as it is ubiquitous. Though intended to set you at ease and establish a friendly tone by giving you a softball question to start out with, it can unfortunately have the opposite effect on stressed-out applicants. Some versions from our list:
How do you answer this question, in whatever form it comes up?
Most people’s instincts are to give the broad strokes of their life: “I was born in X; I graduated high school and then went to Y for college; then I got a job at Z.”
The problem with that kind of answer is that the poor interviewer will be conducting dozens or even hundreds of admissions interviews in a given season. Many of those applicants begin with some version of their life story, and they all start to blend together. We’ve even known candidates to spend far too long on this question, eating into the time that should be spent on other topics.
Furthermore, all of this information is readily available on your resume. The interviewer has almost certainly just reviewed your paperwork and knows the basics of your background—especially when every candidate presents some version of the same basic steps (where they did their undergrad, the industry they went into, etc.).
Instead, try to answer with something interesting and memorable about you—while ensuring it’s still connected to your desire to get an MBA. Here are some possible prompts:
There’s no right answer to this question. But any of the above ideas will be more engaging, memorable, and impressive than a redundant, chronological walkthrough of your biography.
The next question that you are likely to be asked during an MBA interview is something about your reasons for pursuing an MBA. For example, our list contained the following:
This can be a tricky question to answer, and you need to provide an answer in the “Goldilocks zone”: not too ambitious, not too modest. MBA interviewees should watch out for two common mistakes:
The best way forward here is to show that you have a realistic idea of how the MBA might advance your future career while also making it sound a little bit inspiring and values-driven. You will likely be referring back to your Career Goals essay to answer this question, and that’s OK.
It’s not a bad idea to show that you’ve done your research by explaining how the specific classes, clubs, and resources this particular MBA program offers, combined with your past experience, will position you to achieve your career goals—though this will also come up in the next question …
“Why is our school the right fit for you (and why are you the right fit for us)?” This, in some form, is one of the most common interview questions asked as part of the MBA application process. From our list:
The schools that interview you know you’re very likely applying to other schools, but they still want to feel special. And this is not just ego-stroking (though a little of that is fine).
What the AdCom wants to know in this question is that
The two points are connected. If you’ve done your research and thought about why a specific business school is a better fit than other options, you’ll be able to contribute to its programs and clubs in a way that strengthens its brand, alumni network, and position in MBA rankings.
Again, the AdCom is perfectly aware that their particular school might not even be your top choice—but you need to convince them that you see it as a good choice, not a last-ditch backup option.
Think of this question as a chance to show off the depth of your prior research. In order to answer it effectively, you’ll need to display a mastery of at least the basics: your major/concentration, classes you’re eager to take, clubs and programs you want to join—essentially the biggest advantages of attending this particular MBA program for your future career.
It generally doesn’t hurt to throw in a little color or a personal touch, like an interaction you had with a current student or alum, or an endorsement of the school’s career management offerings. But avoid anything too tenuous—only mention an interaction if it’s truly relevant.
Be careful! As you show off this knowledge, you don’t want to end up sounding like their catalog. Your knowledge of the program needs to sound like it comes from a place of sincere interest. Refrain from bringing up elements of the MBA that have no real bearing on you as an applicant.
By expressing interest in the program, you’re also expressing cultural fit. Schools want students to engage with one another, and with faculty, in a productive way; contribute to a vibrant and rewarding academic experience for everyone; and uphold the university’s stated values.
Displaying openness and curiosity about the school signals that you’ll be a team player; appearing uninterested signals that you’re out for yourself and view the program as a means to an end.
The broadest genre we’ll discuss is behavioral questions, which tend to begin with a phrase like “Tell me about a time when …” (or “How do you …” or “Give me an example of …”). Such questions made up over half of our list:
These questions could touch on any aspects of your behavior, values, or personality traits—and how they have affected your work in practice. We’ll divide them into three ubiquitous themes, which we’ll cover in greater depth below:
To prepare for behavioral questions in general, pick out some stories from your professional life that speak to these themes, and ensure that you have any details the interviewer might ask about nailed down—vagueness will do you no favors.
Also bear in mind that one story might be relevant to multiple themes; consider how your emphasis should change when bringing up the same story for different reasons. (That said, it’s not a good idea to use the same story for multiple questions in one interview.)
Lastly, remember to use an interview answering framework to help structure your answers. Structure and concision are among the most useful skills we teach MBA aspirants at Menlo Coaching, and we coach our clients to answer behavioral interview questions using the STAR method.
STAR stands for
Let’s look at each of the typical behavioral themes in turn.
A question about teamwork could take a number of different forms: “Tell me about a time you faced a difficulty or a conflict on a team”; “Tell me about a time when you dealt with a team member who wasn’t pulling their weight.”
These questions are all about showing the interviewer how you will behave when in contact with other students during the MBA program:
The wrong answer is one where you call out a teammate in a dismissive way: “Steve? Oh yeah, he did everything wrong, a real bad guy. That’s why I kicked him off the team.” In business school, you can’t kick someone off your team, and the interviewer won’t be impressed by arrogance.
A better approach is to emphasize conflict resolution, conciliation, cooperation, negotiation, or mutual exchange of ideas—in short, that you resolve problems rather than escalating them.
Let the interviewer know that you are able both to identify problem actors and to address difficulties productively and prosocially by reconciling differences: “I noticed some tension was building between two members of the project team and decided to address it proactively …”
To assess your leadership skills, an interviewer might ask directly about your “leadership style” or about any successful projects you have led—or, more obliquely, ask you to describe leadership traits you admire in others.
You’ll generally want to show how your actions resulted in a good measure of success and how you managed your team to implement your ideas. Discuss obstacles you and the team had to overcome along the way, but do choose concrete examples where you ultimately attained a good result (see the following section for how to talk about failure).
Specificity is important; if you lay out your accomplishments in broad strokes, you’ll sound like you lack personal investment in what happened or weren’t really very involved.
For example, if you say “I had five workers on my team and assigned each of them some work so that we could do the work faster than if I did it all myself,” you’ll sound like you view all your staff interchangeably and never took the time to get to know them, which raises larger questions about your talent for managing people.
As with teamwork questions, you want to emphasize the human side of things. Talk about the people; mention names if possible. Though you shouldn’t give more detail than is necessary, the AdCom should come away feeling that this example was an important moment in your career and that it impacted you and your leadership style.
You’ll probably be asked at some point to talk about a “failure,” “obstacle,” “challenge,” or “setback” you’ve faced. The question may explicitly prompt you to talk about what you learned from it or how you recovered. You should do so in any case—though without trying to minimize the failure itself.
Talking frankly about failure takes courage, and it can be a change of pace for the kinds of people attracted to the prospect of a top MBA program: highly ambitious, confident, accustomed to success.
Don’t be glib or dance around the question (“My biggest failure? I’m too used to success”); don’t bring up something insignificant; and don’t pick a “failure” that was clearly out of your control—there’s a big difference between a project that failed because you prioritized the wrong goals and one where the company went bust before you could finish.
Fundamentally, it’s never a good look to answer a question about an important failure by suggesting you’re infallible—and it’s the kind of ploy that’s emblematic of overconfident businesspeople.
Talk about a time you failed at something meaningful.
For one thing, it will be a more interesting story. And the interviewer is looking for evidence of important personal characteristics (e.g., self-awareness and humility).
Personal qualities like self-reflection, problem solving, and the ability to use your resources wisely are explicitly sought after in the interviewing guidelines for the top MBA programs, which we’ve consolidated in our own Menlo Coaching MBA rubric.
Be sure to clearly indicate what you learned from any failures you discuss. Learning from a negative situation is endearing; making the same mistakes habitually indicates a lack of introspection, or even incompetence.
Of course, we can’t claim that the questions above are the only ones you could possibly be asked in your interview, nor that every question will fall into one of the above categories. There are exceptions, which you may encounter, and there are several schools that take a nontraditional approach to the interview process.
Sharp observers may have noticed that two of the 51 questions from our initial list didn’t fit any of the genres we discussed:
Though they don’t fit into any of our categories, these questions clearly form their own minicategory: classic interview closing questions. You’ve doubtless encountered similar questions in job interviews or interviews for alternative graduate degree programs before.
Open questions like these give you a moment to take the lead, show your initiative, and bring up anything you still want to cover.
You shouldn’t worry too much about this part of the interview, but you also shouldn’t consider it a mere formality. It’s certainly worth preparing a few ideas for topics you could bring up in this context:
As you can see, these ideas fit pretty neatly into the genres we discussed earlier—think of these questions as an opportunity to score some bonus points in a previous category.
We’ve aimed to cover the types of common MBA interview questions that make up the vast majority of what you’ll encounter in MBA interviews, but you may still worry, quite reasonably, about how to respond to true curveballs—challenging questions you didn’t foresee at all and simply haven’t prepped for.
First, consider a few key points before getting too anxious about this:
As for how to respond when a question throws you off balance, the best advice is to take your time.
Your instinct may be to answer as quickly as possible—to show that you can roll with the punches. But an answer blurted out without consideration is likely to be a poor answer; you can easily get off track or come to regret the answer you’re giving before you even finish. It’s far better to take a moment to really consider your response.
Avoid an awkward silence by being direct: “That’s a great question, and I want to make sure I’m addressing the essence of what you’re asking. May I just have a moment to structure my thoughts?” Use the time to reflect, even jot down a couple of bullet points, and return with the best answer you can.
If you still find yourself at a loss, acknowledge it: “I’d like to table this for now and proceed to the next question, but I’d love to come back to it at the end of the interview if time permits.” If, even at the end, you still have nothing, you might say you’d prefer to take some time to reflect and send your answer in a follow-up note.
If you can give a really poised, coherent answer on the spot, of course that’s the ideal outcome. But when you can’t, it shows far greater professionalism to acknowledge it than to simply waste the interviewer’s time with blather.
Finally, there can be some major changes in the interviews you face at certain top MBA programs. Three top B-schools have adopted notably different formats for their interviews, which are worth calling out separately:
Clearly, while some of your general prep work will still be helpful, these particular interviews also require some separate consideration. Check the school-specific articles linked above for advice on how to approach these interviews, or watch our Founding Partner, David White, speak about how interviews for the HBS MBA program work below.
At the end of the day, you can’t control or perfectly predict what the interviewer is going to ask you, and there’s always a chance you’ll be tripped up by something unexpected. The factors you can control are your mindset and your preparedness.
Remember that the interview is the final step on the way to your Master’s Degree in Business Administration, and it’s tough to prep effectively on your own. Asking a friend to play the role of AdCom in a mock interview can be a good approach—particularly using an MBA interview rubric—but better still is to work with highly experienced MBA interview experts who can help you prepare more comprehensively and with specific reference to your target schools.
We know the pitfalls candidates often encounter, the nuances of different schools’ interview processes (including specialized prep for HBS and Wharton), and the reality of what interviewers are looking for and why they ask different questions.
If you’re looking for professional interview prep with expert coaches, please reach out. For more free advice on preparing for MBA interviews, see MBA Interview Prep: Top Tips & Mistakes to Avoid.
Obinna Arizor
Head of Interview Prep
Education: BA, MMS, MBA
Obinna has unrivaled expertise in assessing MBA interview performance. As an Admissions Associate, Obinna conducted around 100 formal admissions interviews for the Tuck School of Business. In his work with Menlo Coaching, he’s conducted well over 1,000 mock interview sessions. After obtaining his own MBA, Obinna worked as a VP at JPMorgan Chase and now serves as a Program Manager at Google.
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