Ross Interview

I had my Ross interview last week. At one point, I thought I was going to miss it. The calendar on my phone reminded me that the interview was meant to be at 4:45 pm my time. It had been a really busy day on my Client’s site and I was only able to get away at 4:30 pm but then got stuck in rush hour traffic. The interview was meant to be via Skype. I received a ‘wave’ from the Ross Admissions team at 4:40 pm on Skype at which point I was still on the way to my office where I had booked a meeting room to have the call.

I finally arrived at 4:50 pm and was convinced I had screwed up. Things only got worse when I tried to call them back on Skype and there was no answer. I then decided to call the Admissions Officer who had confirmed the interview details. She was really lovely and told me my interview wasn’t for another hour. So for some reason I got my EST conversion all wrong. This was a blessing in disguise as I was able to compose myself and do some last minute preparations.

The interview seemed to go well. Ross are the only school who had said I should have a form of identification ready for the call but they didn’t ask for it. The interview was with a second year student. She started off by telling me about herself (her background and what she was doing at Ross). She was on a dual degree programme (I will talk about this later). We then went into the standard MBA questions: Tell me about yourself? Why you want to want to do an MBA now? Why Ross? etc. We then got to the scenario based questions and she asked me about:

• a time when I encountered difficulties while on a job and how I managed to come through;
• a situation where I had shown leadership;
• a situation where I had to work with different functions/unit to deliver a project, and;
• an experience of working with a difficult manager.

When she finished with her questions she then gave me the opportunity to ask mine which I did. I have become more interested in dual degree programs as I have gone through this MBA process. I will explain this in another blog. This is where I feel Ross has a big advantage. One of the stats they are very proud of is that they have 97 top 10 graduate programs. Students are also allowed to self initiate their dual degree programs. This gives students the opportunity to create a ‘specialised academic program to meet their specific career interest.’ To do this you have to be accepted by both the schools you are interested in. The advantage of this is you can wait till you have started your first program and then apply to the additional academic unit you are interested in. It is then up to you and the faculty to come up with an agreed plan to complete the program. From my understanding the dual degree programs usually take 3 years but I think if you pick two programs that have similar allowable credits you have the opportunity to double count which could reduce the time. This is my understanding of the information I have gathered through speaking to my interviewer and my research but am happy to be corrected.