When Booth’s Admission team started asking this question consistently over the past years, candidates were wondering whether they should cite the $275,000 post-MBA salary as success or give some profound statements like “the purpose of life is the life of purpose.” It is too deep, and MBA Admission interviewer will give that dreaded blank look. Save the Robin Sharma quote for some other time.
Context Context Context
Don’t give the pre-meditated answer that you had prepared two days before. Understand the context. Is the interviewer asking the question after a personal question, professional achievements, or following a question about your volunteering capability? Highlight your definition of success accordingly, and then elaborate on your prepared answer.
Life Success or Short-term Goals
Success is a broad term, and the admission team is not asking this question to understand your post-MBA goals. Unless the AdCom asks what success means in your career, you should answer success as a balanced individual, looking at four aspects of your personality: Career, Spiritual, Community, and Self-Development.
1) Career
For your career, it is easy to set success metrics. With short-term post-MBA goals question, you have already stated your career goals. The industry and job function are clear. Now your job is to understand what success in each context means.
As a Management Consultant, what does success mean?
Trust.
I recently had a terrible experience at my Car Service Center with one of the service advisors. He didn’t follow the guidelines, missed a couple of my requirements, and delayed the delivery by 2-3 days. His apology didn’t suffice, especially when he was more eager to bill me than truly introspect what went wrong....
Download F1GMAT's MBA Admission Interview Guide for Complete Answer on Career
2) Spiritual
Religious fundamentalists and atheists have abused and propagated the word in equal measure. What does spirituality truly mean without bringing in Eastern or Greek philosophy, or going too deep into any philosophical teaching?
It’s Simple.
A sense of ‘being’ one with nature and people around you.
It means you don’t treat your team as a ‘resource’ – the god awful word used to describe a team member. She has a name. If you have not used a hybrid or an electric car for bragging rights then, you are close to being called a spiritual being. It’s the less publicized persona that you have developed over the years. Spreading awareness about endangered species and propagating greenery with the ‘plant a tree’ initiative are two spiritual activities that come to mind. Any effort that shines your oneness with the world, something that has not been written to death in essays should be discussed when the interviewer asks about .....
....
.....
For Complete MBA Admission Interview Tips, Download F1GMAT's MBA Admission Interview Guide