Yale and Cornell interviews brief

Many days after interview, I was still tried from the long driving from the trips to Yale and Cornell on two consecutive days. As interviews are standard in these two schools, I do not want to make too details about it. Just some of my thoughts.

Locations difference: Yale locate 45 minutes from New York city, which is very convenient for recruiting events in New York city. I left Philly at 1oPM after work, and it only took me 3 and half an hour to arrive the hotel nearby Yale. Of cause, no traffic at midnight. I think it takes only about an hour to Boston also. Very good location. About Cornell, I left Yale at 2pm, it took me almost 7 hours to drive to Cornell from Yale, streight driving, no stop only one gas filling. I passed mountain areas, and there are almost no car ahead of me in short distance. I had to speed up to catch someone and follow its lights. It was very tedious driving. After long hours suburb driving, I suddenly entered a small cozy town and hit the downtown Christmas Tree, and felt kind of warm and surprised. All the Ithaca is about Cornell University, many foods and stores and convenient stores. I recommend Super 8 Motel since it is only a few minutes to school, and 2 minutes walk to a Chinese King Buffet, cost only 7 dollar for everything for dinner. It was great for $69/night with free Internet and decent clean room. I specially made one hour early in the morning and assumed that I would arrive on time. I didn't realize that the campus locate on the top of the hill and very difficult to find parking. Do not forget to register with Visitor Parking Booth to pay and get a permit to park. I didn't know this and drive around to waste time. Later, find a 10 minutes parking in front of business school, but the stuff told me that I would get an expensive fine. I was 10 minutes later after parking. They understood though. It was a rainy morning and I saw many students walk from hill to campus. It is a really small university town on the top of hill. I would say the location of Cornell is a little draw back, but it will not influence too much. But if you consider location an important factor, you should consider this.

Interview style: Yale has batch interview style and each one only 30 minutes with very standard questions. Cornell has tougher interview with an Admission committee and a second year student with all the tough questions and expect good answers, which last about one hour. Yale will start the question go through resume, why yale and why MBA. Half an hour is fast and didn't allow too much answers. I think I did well since the admission committee who interviewed me is very familiar with Chinese education systems and traveled to China before. She was aware of many things I mentioned. I felt kind of connected. Cornell is also blind interview. If you ever prepare the application for MIT, then you should no worry about it at all because the questions are just very similar to MIT's application questions. such as "describe a time you lead something, describe a time you are a group player, describe the definition of leadership, and what is the global leadership means. what did you do to solve a complex problems etc..." Since I have prepared MIT's essays, I just used the essay content for the answers and I think they were satisfied by the answers. But you really need prepare for Cornell's interview.

Class visit at Yale: I stayed longer at Yale for Class visit and lunch. The class was a famous Market competitive class with a famous professor. That day, he invited a CEO of Red Cross to the class. It was very interested and students were very involved in giving many recommendations. I didn't see Chinese student in the class. Later I knew only 5 Chinese students enrolled in the class last year. Although Yale ranks not good as Cornell, but Asia students have preference for this school due to its international reputations. I think that is the reason I might also will choose it if I will be admitted. I didn't stay longer at Cornell as I had to drove 5 hours back to the office to work and attend a meeting. I finished interview at 10am and did make to the office at Philly at 3PM. I continued to work as usual since I did not want my boss think I influenced my work due to MBA application. He was surprised I made it back to work. But I was tired... that is why I drafted this now two weeks later after the interviews.