Yale SOM MBA interviews invitations are sent out on a rolling basis throughout each round. The Admissions Committee reviews applications in batches and then decides who to invite to interview, so there’s no cause for concern if your decision arrives later than other candidates. Typically around 40% of applicants receive an interview invite, and you may interview on campus, virtually, or in major metropolitan areas.  

If you’d like tailored interview preparation, explore our MBA Interview Prep Services to work one-on-one with a Fortuna Admissions expert.

The Yale SOM Interview Format

The Yale SOM MBA interview stands out for its structured, mission-driven approach, reflecting the school’s commitment to educating leaders for business and society. Yale SOM uses a standardized, behavioral interview designed to evaluate how you think, how you collaborate, and how you have navigated real challenges. This structured approach also informs the types of Yale SOM MBA interview questions you can expect. Candidates should be prepared for probing follow-ups that dig into motivations, values, and decision-making, highlighting the school’s emphasis on integrity, impact, and teamwork. 

Your interview will likely last around 30 minutes and will be conducted by a second-year MBA student, a recent alum, or member of the admissions committee. The interview is “blind,” meaning your interviewer will only have your resume and will not have reviewed the rest of your application.

A unique feature is Yale SOM’s pre-interview assignment. If you’re invited to interview, you’ll be asked to submit a quote that is meaningful to you for the interviewer to consider. 

For more guidance on building a standout application, explore Fortuna’s related resources: our in-depth Yale SOM MBA Essay Tips & Strategy, a detailed breakdown of Yale SOM’s video questions, and our comprehensive Yale MBA Application Guide. These companion articles offer expert insights to help you strengthen every part of your Yale SOM application.

What Yale SOM is Looking For in the MBA Interview

Yale SOM’s interview philosophy is rooted in the school’s mission to develop leaders for business and society. The interview itself is intentionally straightforward, structured, and behavioral, designed to understand not just what you’ve done, but how you think, collaborate, and communicate. It’s also a key moment for the admissions team to gauge your interpersonal skills and your genuine fit with the SOM community.

The interview is intended as an opportunity to share more about who you are, walk through your experiences, and articulate why an MBA, and why Yale SOM specifically, is vital to your future plans.

Here’s what the interviewers are especially listening for:

• Authenticity. Yale places a high premium on honesty, and the ability to share your experience in a genuine and thoughtful way. Over-rehearsed or overly scripted answers should be avoided.
• Mission-aligned motivation. Interviewers want to understand what drives you, how you hope to contribute to society through your career, and why the Yale SOM approach resonates with your values and goals.
• Evidence of team orientation. Given SOM’s highly collaborative culture and integrated curriculum, they look for signs that you listen well, work effectively with others, and thrive in diverse, team-based environments.
• Analytical thinking and sound judgment. Behavioral questions and their follow-ups are used to probe how you approach challenges, evaluate trade-offs, and make decisions.
• Self-awareness and growth. Yale values reflective, grounded candidates who can acknowledge challenges, own their mistakes, and demonstrate meaningful learning.
• Impact beyond yourself. From work accomplishments to community involvement, SOM is looking for people who elevate others and contribute to goals beyond their personal advancement.

Finally, Yale SOM expects candidates to arrive with thoughtful questions – the kind that help you assess fit and cannot be answered by skimming the website. This signals genuine curiosity and reinforces your motivation.

In essence, the Yale SOM interview is designed to reveal your character, motivations, and collaborative instincts. It’s about who you are, how you’ve made an impact, and how you’ll contribute to a mission-driven community.

Yale SOM’s Pre-Interview Assignment: What You Need to Know

For Yale SOM’s distinctive pre-interview assignment, candidates are asked to submit a quote that has special meaning or that resonates with you, no later than 48 hours prior to your interview day (or as soon as possible). 

Quotes are powerful because they are anchored to a specific voice and can capture complex ideas with clarity and brevity. Yale’s pre-interview prompt is designed to help you reflect on the ideas, values, or experiences that have shaped you, and to create an entry point for a deeper, more personal conversation during the interview.

Here’s what this assignment allows Yale SOM to learn about you:

• What you value most. The quote you choose (and why) reveals the principles, influences, or ideas that shape your worldview.
• How you think. Your explanation shows how you interpret meaning, connect concepts, and synthesize ideas.
• Your level of self-awareness. This is an opportunity to articulate how a particular insight has shaped your actions, growth, or goals.
• Your ability to communicate concisely. Yale values clarity and purpose; this assignment spotlights both.
• Your preparation and intentionality. Submitting a thoughtful quote signals that you’ve taken the time to reflect and engage with the process.

The pre-interview quote assignment also helps level the playing field. Instead of rewarding only fast-on-your-feet improvisers, Yale SOM intentionally gives every applicant something concrete to prepare. More reflective or deliberate thinkers often find this especially welcome: you know what’s coming, and you can think deeply about why the quote resonates and how it fits into your story.

Ultimately, by asking candidates to bring a meaningful quote to the conversation, Yale SOM frames the interview as an exchange of ideas – a reflection of the school’s belief that students learn as much from one another as from their professors.

Top Tips To Prepare For The Yale SOM MBA Interview

Here are our top tips on preparing for this part of the admissions process, gleaned from our many years of experience preparing hundreds of candidates for their Yale SOM interview: 

Reflect on Moments That Shaped Your Thinking

Yale SOM cares about intellectual curiosity and your ability to engage across differences. As you prepare, take time to revisit moments when your assumptions were challenged or when someone broadened your perspective. Likewise, consider situations where you played that role for someone else. These moments often make excellent material for questions about how you contribute to diversity of thought, how you collaborate, and how you approach real-world complexity.

Choose a Quote With Real Personal Meaning

When selecting your quote, pick something that genuinely resonates; it doesn’t have to be something that sounds deeply philosophical or grand. Ask yourself:

• Has this idea shaped my actions or decisions in a tangible way?
• Can I give a specific example of a moment when this quote guided me?

If your quote has authentic significance, it should naturally connect to themes that appear elsewhere in your candidacy – your motivations, your leadership style, or the way you navigate challenges.

Keep the Quote in Perspective

While the quote is unique to Yale SOM and can lead to a meaningful exchange, it’s only one small part of a broader interview plan. Don’t allow it to eclipse your preparation for the fundamentals: your key achievements, pivotal decisions, career goals, and the experiences that have shaped your leadership. You’ll likely spend only a few minutes discussing the quote, so treat it as an entry point, not the centerpiece.

How to Approach Yale SOM’s Behavioral Questions

Yale SOM’s structured, behavioral interview format is designed to uncover how you think, make decisions, and work with others. The goal is to see how you reflect on real situations with clarity and depth.

A helpful way to prepare is to identify a small set of meaningful experiences (six to eight is plenty) that highlight your leadership, teamwork, judgment, and personal growth. Rather than scripting your answers, focus on being able to tell each story in a clear, logical way. This is where the STAR framework (Situation, Task, Action, Result) comes in handy. Using this to structure your examples can help you stay focused and concise.

What matters to Yale is your ability to go beneath the surface: Why did you make that decision? What was going through your mind at the time? How did others respond? What did you learn? Yale interviewers are trained to probe, so being able to articulate your thought process, not just the outcome, is essential.

Above all, demonstrate self-awareness. Yale values candidates who can reflect honestly on their experiences, acknowledge complexity and failure, and show growth. 

Sample Yale SOM MBA Interview Questions

Here are actual questions drawn from recent Yale SOM MBA interviews:

• “Tell me about a professional accomplishment you’re proud of.”
  Yale wants to understand the impact you’ve made, and what you consider meaningful.
• “Describe a time you worked with someone who had a very different perspective.”
  This probes your openness, adaptability, and ability to navigate diverse viewpoints.
• “Why an MBA?”
  Be prepared to articulate the motivations behind your next step and how an MBA supports your goals.
• “Why Yale SOM?”
  Your answer should reflect genuine engagement with the school’s mission, culture, and curriculum, and show insight beyond what you learned on the school website. 
• “How would you contribute to the SOM community?”
  Yale is looking for thoughtful, specific ways you would add to the collaborative environment.
• “Why did you choose the quote you submitted?”
  Expect to explain how the idea behind the quote has influenced your behavior or shaped your thinking.
• “Tell me about a time when you had to resolve a conflict.”
  A classic behavioral question testing your judgment and interpersonal skills.
• “What research did you do before applying to business school?”
  This helps reveal your level of motivation.
• “Is there anything you wish I’d asked?”
  Use this to highlight a story or theme you want the committee to remember.

Let’s Get You Into Yale SOM.

Fortuna Admissions is a dream team of admissions insiders from the world’s top business schools. With our unparalleled collective expertise, we are able to coach you to develop a clear vision of your goals for business school and beyond. We work closely with you throughout the application process and provide expert guidance at every stage to maximize your chances of admission to a top school.

Our free consultations are consistently rated as the best in the industry. To learn more about Fortuna and assess your chances of admission to Yale SOM and other top programs, request a free consultation or explore our MBA Interview Prep Services for personalized, one-on-one support.