You may have just finished your first interview for business school. What’s next? As former Admissions Directors who have interviewed many candidates over the years, we recommend taking a few important next steps at this stage.

1)   Make sure to write a short but tailored thank you note to your interviewer(s) within 24 hours of your interview. The note should be concise; thank them for their time as well as emphasize your continued and specific interest in the school. Additionally, if you feel that you missed an important point or didn’t address a question sufficiently, you can add this to your message. Keep it brief though!

2)   If you’re headed into more interviews for the same school or other MBA programs, take some time to reflect upon your performance. Consider what questions you felt uncomfortable with or caught you off-guard and practice your answers, ideally with someone to give you feedback.

3)   Be patient. As difficult as this may be, you should not chase the admissions office to check on your application status. Unless you have a genuine reason to get in contact with admissions, it’s best to wait it out. We do not recommend sending in updates or additional letters of support at this stage; unless it’s completely “game changing” information, it’s best to leave your application package alone.

4)   Continue to engage with the school. While it may seem counterintuitive as you think you’re done with your research, we suggest that you continue to interact with the student groups that you may be interested in joining, and follow the school’s developments in the media. As you continue to educate yourself about “fit” with the school, it can also help you to consider your future career steps. You never know what brilliant new ideas can come out of networking!

5)   In the meantime, move on to working on R2 applications if you haven’t already. While it may seem hard to motivate yourself to do so, waiting for December decisions and then beginning new work on applications won’t give you sufficient time. By continuing to chip away at both the creative and administrative parts of the application process, you’ll move towards your goal.

For those of you who would like to prepare for your interviews with a former Admissions Director or senior staff member, Fortuna Admissions offers tailored interview coaching sessions. During these sessions, we will run through a mock interview, based on questions we used in real-interview situations, provide you with detailed feedback on the interaction, and practical advice on improving your performance for interview day.

To discuss this service or others, please contact us.