How to Prepare for a Graduate School Interview – 4 Tips

Learning tips early on how to prepare for a graduate school interview will give you an advantage.  Applying to graduate school is a stressful and busy process. From choosing the programs you’re interested in to polishing your resume, securing references, and writing essays, there’s just a great deal to keep track of. But in the whole process, one of the trickiest steps is going through interviews with admissions officers.

This can be particularly tough because it’s the part of a graduate school application that’s most unique. The rest of the application is challenging and will require your attention and diligence, but to some extent it should feel familiar, as it’s not entirely unlike applying to college. But the interview is different. If you interviewed at all for undergrad, it was likely with an alumnus or alumna of the university, and it was probably a fairly casual chance for you to make a good impression and display some confidence and passion. A graduate school interview is far more thorough, and it can feel much more like a job interview than part of an attempt to get into a school program.

For that reason, it’s very important to go into it with adequate preparation and a plan of action, as opposed to just with a smile on your face. Keeping that in mind, here are 4 practice tips on how to prepare for a graduate school interview and ace it.

Tip 1: Learn From Current Students Or Graduates

The best way to prepare for any interview is to inform yourself about what’s coming your way. You can never have an exact preview of the questions you’ll be asked, but sometimes you can take steps to gain a pretty good idea about what you’ll need to discuss. Business Insider wrote up some interview tips specifically with regard to Harvard Business School (and supplied by a current student there), but the advice can apply to any graduate school interview process. And one of the top recommendations from the student was to reach out to others who have gone through the process. Most students or alumni will be happy to share information about their own interviews if they have the time, and picking their brains can give you a crucial advantage.

Tip 2: Communicate in Detail & Hone your storytelling skills

This is another tip that was provided by the Harvard student interviewed by Business Insider.  In all your answers and articulations, it’s important to provide real details and specific points and evidence, rather than general, broad answers. Don’t get too long-winded, but whenever possible provide a specific account or tell a short (true) story to illustrate your responses.

Each graduate school interviewer may have to interview dozens or hundreds of candidates in one year.  By honing your skills in telling relevant, interesting stories during the interview, you are more likely to be remembered.    Every year, many qualified candidates are rejected because they just didn’t stand out enough to be chosen.   Use the interview to help yourself stand out in a positive, memorable way.

Tip 3: Know How To Talk About Failure

This is something that’s ignored far too often among graduate school candidates, and really students in general.  In the graduate school interview,  you’re almost certainly going to be asked to describe an instance of failure or explain how you dealt with a setback. So how do you deal with this kind of tricky question? It’s important to answer, rather than spin, the question. In other words, never answer a question like this by immediately turning a failure into a success or positive. It’s perfectly fine to articulate what you learned, but part of the point is demonstrating that you can recognize and accept a mistake, and move on accordingly. Glossing over the question might come across as evasive, immature, or even ignorant.

Tip 4: Ask Intelligent Questions

The idea of entering an interview prepared with some questions to ask is such a common tip that it almost doesn’t bear mentioning again. But a Forbes article giving 10 more tips for acing an MBA interview articulated this tip in a different way: come with some questions about the program, but don’t ask questions whose answers are easily available on the school website or elsewhere.  Your questions are your chance to show that you have looked into the program and you’re curious to learn more—rather than that you’re finding out about things for the first time.

Aside from these tips, it mostly comes down to the specifics of the program and your resume, and how you present yourself. That’s where things get pretty personal, and your best shot at preparation is to practice, practice, practice.   If you’re comfortable stating your case, you know the program, and you use some of the suggestions and ideas above, you should be in wonderful shape to make the strongest possible impression.

Best wishes to your application success.   Let us know in the comment section if you have any questions

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Guest Author: Patti Conner is a freelance writer and business entrepreneur. She lives in Seattle with her family and enjoys cooking and kayaking.

This is a guest post with edits by Lei Han.  If you would like to submit a guest post, please follow these guest post guidelines