Arrange a Campus Visit

Our graduate assistants will try to organize your visit around your individual background, interests and goals. The unpredictability of your travel schedule, the availability of student hosts and the activities of a certain class on any given day prevent us from guaranteeing that we will be able to fulfill everyone's desires all of the time. Regardless of the class you attend, the host you meet or the duration of your stay, we know you will find your visit to Vanderbilt to be a pleasant and productive experience.

Many applicants consider it ideal to complete an admissions interview while visiting campus; however, it is not required. You may skip the evaluative interview during your visit, or you may replace it with an informational meeting with a member of the Admissions Committee. When limited interview slots are available, priority is given to the most competitive applicants.

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Our guests usually wear business professional attire when interviewing. Otherwise, most campus visitors wear business casual attire.

No. In general, you are encouraged to visit campus at least once because it is the best way to introduce yourself to members of the Owen community and to learn about the Vanderbilt MBA program, the university and Nashville. If you have not visited campus before receiving an offer of admission, we strongly encourage you to visit before you make a final decision about attending Vanderbilt. Most candidates prefer to visit during the academic year while classes are in session. However, we encourage you to visit at any time.

It depends. The availability of hosts, suitability of classes, number of visitors and other demands on our resources often make it difficult to arrange for you to attend more than one class during your campus visit. Our graduate assistants will work with you to make sure you get the most out of your visit to Vanderbilt.

During a personalized campus visit, you will be introduced to a student host, who will take you to his or her class, introduce you to faculty and fellow students and accompany you to lunch. After lunch, you can participate in a small group discussion with a member of our Career Management Center. You can arrange an evaluative interview or information session with a member of the Admissions Committee as a part of your visit.

No. We recognize that it's not possible for everyone to travel to campus, especially in the middle of the work week or from far away. Once your application has been submitted and reviewed, if we feel we need more information, you may receive an invitation to schedule an interview. This can be done in one of two ways: (1) we will conduct your interview when we visit a city near you (we travel all over the world), or (2) we will conduct your interview via video chat. However, we still strongly believe in the value of a trip to Owen, Vanderbilt and Nashville so you can get a better idea of our environment.

Many applicants consider it ideal to complete an admissions interview while visiting campus; however, it is not required. You may skip the evaluative interview during your visit, or you may replace it with an informational meeting with a member of the Admissions Committee. Interviews may be conducted regardless of whether you have submitted an application. When limited interview slots are available, priority is given to the most competitive applicants.

The interview is an important component of the application and provides you an opportunity to share your story. Through the interview, we hope to hear more examples of the types of experiences you have had in both your personal and your professional life and to get a sense of your demonstrated record of achievement, your interpersonal and communication skills and your motivation for seeking an MBA degree.

The interview usually lasts 30 to 40 minutes. In general, the goal of the interview is to assess your maturity, judgment, professionalism, initiative, interpersonal and team skills, communication skills and ability to think critically.

There is no advantage in our admissions decision-making process. However, campus visits are the best way for you to get a firsthand look at the Vanderbilt MBA program. You can attend a class, go to lunch with a current student, interview with an admissions officer and attend an information session with Career Management Center staff. Vanderbilt wants to enroll students who are excited about life at Owen and in Nashville. Visiting campus is one way to demonstrate this passion.

We conduct a structured conversational interview. We are interested in evaluating all candidates on a common set of criteria, but we also want to discover your individual story, unique talents and personal ambitions. Your interpersonal skills, communication abilities and professional presence are at least as important as the specific content of the interview. We expect that you will wear professional attire and bring a copy of your current résumé if you have not applied. If we have your application, we will have a copy of your résumé.

An evaluative interview is required before an offer of admission can be extended, but not all applicants may be interviewed. Regardless of your status in the application process, we encourage you to schedule an interview in conjunction with a campus visit or during one of our recruiting trips by emailing your résumé and GMAT test scores with the location and date of your interview request. Off-campus interview appointments are limited, and priority is given to candidates who have more than two years of full-time work experience, a GMAT or GRE score and a submitted application. If you are unable to interview with an admissions director on campus or in a city near you, you may be invited to interview via a video call only after all required application materials have been received and evaluated by MBA Admissions staff. If you are invited to interview, we email you with instructions for scheduling an appointment to interview via a video call.

Your application will be evaluated without the interview, and we will contact you by email with instructions for scheduling an interview if you are a competitive applicant. For candidates who have not completed an interview, we allow two weeks for processing and preliminary review after each deadline, then four weeks for those candidates to complete their visits and interviews and another two weeks for final decisions. You may hear sooner than the published notification deadline. After the fourth round of admissions, decisions are made on a rolling basis.