Wharton is still the only M7 school that interviews you in a group. Round 1 invitations for the Class of 2029 went out on October 28, 2026, and this year's prompt came with them. That usually leaves you a week or two to get ready for a format most applicants have never done before.
We've coached a lot of people through it. Admissions Gateway has 188 Wharton admits since 2023, 49 of them in our 2026 intake alone (confirmed acceptances only). What follows is the advice we give our own candidates, updated for this cycle.
How the Wharton interview works in 2026-2027
The structure hasn't changed. Wharton runs a 35-minute virtual Team-Based Discussion (TBD) on Zoom with five or six randomly assigned applicants, followed by a 10-minute one-on-one with a member of the admissions team. All of it happens online.
Inside those 35 minutes, the flow usually looks like this:
- Introductions and one-minute opening pitches, roughly 5 to 6 minutes for the whole group
- Open discussion, roughly 25 minutes
- A final team presentation to the observer, roughly 5 minutes
Log in about 10 minutes early. There's usually a short window for introductions before the moderator starts. Use it to learn names and what everyone does. That's it. Don't pitch, don't strategize. Knowing that one teammate works in healthcare and another in edtech will help you far more at minute 18 than anything you could say at minute zero.
The 2026-2027 TBD prompt: design a school-wide trek
Here's this year's prompt in full:
Treks are a popular part of the Wharton MBA experience outside the classroom. They combine company visits and alumni events with time exploring a city alongside classmates. They give students a shared experience, connect them with employers, and build lasting relationships between those employers and the school. Most treks are organized by student clubs around a shared industry or regional interest.
This year, MBA Career Management, in partnership with Wharton Alumni Relations, will pilot something different: a school-wide trek open to MBA students across all career interests. The destination will be a city with a growing economy across multiple industries, where the alumni community provides Wharton with a foundation for new recruiting partnerships. The trek has three goals:
- Give students with a wide range of career goals a valuable shared experience
- Build new employer relationships in a city where Wharton is expanding its reach
- Respond to regional alumni clubs that have asked for more engagement with current students
For the purposes of this discussion, you and a few classmates have been asked to select a city that meets these criteria and design the trek, which will take place over spring break. Wharton will handle travel logistics and costs, which are outside your team's scope. Assume a group of about 40 students and four days in the city.
As a team, decide on the following:
- The destination for your trek, and why it is the right place for students with a wide range of career goals
- A recommendation for company visits and/or meetings with business leaders, including how the mix of organizations will serve students across industries and open new recruiting relationships for Wharton
- An alumni event or experience that gives the city's alumni club meaningful engagement with current students and builds lasting ties between Wharton and the city's business community
- How you will measure the trek's success, and what follow-up will turn contacts made on the trip into relationships worth building on next year
How to read it
For the last few years, Wharton's prompts asked teams to build something inside the school: a course, an Impact Community, a Leadership Intensive. This one points outward. The trek still has to work for students, but it also gets judged on whether it opens doors with new employers and gives a regional alumni club something worth showing up for. That's three audiences, and a good plan serves all of them at once.
The city is where most groups will spend their energy, so read the criteria closely. Wharton wants "a growing economy across multiple industries," which rules out a one-industry town for a group of 40 people with 40 different career goals. It also wants a place "where Wharton is expanding its reach," which is hard to argue for a city where Wharton already recruits heavily. The strongest picks will likely sit between those two: enough alumni to build on, not yet a core recruiting hub. We'll leave the actual choice to you.
There's no budget this time, since Wharton covers travel and costs. Don't let that make the plan loose. Four days and 40 students is a real constraint. Think about how many company visits a group that size can realistically do in a day, and whether splitting into smaller tracks for part of the trip helps you cover more industries.
The last bullet deserves more time than most groups will give it. Measuring success came up in earlier prompts too, but this year Wharton also asks what happens after the trip. Who owns the new employer relationships once the trek ends? What does the alumni club get next year? A team that answers that clearly will sound like it has actually run something.
Last year's prompt: design a Leadership Intensive
(This is the prompt from last year, the 2025-2026 cycle, for the 2026 intake.)
"Wharton invites your team to propose a new Leadership Intensive (LI) to address increasing student interest."
Leadership Intensives are short, immersive, group-based experiences that run one to two days. Last year's proposal had to be designed for Wharton MBA students and "operate within a pilot budget of $25,000." Partner fees, facilitator payments, site or equipment rentals, and materials all counted against that number. Transportation was arranged by Wharton and sat outside the team's budget. Teams also had to anchor the program in a central leadership theme, set specific learning outcomes, work out how they'd assess whether participants actually picked up the skills, and show how the LI supports Wharton's mission.
Before that, in 2023-2024, teams designed a course on a cutting-edge business topic for Wharton's Pre-baccalaureate Program, aimed at high school students. In 2024-2025, they proposed a new Impact Community on an emerging global issue, with partner organizations, Wharton and Penn resources, and learning outcomes. The details change every year. The core ask doesn't: a specific audience, clear outcomes, and a way to know if it worked.
Building your one-minute pitch
The pitch is the one part of the TBD you fully control, so people over-invest in it. Don't. It's one minute out of 45.
Most people speak about 120 words a minute comfortably. Write to 120 words, rehearse to 55 seconds, and you'll still land under 1:05 on a nervous day. A 150-word pitch will run long, and running long in a timed group exercise is a poor first impression.
You can't cover all four deliverables in a minute, so don't try. For this year's prompt, lead with your city and why it fits all three goals, add one concrete idea (a company mix or an alumni event), and stop. If you've lived in, worked in, or done business with that city or region, say so. Your background is what makes the idea yours.
Pitches typically go in alphabetical order by first name, so if yours starts with A, be ready the moment the moderator kicks things off. If someone before you proposes the same city, take five seconds to acknowledge it and show what you'd add. Don't prepare backup pitches to swap in on the fly. Wharton says the TBD looks at communication style, engagement, leadership, and decision-making. "Had the winning idea" isn't on that list.
The discussion: 25 minutes goes fast
Once pitches wrap, you realistically have about 25 minutes to talk and still need to save 3 to 5 for the presentation. Split across five or six people and four deliverables, that isn't much.
The single most useful move is proposing a structure early: which parts of the prompt you'll tackle, in what order, and roughly how long each gets. With this prompt, settling the city fast matters, because nothing else can move until you have one. Offer the structure as a suggestion. Assigning presentation sections early helps too, since it frees everyone from frantic note-taking.
Keep one thing in mind throughout. Wharton wants to see how you work with people. A strong group often sends several people through, so you aren't competing with the other five.
Roles worth knowing
Wharton is explicit that there's no expected role. Still, it helps to know the ones that come up naturally, so you can step into whatever the group is missing.
- Facilitator. Proposes the structure at the start, keeps things moving, and helps land the conclusion. A natural fit if you're comfortable kicking things off, though it's the easiest role to overdo.
- Moderator. Steps in when the group stalls or splits, builds consensus, and makes sure competing views get a fair hearing.
- Timekeeper. Tracks the clock against the agreed plan and calls the move to the presentation. A good way in if you find it hard to break into fast conversations.
- Engager. Notices who hasn't spoken and brings them in, ideally with a question tied to their background. Underrated, and one of the clearest ways to show leadership without taking over.
Most strong candidates move between these. Nobody needs a label.
What to avoid
- Competing with your teammates. If you're the Monica Geller type, dial it down. Wharton wants collaboration, and sore losers are memorable for the wrong reasons.
- Going off on a tangent. A long story or a brand-new idea with eight minutes left can derail the group. Don't pull a Ted Mosby.
- Talking just to fill airtime. If you've been quiet for a while, a forced point sounds forced. Take on timekeeping or bring someone else in.
- Talking over people. Quick wit is great, but this isn't the room for Tony Stark. Be the Captain America who makes sure everyone gets heard.
- Being dismissive. You can and should push back on a weak idea. Point out where it falls short, kindly, and move the group forward.
- Burying yourself in notes. You need to be present. If sections are assigned, each person only tracks their own part.
- Digging in. Defend your city once, clearly. If the group lands elsewhere, let it go.
The presentation
Move to the presentation at about the 25-minute mark, even if not every detail is settled. A complete, clear plan beats a perfect half-plan. Cover your section, hand off to the next person by name, and keep it tight.
As soon as it ends, start thinking about how it went. You're probably about to be asked.
The 10-minute one-on-one
After the TBD you'll move to a waiting room, then into a breakout room for a 10-minute conversation with a member of the admissions team. Expect around three questions. Ones applicants have reported over the years include:
- Tell me about yourself, or walk me through your resume
- Why an MBA, and why Wharton?
- What are your short- and long-term goals?
- How would you contribute to Wharton?
- What do you do outside work?
- What challenge do you anticipate at Wharton?
- How do you think the discussion went? What could the group have done differently?
- Is there anything else you'd like us to know?
- Do you have any questions for me?
Most of these are standard MBA interview territory. The TBD reflection is the one that's unique to Wharton, and Wharton's own interview page says the one-on-one asks you to reflect on how you did. Answer it honestly and generously. Credit specific teammates for what they did well, name one or two things the group could have done better, be candid about your own part, and end on something positive. It's a short answer, not a confession.
Practicing before your TBD
The TBD is hard to practice alone, because the real skill is reading a group in real time. If you've received a Wharton invite and want reps, join our Wharton TBD community on WhatsApp, where this year's invited applicants are finding each other to practice.
We've also set up a free peer-to-peer practice sheet. Each tab is a date. Propose a time (in ET), add your name to a group of up to six participants, or sign up as an observer if you'd rather watch one first. You can add new groups too, and each group sorts out its own logistics over email.
If you want something more focused, Rajdeep Chimni is running a live Wharton TBD workshop on November 1 at 10:30 AM EST / 9:00 PM IST. He'll break down the trek prompt and how to build your pitch around it. The workshop also includes a mock TBD with a senior counselor and practice sessions with Wharton alumni. Details are on our Wharton interview prep page.
Whichever route you take, do at least one full, timed run before the real thing. Thirty-five minutes feels very different once you've watched it disappear.