Here’s another weekly MBA admissions tip from our friends at Clear Admit. For more advice about the b-school application process, check out their blog.

We’ve been offering a good deal of advice lately on how to conduct oneself and prepare responses to MBA interview questions.  Today we’d like to highlight the importance of thinking about what you might ask. Virtually all business school interviewers conclude their discussion by offering the applicant a chance to ask some questions about the program. While it might be tempting to claim that you’ve already learned all you need to know about the school, this is actually a great opportunity to gain additional insight, show your enthusiasm about a specific element of the curriculum or community, and demonstrate that you appreciate the opportunity to learn from your interviewer’s experiences.

Here are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind while thinking about what you might ask:

1. Focus on the positive. Now is not the time to conduct due diligence or express skepticism about a school’s academic program or career resources. You’re still marketing yourself to the adcom at this stage of the process, so you’ll want to project enthusiasm and demonstrate a desire to become more familiar with a program’s merits and your potential fit.

2. Avoid the obvious and the obscure. Because this is an opportunity to tap the interviewer’s unique knowledge and point of view (and he or she will assume that you did your basic research before applying), it’s best to avoid asking questions that could be answered by perusing the school’s website or speaking with anyone you might happen to encounter on campus. On the other hand, you don’t want to ask something so obscure or specific that your interviewer might not have an answer. Seeking the interviewer’s opinion on or impression of some element of the program often makes for a discussion that both parties will find interesting and enjoyable.

3. Mind your audience. Remember that students, alumni and admissions staff will all have a different perspective on and level of familiarity with the program, and that it’s wise to pose inquiries tailored to his or her experience with the school. For instance, alumni interviewers generally feel strongly about their schools but might not have the most current information on the academic programs and campus culture, so a good question might focus on the classes they have found most useful in their post-graduation career.

We hope that these guidelines are helpful in thinking about how you might approach the end of your discussion, and wish everyone interviewing at business schools in the coming weeks the best of luck!  For personalized interview coaching, mock interviews and school-specific advice, feel free to contact Clear Admit at info@clearadmit.com or investigate the downloadable Clear Admit Interview Guides in our online shop.

Welcome to another installment of our MBA expert series! This week, we were fortunate enough to sit down with MBA admissions expert Walter Hutchinson, founder of ApplicationAdvantage.com, the boutique international admissions advisory, and also founder of MBAdashboard.com, the admissions supersite powered by proprietary technology tools designed specifically for global business school applicants. Walter holds degrees from Columbia University and has lived in North America, Asia and Europe while advising professionals and students representing more than 20 countries.

In your view, how has the admissions process changed over the past twenty years? The past decade?

The pace of everything has sped up, become much more sophisticated, and been transformed into a hotbed of innovation by internet technology. In the ’90s, we still had paper applications. Up to 2004 or so, internet submission was still experimental. Now almost everything is done online. Yet each year, admissions committees still want to know answers to the same questions and students continue to enter the admissions process with the same concerns and in many cases, misconceptions.

The main differences between then and now are three-fold: 1) admissions committees now have a broader range of options for getting to know prospective applicants, 2) a number of admissions strategies have evolved with the availability of interactive media, and 3) the internet has turned admissions seasons into a continuous cycle.

Last year, I actually ran an assessment of popular student strategies using my 1990 admissions work as a baseline, and then compared the 2000 and 2009 evolution of those strategies against 15 admissions demographics to which students belonged. Surprisingly, a number of strategies are still current in 2010, but rapid diffusion of information has made it almost impossible for any student to gain an advantage based on gimmickry or superficiality, because even if an admissions committee hasn’t seen an approach, it can probably be found easily on the internet.

Technology, therefore, forces students to play the game by advanced rules and raises the quality of competition, because students must put more effort into genuinely differentiating themselves. Attempted shortcuts can be instantly checked or assessed in ways that were impossible back in 1990 or even as late as 2000. In fact, the need for greater preparation by students and the increase in competitive pressures at top schools, makes it essential for students to begin preparing far in advance of their target admission round. Long gone are the days when a strong application could easily be completed in less than a week.

I think the process is undergoing a shift which actually benefit students in the longer term, because technology combined with the steps required to substantively improve an admission profile, now encourage future applicants to treat the admissions process as an integral part of their ongoing development – raising odds that committees will gravitate toward them – instead of as “something they have to cram for and get over as soon as possible.”