The interview was okay, but not what I expected

First let me say that being on the Berkeley campus in a full suit, dress shirt and panty hose is no fun at all. Perky college girls were frolicking on the lawns in flip-flops and tank tops, dudes were rolling by on skateboards, and I felt like everyone was staring at me. Also, panty hose are really itchy and hot on a sunny day. I guess this isn't really news to anyone, but I'm not sure why they're still considered a necessary part of business attire. Seems like it's time for a hosiery revolution. Why couldn't they make them breathable and comfortable?

Other than feeling conspicuous, the whole thing went pretty well. The interview was one on one with a woman who is a part of the admissions committee. She told me that this would be her last semester interviewing applicants and that she was "transitioning out of the role." I'm not sure if that's good or bad. We did have a pleasant and relaxed, if brief, talk. The whole interview was a little more than a half an hour and for at least ten minutes of that time we were talking about her career and her transitioning.

I was expecting a formal interview with some structure. Because it was more like a casual conversation, I'm a little worried that I wasn't hitting points that I should have been hitting. My interviewer did not ask any direct questions, which made it a little difficult to give her the fabulous answers I had worked out in my head.

The two definite negative points in the interview were when she mentioned the following:

1) They were overwhelmed with many more applicants than they expected. She said that there were many more applicants than last year (last year there were 800 for 240 slots). That's pretty steep competition.

2) She said that my weakness is probably that I don't have enough work experience. The average amount of work experience for first-years in the part-time program is higher than the average for the full-time program (seven years vs five years).

Two positive points in the interview were that:

1) She gave me a chance to address only having five years of experience and I think I did a good job of that. Also, if it's just more experience that they want then there's nothing holding me back from applying successfully next year. In fact, it would give me more time to brush up on my calculus (brush up... learn it for the first time, whatev).

2) If the true goal of the interview was to find out if I am a people person and can carry on decent conversation (which it very well could have been), I did a great job. Plus, I look damn good in my suit.

Publishing is such a funny industry. When I got back to the office our CEO stopped me and asked me, "So RB, what is it that you're doing in your day-to-day work that requires you to look so polished?" In any other line of work, would a CEO find a middle manager at his company looking polished abnormal or alarming? Here, I'm using the word polished in place of "not wearing flip-flops." He probably figured I was interviewing for other jobs. I smiled and said I just thought it was time to kick things up a notch in the office. Then I reminded him that today was my interview (which he already knew about -- his advice was that if I was going to pursue an MBA, I needed to make sure that I "don't lose any of [my] charm" -- I'm not complaining, but I'd just like to point out that no one would ever say that to a dude).