Ivey AEO Video Interview: Format and Practice Questions
Ivey’s Advanced Entry Opportunity (AEO) is the one business application in Ontario where the written part and the interview are weighted as heavily as your marks. The interview is five recorded questions on the Kira Talent platform, one take, no re-dos. Here is the format, what Ivey says it’s looking for, and fifteen practice questions to run against a clock.
What the AEO application consists of
AEO is a conditional offer: you get into the HBA program from high school and then hold your marks through two years of Western before the program starts. Ivey describes its assessment as a 50/50 balance of academics and leadership, weighed equally. The leadership half is the supplementary application:
- Two activity essays, up to 500 words each, on the two activities that best show your leadership.
- Up to five more activities in point form, for a maximum of seven, each with a verified reference (name, role, phone, email). Ivey says applications without verified references are not considered.
- Awards and distinctions from secondary school.
- A video interview on Kira Talent: five questions, each with a preparation timer and a timed response. About 20 to 30 minutes, completed in one sitting. You can practice as much as you like beforehand; once you start the real one, all five must be done in that attempt.
What Ivey is listening for
Ivey’s own advice to AEO applicants is a three-part structure it calls C.A.R.: Context, Action, Result. Give the background, say what you did and the steps you took, and share what you achieved and the impact. That is the STAR method with the situation and task folded together, and it’s a strong hint about how answers are read: they want to hear what you did and what changed because of it, with the setup kept short.
The other thing to know is that HBA is taught by the case method. A large share of your grade in the program comes from speaking up in a room of seventy classmates, with a view and a reason for it. The video interview is a preview of that. Expect at least one question that hands you a small business situation and asks how you’d think about it, and expect the reviewers to care more about your reasoning than about whether you picked the “right” option.
Fifteen practice questions in the AEO format
These are AcceptMe’s practice questions, written to the style and themes of the Ivey interview: leadership with a measurable result, judgement under constraint, and quick business reasoning. They are not Ivey’s questions; nobody outside Ivey has those. Practice on a timer with questions you haven’t seen, because that is the skill being tested.
- Tell us about something you started or grew where you can point to a specific number that proves your impact: dollars raised, members added, hours saved.
- You are treasurer of a student club that has just discovered a $2,000 deficit three weeks before its biggest event. Walk us through how you would decide whether to cut costs, fundraise, or scale the event down.
- Describe a time two members of your team disagreed so strongly that the work stalled. What did you actually do, and how did the project end up?
- A friend’s family runs a coffee shop whose sales have dropped 20 percent since a chain opened across the street. They ask for your advice. What are the first three questions you would ask them, and why those three?
- Tell us about the toughest piece of feedback you have received from a coach, teacher or teammate. How did you respond in the weeks that followed?
- Walk us through a week when you had more commitments than hours. How did you decide what to drop, what to delegate, and what to do yourself?
- Describe a setting where you had to contribute ideas in real time, in front of people who might disagree, and how you made your voice count.
- Imagine you discover that a teammate inflated the attendance numbers in a sponsorship report your club has already sent to a corporate partner. What do you do in the next 24 hours?
- Tell us about a contribution you made to your school or community that outlasted your own involvement. What did you build so it kept running without you?
- Where do you want to be ten years after graduation, and what evidence from your track record so far suggests you will actually get there?
- Describe a time you found an unconventional solution because the obvious approach was too expensive or too slow.
- Tell us about a time you realised a quieter teammate had the best idea in the room. How did you make sure it was heard?
- Your student council can sell 500 hoodies at a $10 margin or 150 premium jackets at a $35 margin, but volunteer hours only allow one. How would you decide, and what single piece of information would change your answer?
- An AEO offer means sustaining high marks for two more years before you set foot in HBA. What systems keep your grades where they are while you do everything else?
- Describe a time you had to get a group of peers moving on something when you held no title. What levers did you actually pull?
A worked answer
Question 13 above is the kind that separates applicants. It looks like arithmetic and it isn’t; both options make $5,000 or so. The reviewers want to see you notice that and then reason about what isn’t in the question.
The first thing I’d notice is that the margins are nearly the same: 500 times ten is $5,000 and 150 times thirty-five is $5,250. So the money doesn’t decide it. What decides it is risk and effort. Selling 500 of anything to a school means reaching most of the student body, and if we only sell 300 we’ve made $3,000 and we’re holding 200 hoodies. Selling 150 premium jackets means finding a smaller group willing to spend more, which is usually the grads and the sports teams, and if we fall short we’re holding expensive stock. I’d lean toward the jackets, because the marketing effort per sale is lower when you’re targeting a group you can name. The one piece of information that would flip me is whether we have to pay for the stock up front. If we do, the hoodies are the safer bet because the downside is smaller. If we can take pre-orders, jackets, and I’d set a minimum order before we commit.
Notice what the answer does: checks the numbers in one breath, names the real variable, commits to a choice, and answers the second half of the question with a concrete condition. It doesn’t hedge, and it doesn’t pretend there’s a formula.
Preparing the written part so the interview is easier
Your two 500-word activity essays are the stories the interview will draw on. Write them first, properly, with a number in each result. Then pull three or four more stories from your point-form activities and build them out in the same shape, even though nobody will read those versions. By the time you sit down for the video interview you should have six or seven leadership stories with a Context, Action and Result already in your head, so the prep timer is for choosing, not inventing.
The leadership questions guide covers what “leadership” means to admissions readers and why a title isn’t an answer. The video interview guide covers the one-take format itself.
Mistakes specific to the AEO
- Treating the practice questions as the real thing. Kira’s practice mode teaches you the interface. It doesn’t give you unseen questions on a clock, which is the actual skill.
- Describing your activities list instead of one moment from it. The reviewers have your list. In the interview, go narrow.
- No numbers. Ivey asks for measurable impact in the written part and it’s listening for it in the video too. “We raised a lot” is a missed opportunity every time.
- Refusing to decide on the business questions. “It depends” is fine as a first sentence and fatal as a last one.
- Forgetting the second half of the question. AEO questions often have two parts. Under time pressure students answer the first and run out of clock.
Keep reading
- Supplementary Applications in Ontario: Every Program Compared Every Ontario business and engineering program with a supplementary application: what each asks, the video and written timings, and all the deadlines.
- Leadership Interview Questions for Students (With Answers) How to answer leadership interview questions without a title: eight common questions, two sample answers and what admissions actually listens for.
- Rotman Commerce Supplemental Application: Questions and Tips Rotman Commerce supplemental application format, a sample pre- shared video answer and fifteen practice questions for the random video and written parts.
- Ivey AEO Essays: How to Answer Both Questions The two written AEO questions broken down, with worked examples and how to keep your essays from repeating your video interview.
- Kira Talent Interview Questions and How to Practice Ontario's most common supplementary video platform, explained: practice questions, prep time, retakes, notes, and what schools actually score.