Columbia 2013 (CBS) - Calling All Applicants

Thought I might do an interview debrief for those who are still watching and waiting, because I have nothing better to do and am already starting to get antsy. I hate that CBS' app status tracker this year doesn't actually show status changes -- so we have no way to know if the interviewer submitted the feedback form or not yet

Anyway, got my interview invite on 9/12. Got the names of my potential interviewers on 9/13 and emailed the first one on the list that day. She had already moved out of my area, and responded quickly, so I emailed the second interviewer also on Thursday. No response, so Monday night emailed the third person -- was getting really nervous at this point that no one would response. Thankfully the third person on my list responded, and we set the interview up for Saturday morning (9/23)

The interview itself was a LOT more formal than I expected from what I've read here on the boards. I know all interviewers have their own style, but mine was a very recent grad and asked to meet at a coffeeshop instead of a workplace, so I assumed it might be a little more relaxed. Nope - all in business attire, and had a portfolio spread out on the table with my resume and a notepad. Felt a lot like a job interview, actually. My interviewer was definitely cordial and spoke very passionately and positively about the community at CBS, but I'm not sure what to think overall because it pretty aloof and professional throughout.

Questions:
- tell me about yourself -- used this to launch into a very broad interview of my resume and how I got where I am. There weren't that many resume specific questions, though.
- why MBA, esp with my background
- why CBS?
- lots of CBS-specific questions: how much did I know about the core and flex-core, and how I wanted to use this to achieve my goals? Specific classes and clubs I was interested in? Other opportunities I might want to look into? This was definitely IMO the biggest chunk of the questions and where my interviewer dug in the most, and it matched up pretty well with Essay 1b (where they ask you to watch the diversity video). My advice to future interviewees: really get to know the CBS methodology, class structure, clubs, etc!
- tell me of a time you faced adversity, and follow-ups to this: what makes a good leader and why you are a good leader, how you might bring that to your studies and to your learning teams, etc.
This took somewhere around 35-40 minutes.

Then my interviewer let me ask questions about the various opportunities at CBS, clubs, etc. The emphasis was definitely on COMMUNITY, getting involved in clubs, learning from other people both in classes and in social settings, etc. The feeling I got was that he wasn't feeling me out so much in terms of why I wanted to get an MBA, but how I might be able to fit into the intellectual and esp. the social community of CBS. He really stressed that you go to CBS not for the hard skills as much as for the networking and soft skills and the people.

Total interview time - a little over an hour. Overall, I feel pretty ambivalent about it -- we talked a lot and my interviewer was friendly but so formal that I couldn't get any specific vibes off of him. Worries me, compared to some of the really enthusiastic interview debriefs I've read here and on other sites...

Anyway, hope this helps some of you out there preparing for your own interviews! For me, it's now just time to settle in, wait, and try to stop worrying either way.