Columbia: Calling all applicants - Class of 2016

I applied ED on 9/30, got the invite to interview on 10/15, interviewed on 10/20, and acceptance on 10/23.

GRE-99th verbal
80th quant
96th writing
I took the GRE to give me more options for grad school.
Ten years military experience
Four deployments
Led groups ranging in size from 4-100+
Managed maintenance on ~$850 million worth of assets
Lowish GPA from a good (Top 50 nationally) college
Had great recommendations.

Any military folks (US or international) who have questions, PM me.

This constitutes my very first post, but I've been perusing the website for a long time. You guys have been incredibly helpful, so I wanted to share some hopefully helpful feedback.

By God's grace, I recently got the call for admission to Columbia Business School ('16)! Here is my timeline (early decision) and stats. I'm hoping for equally great news for all of you amazing candidates!

Background:
Male, 26
730 GMAT / AWA 6.0
3.90 4-year GPA from Top 20 U.S. school
4 years WE in Investment Banking (bulge bracket; completed 3 years, now 1st year Associate)
Living in NYC, from CA
Post-MBA: international development / social entrepreneurship

Timeline
Applied 9/30
Interview Invite 10/14
Interviewed 10/23
Feedback submitted 10/24
Admissions call 10/30

General Advice on Interview
The sample questions on blogs such as ClearAdmit are comprehensive and encapsulate all of the questions that you should expect. The best advice I adhered to and received, was to act natural. Yes, it is indeed an interview (and perhaps an interview of a lifetime), but it is important to perceive the interview as a conversation, vs. an interview / job interview. This will allow you to be more natural and more effectively communicate all of the amazing things about you! Also, it is imperative to put some genuine thought into choosing your interviewer. You will receive 6 options, and you should do some proper research into what their backgrounds are, and think about who you would enjoy speaking to most (not necessarily someone in the career path you wish to pursue).

Best of luck to all of you and I hope to see many of you on campus this Fall.

Invite 10/28
Interviewed 10/29
Feedback submitted 10/29
Acceptance 11/07

For all of you worrying to miss the call - I missed mine. I could see that a NY-number called me and got an email two minutes later with a contact that I could reach out to. So no worries

I think they are in the office today.

Veterans Day isn't listed on the university holiday calendar. And they are updating their twitter account.

Good luck to everyone! Fingers crossed!

Just got the call! I had been assuming that this was a lost cause, so here's hoping that my timeline gives any ED applicants still out there some hope!

Applied 10/02
Invited to interview 10/16
Interviewed 10/29
Feedback submitted 11/06
Received call 11/19

Here's my background:

730gmat (45q/45v)
3.74 gpa
5 years work experience (2 as consultant [not M/B/B], 2 with government, 1 with startup)
White male, United States

Hi everyone!! I'm so excited to report that I received the call today!
I'm an ED applicant.
Submitted: Oct 2
Interview received: Oct 25
Interviewed: Nov 12
Feedback submitted: Nov 12
Call received (an excruciating 8 days later): Nov 20 (9:30 am EST)

I know that I was reading this forum obsessively, losing sleep, and wondering if everyone else was going through the same painful ordeal. They are. Hang in there. And stop trying to calculate the number of "ideal" days - there isn't one. And it's not over until it's over GOOD LUCK!!!

Thanks for all the datapoints, guys! Really helpful in easing some of our anxieties!

Had my interview today, figured I'd report on it in case it helps anyone else.

What went well: The interviewer was extremely friendly (recent grad) and the interview was very conversational. I think the fact that she was a recent grad helped a ton in terms of being able to connect. We had very similar backgrounds & career paths, and spent a little over an hour overall.

What could have gone better: There were some questions I got that were pretty difficult (as compared to Stern & Anderson), and different than the interview reports I've seen. I think the interviewer has some flexibility in what he/she asks. I definitely should have spent more time understanding Columbia inside & out, as there were a few situations where he asked me "Do you know about x y & z?" and I did not (I recommend being versed w/the twitter / FB feed).

Overall: I think it went well, although I could've prepared a bit more thoroughly. Obviously make sure you have concrete short-term goals, long-term goals and back-up plans , but also make sure you are comfortable articulating exactly how your unique personal background, work experience, hobbies, and interests have fueled and driven your desire to to get an MBA, particularly at Columbia.

Hope this helps!

I got the call earlier today!

I thought I'd share my timeline for reference in case anyone is keeping track:
Submitted 11/7
Invited to interview 12/19
Interviewed 1/6
Feedback submitted 1/6
Admitted 1/13

Sharing my dates because this forum is amazingly helpful!

Applied: 11/26
Invited to Interview: 12/27
Interviewed: 01/08
Admitted: 01/15

Good luck to all!

FYI for timeline purposes. Just received an interview invite - applied a week or so before Christmas. Probably going to take my name out of the hat.

Congrats on submitting so early, I think you're one of the first at least on GMAT Club. It is hard to say since it changes from year to year. 2 years ago they had an "Under Review" status however last year it never changed from "Submitted." If they use the same process as last year you will get an email update when you are invited to interview. The main page still said "Submitted" but when you click through to the details there would be a big status update at the top of the page with the most recent update.

Yes and no. You'll be much more on your own for a job search, in that you'll be out of sequence from the standard recruiting cycle - you miss out completely on summer internship recruiting obviously, and you don't have that major advantage of having done an internship before going for the main recruiting cycle. If you were to start January 2014 then you'd be technically a "second-year" in August 2014 (you'd have the first two terms under your belt) and that's when the folks starting their first year next month will be second-years so you'd be able to morph in with that group and go through the process with them. As far as we know Columbia doesn't explicit prohibit J-Termers from participating in that full-time job recruiting cycle (by contrast, NYU P/T students cannot do on-campus recruiting with the F/T people), you might want to ask Columbia about this directly. You will be at a disadvantage without the internship though.

Regardless, landing a job after the MBA requires a lot of networking and shoe leather regardless of whether you've got the on-campus recruiting option or not - you'll need to take control of your own destiny as a 2nd year regardless of what school or what track you're in. Anyone who's self-motivated and driven will do just fine.



These questions are technically new this year but conceptually they're not; Columbia has been looking for the same thing in their applicant pool for many, many years. Discussion here.

EssaySnark

Yes, it's more competitive in Regular Decision - as it is with all schools in Round 2. If someone is coming from an oversubscribed candidate pool or has a marginal blemish on the profile, then ED is 'easier' (if there is such a thing!) than RD. The fallacy is when people think that a flawed profile can make it in through ED - that's not what you're asking about but we hear it all the time and that's where the logic breaks down.

And on Stanford and 2%... the entire applicant pool sees a 6% admit rate. That's not the same as a probability of outcome but still, not sure where you're getting your 2% figure. For everybody it's a stretch - but if you're going for the stretch goal, then it's really ruling out Columbia ED. If you're strong enough to get in through Columbia ED then you'll be strong enough in RD, generally speaking.

Here's the big risk in all of it - something that people never ever consider until after the fact:

If you get in through Columbia ED and you don't even apply to Stanford, then you'll almost definitely be kicking yourself with the whole "I wonder...?" thing. We see it happen all the time. People get accepted to one school "too easily" and then they assume they could've gotten into a higher-ranked school. We wrote about it on the EssaySnark blahg a long time ago 'cuz it comes up All. The. Time.

If you feel that you'll be kicking yourself later if you do Columbia w/o Stanford... then start off with Stanford w/o Columbia. If Stanford doesn't pan out, Columbia will be there for Regular Round.

EssaySnark

Thoughts on that are, "Now you're overthinking things."

Truer words have never been said!