Columbia 2013 (CBS) - Calling All Applicants

Sorry to hear this bananas. Dont worry though, you got interviewed, m sure your profile is good and probably your essays as well. Im sure youll get in elsewhere. Where all did u apply/are applying?

Sorry to hear that bananas. I find the whole admissions process to be a huge blackbox and it is impossible to gauge your chances at getting into any top tier program (even if you're super qualifited).

On the "Application Status" pg. does it update when they start looking at your app?

I am in.. !!! So relieved after 3 months of stress....

@Bananas, sorry to hear.... Good luck for the rest of your applicationts I am sure you will succeed...

What are you stats akinakbiyik??? GMAT, GPA, WE??

So sorry Bananas

And congratulations akinakbiyik.

720, 3.6, 3 years top-tier management consulting firm, international...

I submitted my application in june so if you submitted in july or August dont stress to much they are rolling

Congrats @ akinakbiyik!

@ Bananas, my sincerest apologies. You've been an active contributor to this board and we are all grateful to you. Just for comparative purposes, would you be willing to share your GMAT/GPA #'s with us?

Of course. Can't quit now!

GMAT: 710 (48q, 40v), 3.5 GPA, 2 Yrs of IB, 2 Yrs of PE (both fairly name brand firms). I've had some unemployment on my resume, but just as natural course of the industry and economy. I addressed it in my app.

I will be applying to more, for sure.

Best of luck to you all!

Thanks, @ Bananas. Go have a few beers. You damn sure deserve em'.

I know there were issues with the PDF reader earlier this summer. It seems that most of the bugs have been fixed, but the explanations for activities seems to be cutting off at one line. Does anyone know if admissions will still receive the entire explanation or should I shorten my answers to one line each?

Here's an answer someone else asked the adcoms regarding the PDF reader. Hope it helps!


I wouldn't shorten my answer to one line each. Even though CBS has fixed most of the bugs with the pdf reader, this is the one they haven't fixed.

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.

Hello. guys.

It's 9:16 pm but I am still working in the office.

I have one question for an application.

I am a reapplicant. I am applying for ED and just started on-line application.

I read that a reapplicant should update "Employment" “Personal,” “Family,”,“Education,” and “Extracurricular Activities” sections of the online application.

I am confused here. It says "update" . Do I have to use my previous application which I submitted last year? or Do I have to create a new application?

Thank you in advance.

I created a brand new application and updated everything. I wanted to make sure it was all perfect.

Oh my gosh!! I was gonna do CBS Round 1 but really dont think I'm ready!!! Is it horrible to push to Round 2???

CBS doesn't have rounds. If you're referring to Early Decision (binding) or Regular Decision, ED might give you a little bit of a boost, but applying early in the RD pool will not really hurt you. Plus, if CBS is not your top school, you shouldn't commit yourself with ED, as the $6k seat deposit is a good chunk of money you may be forfeiting.

As for when to apply regular decision -- it's rolling without specific "rounds," but I was at the Spotlight on Women event last Friday, and one of the adcoms noted that CBS sees a huge spike on Jan 6, the deadline for merit fellowship consideration. If you want to make sure there are enough seats available for you, you should definitely try to apply by late Nov/December to avoid being in this spike (when they'll have tons of people to compare you to...). Obviously if you don't need the fellowship and think your app will be substantially stronger after this deadline, go for it, but the rule of thumb that the adcoms gave at the event was to apply by Nov/Dec for your best shot at regular decision.

Good luck!

Does anyone know if Columbia's online application system provides specific status updates like they did last year. Specifically do they inform you when the application goes from "submitted" to "under review". I submitted my application for the J-term nearly 2 weeks ago and my application still hasn't gone into "under review" or "complete" so I was concerned. Also, does anyone know if re applicants who interviewed and were subsequently dinged during their first application to CBS will be asked to interview again? Or is the decision rendered just based off the first interview? Thanks.