Calling all Columbia Applicants for 2009!

Usually you only have to send it if you are admittd. Call and ask, or wait for the answer on b-week.

I would suggest sticking to limits that they ask for. According to a post on thebusiness week forums from a member of the adcom, it seems that it is 3 activities , your position, dates, and anything pertinent,but no lengthy descriptions. And yes, it was specified that it would be 3 EC's in 400 characters. I would say it leaves room for a sentence description for each activity.

Alright guys, confirmed on Businessweek - as terp said, 400 characters total for 3 EC's, not per EC. Official GMAT scores required only if an offer of admission is made.

Wow that's horrible. I guess Columbia doesn't care about ECs. I was really counting on using my app to talk about some ECs since they don't fit cleanly into any of my essays (except for a brief mention in number 1). I need to think about how to handle this. I have certain ECs that I'm not ok with having 0 mention of in my entire app. For every other school you at least have room in the app form and/or resume to briefly discuss ECs that don't fit into your essays.

400 charactors with or without space? I assume without.

I was just wondering the same thing. When you say without - do you mean that you're assuming they don't count your spaces towards the 400 character limit?

I just went through and chopped down my activities descriptions. Its under 400 characters if you don't include the spaces. Over 400 if you do.

Yeah. I assume they are not counting the space.

How many people are planning to submit on 13th?

I was thinking to submit on 13th. But, just realize that one of my recommendater hasn't even start yet Given how long the recommendation form is for Columbia, I say a month at least. Maybe Aug. 20th now....

How did you get the recommendation form for this year's application? Is it the same as last year's? Is the form available on the website?

Thanks.

I think I read somewhere in an admissions book that getting your app in the first day or few days is probably not a good thing since you will be competing with all the applicants with all stellar apps that want to be the first person to submit and you may get lost in the shuffle. J

I think it includes spaces.

It's online https://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/mba/learnmore/applynow

If either you or your recommender would like to view the online recommendation questions, they are listed below. (Please note the below questions are those in the September 2009 ED and RD applications. These are only slightly revised from the January 2009 application recommendation questions.)

1. What is your relationship to, and how long have you known the applicant? Is this person still employed by your organization? If not, when did he/she depart?

2. Please provide a short list of adjectives describing the applicant’s strengths, and please compare the applicant’s performance to that of his or her peers.


3. Please comment on the applicant’s growth during his/her employment with you and on his or her ability to work with others, including superiors, peers, and subordinates.


4. In what ways could the applicant improve professionally? How does he/she accept constructive criticism?

5. Comment on your observations of the applicant’s ethical behavior.

6. What do you think motivates the candidate’s application to the MBA program at Columbia Business School?

7. If you could change one thing about the applicant, what would it be?

8. Are there any other matters which you feel we should know about the applicant?

Hmmm... You think they pick out certain # of people in one day of submission?

So you think spaces count towards the 400 character limit? What is the consensus on this? I'm over 400 if you count the spaces and under 400 if you don't

I was looking at other apps and Columbia seems to give you the least amount of space to talk about activities of any app. They don't even let you submit a resume where you can talk briefly about your activities.

How are people doing on the essays? My essay 1 is still at 900 words or so and I can't find a single additional word I'm willing to cut. I think I've grown to attached . Getting down to 750 is going to be really tough. I might cheat a bit and use 800.

Well, I know that when company web sites set up web based email pages so their customers email them, these text boxes usually have character limits, which includes the spaces between the words. So I am just assuming that its become common knowledge that spaces are counted. To guesstimate the number of words, I usually assume that an average word is 5 characters, plus 1 space. So 400 / (5+1) = 67 words. So if you've been involved with 4 activities, thats about 15 words per activity. Tight.

well its 3 activity limit for college and 3 for post college so not too bad

So basically, assuming I'm going to list 6 activities, thats about 12 words per activity, which probably breaks down to activity name, role, dates, and locations. not much left for anything more than that.