futurestrategist
Sorry to hear that guys. I wonder why they dinged us. Any theories? Considering that we applied ED, considerable number of seats were available at the time of our application so I am doubtful that "numbers" caused a flag in our evaluations.
I fall into the Indian Guy in Finance demographic - which is always a tough group to be comped against. Unfortunately, if two people look almost identical on paper, it may come down to just picking the applicant with the higher numbers. My undergrad GPA and GMAT of 3.4 and 710 are both probably on the lower end for my comp group. CBS's two essays also leave very little room to distinguish yourself and flex your creative muscle. Secondly, I'm almost 30, which can also apparently work against you.
I also wasnt thrilled with my interview. Content wise - it was fine, but I was never able to connect with my interviewer on a personal level. He was a nice enough guy, but our interests were different enough and his interview style peculiar enough that we were never able to establish any sort of rhythm/rapport.
That said, I gave CBS my best shot and enough time has passed for this to almost be a nonevent. I had written off CBS as a likely destination after I got deferred and didnt really think about it until a week or two ago. It feels nice to finally have a definitive response from them so that I can move on with the rest of the process. Good luck to all!