Interview/Acceptance Notification

Everything is done by email for Columbia. Are you applying ED or Regular? If you are applying regular decision then you won't start getting reviewed until Dec anyways. If you are applying ED then it will depend on when you submit. I already received an interview invite for ED so they are already going out if you submitted early. Either way they "highly recommend" that you contact your interviewer within 2 weeks and conduct the interview within 4 weeks of the notification. So it's not like you have to interview the same week you get the invitation. I'm in the same boat in terms of traveling. I got the invite yesterday but I'm in the arctic circle for a while so obviously my interview is going to have to wait a bit. The admissions committee understands that people have busy schedules when applying to school.