Columbia 2012 - Calling All Applicants

Congratulations are premature. I meant I shall be reapplying as an ED applicant.

Good luck!

I got the acceptance call yesterday (8/4).

Friendly advice:
I know this is easy for me to say now, but don't beat yourself up - the admissions process/length is different for different applicants - you'll get your call soon.I was beating myself up over the last week since some J-Termers who had interviewed at the same time as me had gotten accepted, but I hadn't. And then 2 days ago, I read this blog post that seemed to speak to me. Here is a snippet:

Are there any myths about the admissions process you would like to debunk?

Sara: I think after you’ve shipped off your application the blogs can do more harm than help. Some of the blogs had nonsense about the exact time of day that Derrick Bolton makes his famous calls and applicants posting when they got the call and their location to try and track his telephonic path around the globe. This stuff can make you crazy if you think the magic time has passed. I got my call later in the evening than I’d call a grandparent. That’s a lot of unnecessary angst!

wishnuv: CONGRATS!

Mm

Columbia has the Chazen instate for International Business...

Does anyone know how to pronounce 'Chazen'? I can't figure out if it's pronounced 'Chaz-en' or 'Shaz-en'. (a CH sound like in choke, or a SH sound like in shaw)

I don't want to mispronounce this in the interview. Can any current or past students help me out?

Nevermind, I figured it out.

For anyone who is interested, it's pronounced 'Chay-zen' (the ch sounds like the ch in choke)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/user/ColumbiaBus ... HR61NFm0v8

MDF, I'm not sure if you ever got an answer.

CBS provides both to your recommender, but they prefer that the recommender complete the questions online rather than attaching a document.

I think it makes it easier to print your application correctly if the LOR is entered directly into the website.

Hope this helps

Did anyone have a phone interview? Are there any pros/cons of a phone interview with a current student versus a one-on-one interview with an alum?

The prospect of arranging an interview with the two alum in my city is starting to look grim. One has responded, but she's unavailable until the end of the month.

I'm thinking that I'd rather arrange a phone interview than wait another 2-3 weeks for an interview with an alum. Especially since the e-mail from CBS states "we strongly recommend you arrange your interview within two weeks of this invitation."

Anyone think events in the financial markets over the past two weeks will cause Columbia to delay decisions in anticipation of an applications bump accompanying a possible (likely?) double dip?

That is hard to say. I would be really surprised if schools tied their application review schedules to panics in the market.

I still think that like last year, applications will be down this year. The job situation is not nearly as bad as it was two years ago and people who have jobs may not want to give them up just yet.

Facebook Group for J-Term Admits:
Columbia Business School J-Term MBA - Class of 2013: https://www.facebook.com/groups/138945262861223/

Hmmm looking for the overall Mission Statement for CBS and came across these items:

Community Contract: https://cbsgba.com/culture/community-contract
Honor Code: https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/honor/
Columbia University Mission Statement: https://www.columbia.edu/content/mission-statement.html

I'll keep digging around but hopefully this holds you over for a bit. You could also try emailing the GBA president, who probably wouldn't be a bad person to get to know anyway.

Columbia gives so much space in those recommendation boxes, does it look bad if the recommender only used 1000 of the 2000 characters most of the time?

easy question: the word limits for Columbia essays are just guidelines or it is a strict rule?
thanks.

If you're within 5% of the limit you're probably fine (10% may be OK too but its starting to push things). Also, I think that CBS probably looks at the overall length of the essay versus the actual word count -- ie, if your average word is the length of "antidisestablishmentarianism" your essay with the same number of words will be much longer than an essay with the average word length of "the." If your characters:word ratio is high, I'd stick to the limits; if char:word is low, you might have more leeway.

That said, I'm pretty sure the adcoms aren't going to think "Man, if I could have just gotten one more sentence on the corollary between her cats and her goal of working in consulting, I think we would have admitted her." You almost assuredly have some fat to cut in your essay, so just cut it. Most essays would probably be stronger without their weakest sentence anyway.

I'm also trying to get into the Value Investing program, planning to submit my ED application in 2012 for admit in 2013. I'm taking the GMAT this December. Anybody else have info into how competitive this program is? I spoke with an Hermes representative and all she said was that the "classes are very popular".

ED app submitted last night, fingers crossed