Dates – Early Decision, submitted 09/30/09, under review 10/01/09, interview invite 10/26/09, interview date 11/11/09, report complete 11/18/09, accepted 11/19/09
Atmosphere – Arranging the interview took some doing as a number of the local alums proposed by the interview invite website were out of the country or no longer at the posted email addresses (they hadn’t updated their Columbia Lifetime forwarding email). Once I got in touch with her, my eventual interviewer was eager to get together, and we met at a swank but quiet coffee shop near her firm (relatively new consulting firm, with an operations focus). The interview was conversational, and she laid the list of questions Columbia gave her to ask on the table (literally, we just walked through them and answered them in order right there).
She had a copy of my resume, but not the rest of my application. We finished them all in about 30 minutes and the interview ran another hour and half or so, for a total of two hours (which I took as a good sign). She was eager to talk about how great CBS is. She was also an atypical applicant (she had built a business from the ground up before Columbia), and we shared an interest in corporate ethics.
Questions -Why Columbia? Specifically, why not Stanford given my med device background and interest in early stage companies? (I’ve been there for 6 years, built deep inroads, wanted to expand to a new network, skill sets, institutional culture). Why now? (After med school, working in a surgical dept, med device work in startups and academia) What will I bring to Columbia? – Softball for Healthcare folks in the current environment. Leadership example (I used one from when I was at the very bottom of the medical totem pole in an ICU but was able to get a study off the ground anyway) Teamwork example (I used a startup that I worked with during their early product development in the crunch time before Series A funding) Example of a time I faced an ethical dilemma – she pushed for an “MBA-type” rather than “MD-type” dilemma. I managed to pull one together regarding a clinical trial of a device. What career am I pursuing and why? This one answered itself.
Commentary – The key points for me is to know yourself, WHY you are doing this, why Columbia, and stick to your guns in regards to your beliefs. We got into a pretty passionate back-and-forth regarding how business education impacts corporate ethics, and educational theory in general. I think we both came away feeling like the other person had a strong and reasonable point of view, even if we were miles apart. She said she hoped I got in but couldn’t guarantee anything one way or the other, and that she was sure that I would benefit my classmates (and vice versa) at any MBA program. Asked me to stay in touch.
Overall – a very enjoyable and relaxed interview, collegial. Reinforced all the reasons I love CBS, and thankfully I got in.
