My interview was with a Columbia alumnus, and we met in a quiet coffee lounge. He seemed fairly laid back, which made the interview easy for me, but very difficult to ‘read’ his reaction. I think that I must have asked him more questions than he asked me during the hour.
We started with a few initial questions, mainly about my current job, what led me to it, what schools I have applied for, and why the MBA makes sense for me at this point in my career, which I think I did a good job of articulating. I also told him that I was a reapplicant, and we spoke about the fact that the adcom had previously suggested that I apply for the January program, and the reasons why I had decided that the September entry was better for me. He seemed to agree and said that the same thing had happened to him but in reverse, i.e. he had applied for January and had been offered September.
The rest of the time was more like a rambling conversation about, amongst other topics, the virtues and problems of being narrowly focused on one career path, his time at Columbia, the countries in which he has worked, the large network of friends that he still stays in contact with, anecdotes about those same friends, the place he lived in New York, how often he does interviews (every six months or so), and how he was planning to spend Christmas back in his home country. I questioned him quite extensively about what he gained from the MBA on a professional and personal level in the absence of further questions from his side. Overall, it was a very pleasant and interesting conversation, but not the kind of interview that I was expecting at all.
I felt that the interview went well but my status was updated just a few days later on the online application to ?denied?, which makes me think that the adcom had some reservations about my application prior to the interview.
