I had my alumni interview yesterday and it was very cordial and comfortable. The interviewer was a ’71 alum and was very senior in the organization he worked for. The interview itself was also very smooth. No cross-questioning just a good conversation. I was also asked the standard ‘ethical dilemma’ question which I was prepared for. So, that was sail through, although the interviewer asked for another one after I had narrated the first one. Overall, the interview went well. The questions were broadly why this school, why this company, why this swtich, why mba, why columbia and a lot of discussion of my goals.
The only hitch was that I could not answer ‘Why Columbia’ all that well because I was cut by my interviewer twice in between and the discussion went tangential. Its common knowledge that CBS wants students with a high degree of interest in the school. Hopefully, I did enough in the interview to convince him and the adcom that I am really interested.
In the end, I asked him questions and got very very good answers to most of them. He offered to help me in networking with people in the NY area, which felt good. I hope I was good too.
