The Cornell interview is done. It was with the director of admissions. I can’t say how it went (poker-faced interviewers in the US!). It was certainly very conversational, very comfortable and went on for about an hour – even though it was supposed to be 30 minutes. I don’t know if that reflects poorly on my time management or something – we digressed many times to talk about more non-professional things (long chats on travel and my community work). But I guess that’s the way the interviewer took the discussion flow – so I’m not too bothered. It was a semi-blind interview in the sense that the interviewer hadn’t read my application but had some questions from the person in the admissions office who had read it. although i could not make out which were the blind versus the non-blind questions. Unusual things about the interview: the first question was why mba (absolutely no buildup and that threw me off for a minute). Which other schools are you applying to (very very surprised to get this in a formal interview, so much so i ended up being honest about it). If there are 3 things I should write about you to the admissions committee in my interview report what should they be (this was the last question, and again found it difficult to pick up 3 things without ever thinking about this before). extensive notes taken throughout. The regular other questions: tell me about your work, how did you resolve conflict, how did you develop someone under you. I think i made a strong case for why cornell – especially the immersion program and the curriculum flexibility. i also think i showed that i liked my fit to the school and ithaca.
one of the things i felt at Cornell is that they seem really concerned about whether Cornell is really the top school for an applicant. i don’t know if that’s from a ranking perspective where they want their yields to go up or something. that’s partly why i feel i got the which other schools question. but maybe I’m perceiving this incorrectly – perhaps they are just very very concerned about fit.
