Read on for the full transcript of the conversation.<\/p>\n
Amanda Carlson:<\/em><\/strong> The admissions committee was meeting that night shortly after the flash mob had taken place, and one of the students sent a link to a member of our team, so we got to see it that very night! It was really something, and it just really warmed our hearts, and it was a perfect example of how our students really care about giving back to the community.<\/p>\n Our culture embraces people that really want to maximize their opportunities. There are so many different opportunities at Columbia\u2014academic, professional, social and volunteer\u2014and I think our students recognize that our community-driven culture can help open up opportunities that otherwise might not come about.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of comradery among the student population, and it\u2019s very respectful in terms of the students appreciating what each other\u2019s respective priorities are. I think an overarching kind of mind-set is that our students will maximize all opportunities as they come while at the same time being cognizant of giving back to the community and the school.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> People typically think finance when they think of Columbia Business School. Would you agree with that? What do you feel CBS should<\/em> be known for?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>What should<\/em> CBS be known for? We\u2019ve earned a great reputation as a very strong finance school, but we are so much more than just finance. One of the things that people often don\u2019t necessarily recognize is that Columbia puts a tremendous premium on our core curriculum. All of our students receive fundamentals\u2014such as statistics, accounting, marketing, finance\u2014that teach them how to be good stewards and great leaders. This core has evolved in such a way that it is woven throughout the curriculum, and this is a great way for students to learn to connect the dots among all the different classes. It encourages our students to think much more broadly and holistically about the different aspects of each of the classes within the core.<\/p>\n So our brand really does go beyond finance. Columbia certainly has terrific and tremendous finance programs\u2014don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014but at the heart, it\u2019s about creating a pathway that teaches our students how to connect the dots, and that in turn creates great future business leaders.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> Great. Aside from the obvious advantage of being located in New York City and so close to Wall Street, what is it about Columbia\u2019s finance program that allows it to stand out so much?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>I think it\u2019s about the people that make up our community. When I think about the different types of professors we have here, we\u2019re very blessed to have obviously research faculty but also real-world practitioners who come to campus and teach.<\/p>\n What\u2019s so special about our research faculty is that they\u2019re able to slide seamlessly between their research and practice\u2014consulting for governmental bodies or for different multinational companies\u2014and then they are able to apply that learning, that research, that experience to our students\u2019 academic experience in the classroom.<\/p>\n And the practitioners we have are people who may work at boutique investment banks and private equity firms or in asset management as value investors. These people are practitioners by trade, and their real-world experiences make them invaluable to our students. They come here and are able to teach the students exactly what\u2019s going on in real time, as things are happening. And I think that having both types of faculty, that\u2019s a tremendous asset academically as well as professionally for students who are looking for related post-MBA roles.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> Beyond finance, can you speak about the hidden gems that Columbia has? Is there a department whose profile you feel needs to come out from the shadows and that Columbia Business School should also be known for?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>Where do I start? There are so many little pieces that collectively make up this experience. Well, I just finished my own executive MBA, the EMBA Global Asia program<\/a>, which is a program that Columbia has that\u2019s run in conjunction with London Business School and the University of Hong Kong. I took most of my electives here, and I think about a class like the retailing leadership class I took with Professor [Mark A.] Cohen<\/a>. It was extraordinary\u2014Professor Cohen used to be the chairman and CEO of Sears Canada. It was a three-hour class that met on Wednesday afternoons, and for the first 20 or so minutes, we would talk about what\u2019s new and different in the retail industry. So whatever topic was trending in the news\u2014like holiday shopping\u2014would launch the class for about 20 minutes, and then we would transition into a specific retail case. Later we would hear from a CEO or CFO of a major retail company, which once again showed how the lessons learned in the classroom were being implemented in the real world. This past semester, we heard from Michael Gould, who\u2019s the chairman and CEO of Bloomingdales. He\u2019s an alum of Columbia Business School and a member of our Board of Overseers. We also heard from Jerome Chazen, one of the founders of Liz Claiborne. He\u2019s also an alum and a member of our Board of Overseers. We heard from the CEO of Maidenform, the CEO of Gerber Childrenswear, the former CEO of Sears. I mean, it was just extraordinary to be able to hear from so many people who have obviously had tremendous experience in retail and to be able to ask very direct questions in such a small group. I think experiences like these are something we should be known for here at Columbia.<\/p>\n I think the Demming Center [The W. Edwards Deming Center for Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness<\/a>] is at the cutting edge of showing how integral \u201coperations\u201d is in the business space. I took a strategy operations class with Professor Nelson Fraiman<\/a>\u00a0where our class paired up into small consulting groups, and we partnered with entrepreneurs in Latin America that the professors had set us up with. And in addition to the cases we did in class, we had a team of executives from IBM come in and talk to us about all the different opportunities there are to work at IBM, and also what they were doing.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> I\u2019ve been in this business a long time, and I feel like I know the schools really well, but I think you opened my eyes to a few new things that will help applicants a lot. That\u2019s great. So, you are the \u201cnew\u201d assistant dean of admissions for CBS, though I put that \u201cnew\u201d in quotes, because I know you\u2019ve been in admissions for more than a few years. Are there any changes in the process that you foresee?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>In the application process?<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> Yes, in the application process going forward. Anything you see changing for CBS? This year, for instance, there has been a slight de-emphasis on essays as word counts have come down, and some schools are trying new group interview techniques. Are you looking to make any big changes to Columbia\u2019s process, or do you think it is fine that way it is?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>I feel like what we\u2019re doing has been pretty smooth, and it has served us well. Our admissions team evaluates applications for a number of different programs. We have the August intake, which is the one that has about 550 students in it; we have the January intake, which has about 200 students; and then we have a whole variety of executive MBA programs.<\/p>\n We are evaluating a lot of different applications at one time, so our process needs to be efficient and sound, which fortunately I believe it is, but we are constantly looking to improve. One thing that we\u2019ve worked very hard on this year is trying to give people a much more transparent time frame in terms of when they can expect to get a decision. Within about six weeks or so, they\u2019ll learn whether they\u2019ll have an interview or their application is not going to be moving further in the process. And then after somebody has been interviewed, we\u2019ve told them\u2014and I think we\u2019ve done a pretty good job of sticking with this\u2014that we\u2019ll get them a decision within two weeks after their completed interview report has been submitted.<\/p>\n So we\u2019re trying to make small tweaks in our process to make the whole system be more transparent for applicants and much more, I think, palatable, because the rolling admissions is something that has caused confusion for people at times. We want to make it as easy to understand as possible.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> When you yourself evaluate an application, where do you start? Do you go page by page, or just start with the person\u2019s essays or resume? Can you take us through how you would look at a file?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>Absolutely. Everyone on our team has their own internal processes as to what we\u2019re most comfortable with and how to get a good sense of the applicant\u2014how to understand who somebody is\u2014but at the end of the day, each application receives the same time and attention and is evaluated using the same measures. One of the things I look at first, certainly, is the resume, so I can get an overarching perspective relatively quickly of where someone has come from since college. Then I try to assess where this applicant wants to go by evaluating their essays. Next, I will look at the letters of recommendation, and then I look at the kind of skeleton details that are provided in the application. So, for example, where does the person live? From where have they come? What is their hometown? What are the specific reasons they\u2019ve had for leaving jobs and making the transitions that they have throughout the course of their career? We can probably make some educated guesses based on a person\u2019s resume, but I look to other parts of the application to kind of fill in the gaps for me. And then the last thing I look at is whether the applicant has gone through the interview process already, and if so, I would then go look at the interview report.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> Can you walk us through the entire process? When a file is submitted, what happens next?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>That\u2019s a good question. We evaluate all the applications online\u2014no paper, of course. When an application comes in to us, it gets put into an electronic queue and given a time stamp. Then, we have a team that\u2014without getting into too much nitty-gritty detail\u2014will assign members of the admissions committee a number of files per week.<\/p>\n So somebody who\u2019s reading an application can recommend that the applicant be interviewed or denied. If the recommendation is for an interview, then the candidate will be interviewed, and if the recommendation is that somebody is denied admission, the application would go to a second member of the admissions committee before being evaluated before the larger committee.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> So let\u2019s say an applicant is denied by the first admissions reader and that person\u2019s application is passed on to a second committee member. If that second committee member also doesn\u2019t want to move the applicant forward, I\u2019m assuming that person is done, right? But what if the second person disagrees and says, \u201cLet\u2019s interview this person\u201d?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>Then we\u2019ll interview them. Anytime somebody says they would like to have an applicant interview, they go forward for an interview.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> Okay. And so after someone is interviewed, does that person\u2019s application then make its way to your<\/em> desk? Do you reconvene in a group and evaluate applicants that way?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>We meet as a group. If one person says denied, and the second person says denied, it\u2019s basically, \u201cOkay, then, we agree with that.\u201d If the applicant goes forward to an interview, they would have the interview, and then the committee would convene to evaluate the applicant during the final read.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> Right. So, let me switch gears a bit. In the admissions mythology, there is this sense that a \u201csafe\u201d GMAT score is a 700 total score with an 80th percentile on both sides of the test [Quant and Verbal], but Quant scores in particular have really been going up, meaning the percentile for some previously high scores has dropped. So these days, even a 48 out of a 51, for example, will not be an 80th percentile quant score. Should candidates be worried about the percentiles, or are you looking at their Quant scores in absolute terms? Do you know what I\u2019m saying?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>I know exactly what you\u2019re saying, and what I can tell you is a resounding, emphatic \u201cNo<\/em>.\u201d That is not accurate and not the way we do things. I understand this whole application process is so daunting; it can be so intimidating. I think people should try to relax and not get caught up in some of the noise they may hear from I\u2019m not quite sure what sources. People do not<\/em> have to have this 80\/80 type of a breakdown to be admitted. I can\u2019t be emphatic about that enough.<\/p>\n It\u2019s amazing to me how high so many of these scores are, but it\u2019s something that we take in context with the larger academic aspect of their application\u2014what somebody did as an undergrad or what their undergraduate major may have been and what classes they took, and how did they do. And we also consider it in concert with what they\u2019re doing right now for work. There are a host of factors that go into our evaluation, and our goal is to try to get a holistic view of the person rather than fixate on one score or another.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> What would you say is a red flag for you? What would stand out and give you pause when you\u2019re reading a person\u2019s application?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>That\u2019s a great question. I think one thing that raises not a red<\/em> flag but more like a yellow<\/em> flag is when somebody\u2019s really interested in making a career change\u2014and I know that a lot of people come to business school to make a career change\u2014but there needs to be some consistency in their story. So if, and I\u2019m going to make up an example, if somebody wants to go from working in marketing at a financial services company to working in real estate development, what can they claim that shows demonstrated commitment to this interest in real estate development? I mean, is there volunteer work? Is there academic background? Are there continuing education classes? Is there a membership in some type of professional organization that would show that this is actually coming from some place genuine and it\u2019s not just a pie-in-the-sky idea of what they think they might want to do with their MBA?<\/p>\n So that\u2019s something that we look at very, very closely. There\u2019s so much for our students to do when they are at school, and we want to make sure that they\u2019re realistic in their expectations about what we can facilitate for them, about what the folks in our career management office can assist with. So we really want to ensure that those yellow flags are addressed before we accept somebody into the program.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> As you of course know, CBS has its own admissions timetable. Can you discuss the differences between rounds? Should an individual who applies in the regular decision round feel that he has negatively identified himself by not applying early?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>Thank you for asking that. Again, I have an emphatic \u201cNo\u201d<\/em> to the second part of that question.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> I think that\u2019s something a lot of candidates worry about, so I appreciate your clarifying that.<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>Great. And let me be really clear: we receive the bulk of our applications during the regular decision period, and that\u2019s when we admit most of our applicants. We know that people are kind of shopping around, trying to figure out what programs are the best fit, and that\u2019s something really important to do, and that takes time.<\/p>\n So if people are still trying to figure things out and don\u2019t know if Columbia is an ideal fit for them, then they absolutely<\/em> should apply during the regular decision period. In the early decision period, there are some candidates who know that this is a dream school for them, and I think that applying early decision will serve them well, because they want their decision sooner. They would like to know in August or September that they\u2019re locked down and have the opportunity to come here next year, if Columbia\u2019s where they want to be. And we want to give them that option.<\/p>\n So in terms of the rolling admissions process, basically what it boils down to is that we read applications in the order in which they are submitted, and again, as I referenced earlier, we\u2019re trying to be very transparent with a particular time frame of when candidates will get a decision.<\/p>\n That\u2019s really what the difference is and how our approach works. It\u2019s not: if you submit your application on X date, you\u2019ll get a decision on Y date. It\u2019s: we\u2019ll read the applications in the order in which they\u2019re submitted. You\u2019ll hear something within six weeks, and then however long it takes you to set up your interview and for your interview feedback to be submitted, we\u2019ll get you a decision within two weeks after that. Hopefully, knowing that type of a time frame will make people feel much more comfortable with rolling admissions.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> The next question that I have\u2014and you kind of touched on it with your example of the marketing individual who wants to enter real estate development\u2014is about why CBS asks about goals in its essays. So many students change their minds when in school. What\u2019s the benefit of a goal statement?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>That\u2019s a great question. I think what so much of that boils down to is that there are 24 hours in a day, and recruiting starts just six weeks after a student steps foot on campus, so recruiters are coming\u2014and again, we have this blessing of our location in New York\u2014and there\u2019s so much to take advantage of, from brown bag lunches to recruiting receptions to different guest speakers. We had more than 450 speakers come to campus last year, and somebody could really have their head spinning in terms of figuring out \u201cwhat is it that I want to do?\u201d while at the same time going through the various opportunities available in every 24 hours at Columbia.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t get a second chance to do business school, and we don\u2019t want people to miss this opportunity to really be able to achieve and maximize what they can from their business school experience. So we want people to have a pretty good idea of the path they\u2019d like to pursue. I feel like our students can really be kids in a candy store, given everything at the Office of Student Affairs Career Management. It\u2019s not that they can\u2019t change their minds, but they need to understand that it\u2019s important to have some type of a general focus and to keep their eye on the prize so they can maximize all the abundant resources there are at Columbia.<\/p>\n mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> Let\u2019s shift a little to interviews. Can you start by walking us through a typical admissions interview? What can an applicant expect, and what should applicants do to prepare?<\/p>\n AC: <\/em><\/strong>Sure. I always encourage applicants to prepare for a business school interview just like they would for a professional interview, and to put themselves in the shoes of the interviewer. If you were interviewing somebody for your alma mater, what would you want to know? Most of our interviews are conducted by our alumni, and the interviews are blind, so the only thing the interviewer knows about the candidate is what they tell the interviewer.<\/p>\n I also encourage applicants to try to be relaxed and natural. Look, when we do interviews, we\u2019re always rooting for the candidates, and I think our alums bring that perspective as well. It\u2019s their opportunity to talk about Columbia just as it is to learn about what the next generation of Columbia students is going to look like, and we\u2019re always championing people.<\/p>\n So I think the candidates should kind of take a step back and think, \u201cOkay, if I\u2019m interviewing somebody from my alma mater, am I going into it thinking I really want to like this person or I really don\u2019t want to like this person?\u201d Of course you\u2019re going to want to like the person. So that really should put people at ease when they\u2019re meeting with us. But all that said, you should still prepare as you would for a professional interview. Reread your application. The admissions committee is of course going to look for consistency in your story. It should not come as a surprise to anybody that if a person who\u2019s interviewing says, \u201cWell, I\u2019d like to go into health care\u201d to the interviewer but said, \u201cI want to go into real estate development\u201d in their application, that\u2019s clearly going to be something that gets our minds percolating.<\/p>\n![\"Amanda](\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Amanda-Carlson.jpg\" "\\"Amanda")
mbaMission:<\/em><\/strong> Amanda, thanks so much for speaking with us\u2014I really appreciate your time. I\u2019d love to start with a question about culture. We recently saw the CBS second-year flash mob video<\/a> and were struck by what that seemed to show and say about the sense of community at CBS. I heard it took a whole year to plan! Can you give me your take on the intensity of the community at Columbia, and can you describe the culture a little?<\/p>\n