Columbia MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Alumni

My interview was scheduled for 8:30am. I got a call from the interviewer about 10 minutes beforehand informing me very apologetically that he is catching the later ferry into the city and will be there at 9 o’clock. I figured this is good for me, since he is probably going to feel bad for making me wait and proceed to his office to wait for his arrival. He got there at 9, just as he said. We chatted for about 25 minutes. The guy was SUPER nice and easy to talk to, a principal at a pretty solid ibank. He wanted me to do a quick run through my resume and asked a question about my current company and role. I kind of molded my “Why Columbia, Why MBA, Why now” answers into the answer. He said I had a great background and solid extracurriculars. He asked for my GMAT and GPA and said that the only weakness he could see the AdCom hesitating on was my GPA (a yucky 3.1), though the fact that I have since gotten my CPA could soften that. He was very open and honest, saying he really had no clue about the amount of value that adcom puts on his report, but that he is going to give his recommendation for my admission since he thinks I am a great candidate. It was definitely GREAT finally getting some feedback from an interviewer. He said he would communicate with the adcom right away. As far as the timeline goes, I interviewed Monday morning, my file went complete Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday morning I had an admit in my hands.