Columbia Business School Essay Topics 2013-2014
The Columbia Business School essay topics for the 2013-2014 admissions season have recently been announced, and the application for the Class of 2016 is now live! The essay topics are below. All essays are required unless otherwise noted.
Short Answer Question
What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal? (100 characters maximum)
Essay 1
Given your individual background, why are you pursuing a Columbia MBA at this time? (Maximum 500 words)
Essay 2
Columbia Business School is located in the heart of the world’s business capital – Manhattan. How do you anticipate that New York City will impact your experience at Columbia? (Maximum 250 words)
Please view the videos below:
New York City – limitless possibilities
New York City – fast paced and adaptable
Essay 3
What will the people in your Cluster be pleasantly surprised to learn about you? (Maximum 250 words)
Optional Essay
An optional third essay will allow you to discuss any issues that do not fall within the purview of the required essays.
For additional information, applicants should visit CBS’s admissions website.
Tell Us Tuesdays: Submit an MBA Interview Report from MIT / Sloan, U. Penn / Wharton, Duke / Fuqua, Dartmouth / Tuck, or Columbia and Win a $10 Amazon Gift Card!
As the 2012-2013 application season comes to a close, there is no better time to take stock of your MBA admissions experience. For those of you who had been waiting to hear back from your target schools, now is the ideal time to contribute to the Clear Admit Interview Archive! Over the past week, we have received rundowns from applicants who interviewed at Yale.
If you’re interested in sharing your experience, we’ll be awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate to every applicant who submits an interview report for MIT / Sloan, U. Penn / Wharton, Duke / Fuqua, Dartmouth / Tuck, or Columbia Business School through next Tuesday, May 21st at 4 p.m. EST! All you have to do is send us your interview field report for the selected schools for inclusion in the Interview Archive and we’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift certificate. We will notify winners by e-mail (Limit: one gift card per person).
The most helpful and informative reports usually include the following information:
- Date/Admissions Round
- Description of visit and/or interview atmosphere
- Type of interview (alum vs. adcom, blind vs. application-based)
- List of interview questions
- Commentary (What did you think of the interview? What surprised you? What didn’t surprise you? What might you conclude about the school based on this experience?)
Applicants who would like to supplement the information available on the Interview Archive can check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which provide school-specific insight about admissions interviews. The Clear Admit team greatly appreciates all of the interview reports we’ve received this admissions season!
Columbia Business School Deadlines 2013-2014
The Columbia Business School (CBS) 2013-2014 deadlines have been announced! This year’s deadlines are as follows:
January 2013 Entry
Deadline: October 2, 2013
August 2014 Entry
Early Decision Deadline: October 2, 2013
Merit Fellowships Consideration Deadline: January 6, 2014
Regular Decision Deadline: April 9, 2014
Applicants should note that all applications are due at 11:59 p.m. EST on the day of the deadline. For more information, visit CBS’s admissions website.
Tell Us Tuesdays: Submit an MBA Interview Report from MIT / Sloan, U. Penn / Wharton, Yale SOM, Northwestern / Kellogg or Columbia and Win a $10 Amazon Gift Card!
Welcome to May’s first edition of Tell Us Tuesdays, where we highlight MBA interview reports that have recently been posted to our Interview Archive! Over the past week, we have received interview reports from Chicago Booth.
The Clear Admit team greatly appreciates all of the interview reports we’ve received this admissions season! If you’re interested in sharing your experience, we’ll be awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate toevery applicant who submits an interview report for MIT / Sloan, U. Penn / Wharton, Yale SOM, Northwestern / Kellogg or Columbia through next Tuesday, May 14th at 4 p.m. EST! All you have to do is send us your interview field report for the selected schools for inclusion in the Interview Archive and we’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift certificate. We will notify the winners by e-mail (Limit: one gift card per person).
The most helpful and informative reports usually include the following information:
- Date/Admissions Round
- Description of visit and/or interview atmosphere
- Type of interview (alum vs. adcom, blind vs. application-based)
- List of interview questions
- Commentary (What did you think of the interview? What surprised you? What didn’t surprise you? What might you conclude about the school based on this experience?)
Applicants who would like to supplement the information available on the Interview Archive can check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which provide school-specific insight about admissions interviews. Good luck interviewing!
Landmark $100 Million Gift to Columbia Business School Will Create Second New Building on Manhattanville Campus
Columbia Business School (CBS) announced big news today: The Ronald O. Perelman Center for Business Innovation will rise on the school’s Manhattanville campus, opposite the Henry R. Kravitz Building. Perelman, a longtime member of the CBS Board of Overseers and chairman and CEO of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., has pledged $100 million to create the new facility, which will be named in his honor. Perelman’s gift matches the largest gift in the school’s history, which CBS alumnus Henry Kravitz, the namesake of the Manhattanville campus’s other building, made in 2010.
“The Perelman Center will allow Columbia Business School to continue pioneering breakthroughs in management education, such as moving beyond functional expertise or siloed learning and ensuring a more integrated curriculum for our students,” CBS Dean Glenn Hubbard said in a statement. “It will help us create the classrooms of tomorrow and foster an even greater collaborative spirit among recruiters, students, alumni and faculty members, paving the way for a stronger network and more meaningful outcomes for our community,” he continued. Continue reading…
Campus Chronicles: The CBS Bottom Line
Welcome back to Campus Chronicles, our exploration of the student news at top business programs. This week we find out what’s new at Columbia Business School by scanning its student-run publication, The Bottom Line.
In early April, Columbia Business School students joined colleagues from Wharton Business School and the Yale School of Management to participate in the second annual CBS MBA Innovation Summit. Nearly 300 students, entrepreneurs and company representatives attended the event, which was held at Studio450 in New York City. The summit featured panels on generating ideas, spotting ideas, transforming good ideas into business realities and evaluating why some good ideas fail. John Heath, the senior vice president of Chobani—one of the first companies to popularize Greek yogurt in the United States—concluded the event with a keynote address, speaking about how his company always seeks to align their product innovations with the core messages of their brand. Continue reading…
Tell Us Tuesdays: Submit an MBA Interview Report from Harvard, Duke / Fuqua, U. Penn / Wharton, Chicago Booth, or Columbia and Win a $10 Amazon Gift Card!
Hello and welcome to Tell Us Tuesdays, where we highlight MBA interview reports that have recently been posted to our Interview Archive! Over the past week, we have received interview reports from LBS.
The Clear Admit team greatly appreciates all of the interview reports we’ve received this admissions season! If you’re interested in sharing your experience, we’ll be awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate to every applicant who submits an interview report for Harvard, Duke / Fuqua, U. Penn / Wharton, Chicago Booth, or Columbia through next Tuesday, May 7th at 4 p.m. EST! All you have to do is send us your interview field report for the selected schools for inclusion in the Interview Archive and we’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift certificate. We will notify the winners by e-mail (Limit: one gift card per person).
The most helpful and informative reports usually include the following information:
- Date/Admissions Round
- Description of visit and/or interview atmosphere
- Type of interview (alum vs. adcom, blind vs. application-based)
- List of interview questions
- Commentary (What did you think of the interview? What surprised you? What didn’t surprise you? What might you conclude about the school based on this experience?)
Applicants who would like to supplement the information available on the Interview Archive can check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which provide school-specific insight about admissions interviews. Good luck interviewing!
Columbia MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Alumnus / Off-campus
The interview was at the alum’s place of employment. I was dressed formally and prepared fairly diligently by using personal resources as well as some of the posts found here. When I was given my choice of interviewers, I found that all of the alum offered were recent graduates. My alum was more or less of my age. We ran through some of the typical talking points:
- Walk me through your resume.
- Why B-school.
- Why Columbia.
- What I will add to Columbia.
- Backup plan if I don’t get in (I’m an entrepreneur and this question was stressed big time).
- Am I applying to other schools, and specifically, to what other schools am I applying?
I went through each of the questions and felt fairly prepared for each response. I felt comfortable, but tried to not let my guard down too much. I think that balance is key in these “casual” interview situations.
I would advise candidates to be on guard for alum interviews with a hyper-competitive tone. Although the interview was supposed to be “pretty casual” and indeed my interviewer seemed nice at the outset, the conversation quickly turned into a constant comparison of my profile with that of my interviewer and her friends. As an example, after asking which schools I had applied to, I was given a comparison of some higher-ranked schools that she considered and where her friends had attended. My interviewer proceeded to implicitly justify her decision to go to CBS by saying that since she was staying in NY, she just wanted to go to the “best school in New York”. (She seemed to imply that otherwise, she would have attended schools with her “friends in Massachusetts and California”). Kind of interesting to see an alum put their school below H/S but I played it cool thinking she was just trying to ruffle my feathers and/or gauge my response.
Professional goals were also on the table. As an entrepreneur, I was asked about back-up plans and “why an MBA”, especially given that my interviewer’s friends/contacts did not need an MBA to pursue their entrepreneurial goals. Again, I tried to calmly re-state my case for CBS by emphasizing courses, profs and resources that would accelerate goals. Also mentioned that CBS was a real dream school for me and I mentioned ways in which I was committed to contributing to the community.
One last thing: about 40 minutes into the interview, I felt my throat getting dry while speaking. Although I wasn’t offered water at the beginning of the interview, I felt it might be a little strange to ask my interviewer to get me some water. Eventually I did so (as politely as possible), but on a very basic level, I still find it pretty odd.
We closed by talking about how CBS helped her in her field and how it was necessary to achieve her goals. She seemed to think that although the skills gained didn’t apply directly to what she was doing, they did help to give her more insight into the managerial process. At this time, she had an upbeat tone when talking about the school.
Post-interview summary: I’m not really sure what to make of the interview/interviewer. I have friends currently in CBS and who’ve graduated and all of them are pretty cool and friendly. Maybe the school asked her to be tough? I think the interview went well in the sense that I smoothly handled perhaps one of the more awkward, if not competitive, interview experiences I’ve ever had. I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
Columbia Business School Launches New Website for Current and Future Students, Alumni
Columbia Business School (CBS) this week launched Notes to the Next Class, a new online space where current and past students can share their experience with future CBS classes through photos, videos, advice and more.
The website is organized into sections corresponding to major milestones CBS students will experience in the course of their graduate management education, from acceptance and orientation to academics and campus life to graduation and post-MBA careers. With more than 41,000 alumni around the world, the school hopes the online repository will help connect students across the globe and across the decades.
“With the new website, generations of students can compare their experiences on campus, resulting in a shared celebration of history at the School,” read a press release announcing the website’s launch.
CBS community members can post notes and related media and check out what those who have come before them have to say about the same topics. And though only CBS students and graduates can contribute to the site, anyone can access it. So that makes it a great resource for prospective applicants looking to learn more about the school as well.
Check out CBS’s new Notes to the Next Class website.
Related articles
- Columbia Business School Admissions Committee Shares Waitlist Advice (clearadmit.com)
- Columbia Business School to Revamp MBA, EMBA Programs Next Fall (clearadmit.com)
Tell Us Tuesdays: Submit an MBA Interview Report from MIT Sloan, Columbia, Wharton or Chicago Booth and Win a $10 Amazon Gift Card!
As the 2012-2013 application season winds down, there is no better time to take stock of your MBA admissions experience. For those of you who had been waiting to hear back from your target schools, now is the ideal time to contribute to the Clear Admit Interview Archive! Over the past week, we have received rundowns from applicants who interviewed at Haas and McCombs.
If you’re interested in sharing your experience, we’ll be awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate to every third applicant who submits an interview report for MIT / Sloan, UPenn / Wharton, Chicago / Booth or Columbia Business School through next Tuesday, April 16th at 4 p.m. EST! All you have to do is send us your interview field report for the selected schools for inclusion in the Interview Archive and we’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift certificate. We will notify winners by e-mail (Limit: one gift card per person). Continue reading…
Columbia Business School Admissions Committee Shares Waitlist Advice
Were you waitlisted at Columbia Business School (CBS) as part of a recent admission round? Stay positive! Members of the Admissions Committee assure applicants that CBS admits some waitlisted candidates every year, so there is definitely still a chance that you’ll be admitted.
Matthew Moll, CBS associate director of MBA admissions, provided a range of waitlist-specific advice in response to questions Clear Admit asked recently, so read on to learn whether and how waitlisted applicants should contact the Admissions Committee, what type of updates to an application might be relevant to submit and more. Continue reading…
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