Admissions Director Q&A: Columbia Business School’s Mary Miller

hitfm

Earlier this fall, Columbia Business School (CBS) welcomed Mary Miller as its new assistant dean of admissions. Miller brings almost 30 years of experience in the admissions field. She comes to CBS from the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she managed MBA admissions, student affairs and career services as associate dean from 2002 to 2009. She also served as associate dean of MBA admissions at New York University’s Stern School of Business for several years and as director of undergraduate programs at the College of Business Administration at the University of Iowa.

Miller joins CBS as part of its recent move to combine admissions for the MBA and Executive MBA degree programs. Linda Meehan, who previously headed MBA admissions at the school, will remain active at CBS but will focus more of her attention on alumni affairs, Miller tells us.

We caught up with Miller last week for an interview about her new role and about the overall admissions process at CBS. A transcript of our chat follows.

Clear Admit: Having worked in admissions for 28 years, you clearly bring a great deal to your new role at CBS. What do you feel is the most valuable thing you have to share?

Mary Miller: I have had a really wonderful time in higher education, and I feel very fortunate. Especially since I have worked at two public and two private universities. I started out being an academic advisor because I wanted to make a difference. I knew what education did for me – it transformed my life – so when I market, I market from the heart.

I have gone from being an academic advisor to a director of admissions to working in student affairs to working with alumni. And most recently, at the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I added the career services piece. So I have seen the whole spectrum – from when students are deciding what to study to when they walk across the stage with diploma in hand to when they interact with the school as alumni. I think that experience gives me a very holistic approach.

hitfm

CA: What are you most excited about in joining Columbia?

MM: I am happy to be at such a prestigious university. The thing that attracted me to the join is the new initiative in which Columbia is integrating the functions of its EMBA and full-time MBA program. We think a Columbia MBA is a wonderful opportunity for our prospects, but they don’t always know which program is right for them. My goal is to be very customer focused and help them identify which program is best suited to their individual needs.

Clear Admit: Has the MBA admissions process changed with the consolidation?

MM: Not yet, but I think we are going to see more going forward. I have been working with Ethan Hanabury (CBS senior associate dean of degree programs) on this, and we are going to do a much better job interacting with our public. A lot of times they don’t understand the options and what delivery program is best suited to them. We are going to have some structural changes but we are going to be benchmarking all along the way. So we are going to try to keep the best from each program and share it across programs.

hitfm

Clear Admit: What is the one area of your program that you wish applicants knew more about?

MM: There are a lot of things to talk about when we think about Columbia. We are much more than just finance. We are very proud of our finance faculty and our relationships with recruiting firms, but we have a lot more to offer. For example, in real estate, media, pharma and healthcare – we have centers that capitalize on our New York City location and broaden and diversify our options. A lot of people miss digging a little deeper and recognizing all that we offer.

For example, we have 130 electives. I don’t think people take time to look beyond finance and realize how diverse and interesting and innovative some of our electives and offerings are.

hitfm

CA: Walk us through the life of an application in your office from an operational standpoint. What happens between the time an applicant clicks “submit” and the time the committee offers a final decision (e.g. how many “reads” does it get, how long is each read, who reads it, does the committee convene to discuss it as a group, etc.)?

MM: I think one of the things that is a bit overwhelming is the volume that we have to deal with here. I am delighted that there are so many people interested in attending Columbia. Dealing with a large volume is quite an undertaking, especially since we want to give everyone full consideration.

Once an applicant hits submit, his or her application goes to a first reader. We do have a few outside readers in this role. But there are not very many and they are usually former employees of the admissions department, because we are very concerned that each applicant be reviewed by a qualified reviewer.

Applicants can be invited to interview at any point in the process, and being invited for an interview is a very positive signal to the applicant that we are interested in him or her. That invitation is really, really important. So a first reader can nominate that an applicant be invited to interview, at which point candidates are then sent a list of alumni in their local area who have been trained and have volunteered to interview applicants. Applicants set up the interview and get to choose who they interview with. There is an interview format that we send to our alumni interviewers. They conduct the interview blind – all they get is a resume of the applicant – and then they return the list of answers to us.

The application then will go to a second reader. If an applicant hasn’t been nominated for an interview by the first reader, the second reader will also have the option to invite for an interview. Once again, at any point in the process someone can be invited to interview. I think this is very important because we all have our own biases and are very diverse in our backgrounds. Many have come from corporate America, others of us have worked at other business schools. I think it’s important for applicants to know that they get a 360-degree review and that they can be invited to interview at any point.

Then, if everyone agrees, it’s easy. Dilemmas come with differences of opinion, so we as a committee debate that. Sometimes at that point we’ll do an additional telephone interview, we’ll check references – we’ll do whatever it takes to make the right decision. Coming to Columbia is the most important decision applicants make and the most important decision we make. The people we accept will be Columbia alumni for life, and we want to make sure we select people who are right for the school.

hitfm

CA: How does your team approach the essay portion of the application specifically? What are you looking for as you read the essays? Are there common mistakes that applicants should try to avoid? One key thing they should keep in mind as they sit down to write them?

MM: I think the biggest piece of advice I would give applicants is to use the essays to tell us about themselves and not tell us what they think we want to hear. So often applicants try to anticipate what we are looking for and then tell us that. We read thousands and thousands of applications – you get rather good at spotting essays that people don’t write themselves, have had a lot of help or are trying to write one essay that is used for all schools.

You need to learn about the school first of all. We always encourage candidates to visit campus, talk to our students and talk to alumni before they start to complete the application.

Avoid cut and paste mistakes. “I really want to attend ____ school because.” Other mistakes applicants make is they don’t really tell us about themselves, about what makes them unique. We talk about this – all of the administrators here talk about “telling the story.” Students hear it from the admissions office when they apply and later from career services when it comes time to talk to recruiters. Everyone has a unique story to tell. In admissions what we are looking for is how applicants think about themselves. How they think and what they think is important for us to know. That’s really all we have in admissions. And we use that to evaluate whether they would be a good fit for Columbia.

The last thing I would say is that they need to take this really, really seriously. Answer the questions, follow directions. If our essays ask for 500 words and they give us 5,000, what does that say about an applicant?

feiya

good

linly

up