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Columbia Business School

My Columbia interview probably could not have been worse. In early January, Columbia emailed me an interview invitation with a list of three alumni in London from which I could choose, and I was excited to see that one of them worked in sales and trading, the area I want to pursue after my MBA. I gave her a call and setup an interview at a café in London’s Soho after work the following day.

That evening was particularly cold so on my way to the interview I stopped and bought a blue knit hat from a street vendor. This turned out to be a mistake, as I will explain later. I removed my hat before meeting my interviewer in the café at the appointed time. Things went smoothly until she started asking me about my current job, which involved designing a software product to aid salespeople and traders estimate the market impact of trades. I got bogged down in explaining the intricacies of the product and she promptly changed the subject, a sign that she was becoming impatient with my explanation.

She then asked me why I wanted to go into sales and trading. I started listing my reasons but then put my foot in my mouth when I told her I didn’t think I’d actually be very good at sales and trading. Realizing my mistake, I tried to take backtrack, but the damage was done. At this point my confidence had reached rock bottom and for the rest of the interview I was hoping just to get it over with.

I left the interview feeling dejected. Later, when I got home I glanced in the mirror and noticed some strange blue fuzz on my head. I realized this was from the new hat I had bought before the interview, and was shocked to think I must have had blue fuzz on my head during the entire interview. I was amazed she didn’t laugh at me.

I learned some good lessons from this unpleasant experience. First, I shouldn’t have entered into a highly technical discussion with her on a topic I was unable to explain concisely. Second, I failed to project confidence during the interview. Admitting a serious weakness, as I did, was honest but it was also stupid. Third, I didn’t pay enough attention to my appearance, which resulted in the embarrassing if not comical blue fuzz situation I described above.

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INSEAD ( Fontainebleau )

INSEAD normally requires each applicant to interview with two different alumni, but because of scheduling difficulties, I was only able to setup one, with a senior manager from Bain and Company. Despite my misgivings about interviewing whilst eating, he proposed we meet for lunch at a small Italian restaurant in the City of London, and I agreed.

By this time I had a number of interviews under my belt and although I was still smarting from my experience with the Columbia alum, I approached this interview with a greater sense of confidence. As he and I both worked in consulting, I prepared for the interview by practicing describing my company’s approach to consulting, as well as related topics such as billing practices and the current state of the industry.

As it turns out my preparation paid off. We spent at least 50% of the interview discussing our companies’ approaches to consulting, business development, project management, and so on. He then asked me a number of more classical interview-style questions, such as the classic strengths and weaknesses question. I answered these questions frankly, but while maintaining a positive and confident attitude. Finally, he closed the interview by offering me some tips on the INSEAD application process. He mentioned that although I had applied very late in INSEAD’s application cycle, I should have a good chance of getting in. I took this as a good sign.

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New York University Stern School of Business

My interview with NYU was my very last MBA admissions interview and one of the most testing. Although I had applied to NYU in early January, I didn’t receive my interview invite until March. As I was in Beijing at this time, I was happy to learn that NYU would be holding off-site interviews in Beijing in late March, and so I requested one of these. But for reasons that are still unclear to me, NYU denied my request for an off-site interview, and would not even consider a phone interview. My only choice was to fly to New York.

I didn’t like the idea of taking a 14-hour flight to New York for a 45 minute interview but at the same time I knew that not doing an interview was a virtually guaranteed ding. Luckily I had enough air-miles to get a free flight so I scheduled my interview for mid-April and booked my plane ticket.

Although I had hardly prepared at all, when I arrived on campus I felt relaxed and at-ease. My interviewer was June Dinitz, a member of the Stern MBA Admissions Staff, and a former human resources manager for a large New York investment bank. She started off with the very standard interview questions which by this time I was able to answer quite smoothly. We discussed my career aspirations and my experiences working at investments banks in London and Tokyo. I made the point that the financial services industry, despite all the products and the technologies, is still essentially a people business. I went on to explain that a Stern MBA, in addition to teaching me the latest on finance theory and practice, would allow me to expand my network in the financial services industry, one of my key motivations for getting an MBA. She seemed to like this.

She closed the interview by asking me a few questions about what I was doing in Beijing and how I was coping with the SARS epidemic (I have to admit I enjoyed not having to worry about SARS during the few days that I was in New York). The next day, on the plane back to Beijing, I felt happy about the interview and was glad I had made the trip.

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Conclusion

Knowing the enormous difficulties that most Chinese applicants face when applying to business school, I have a great deal of respect for those applicants that attempt and succeed in this long and difficult process. I hope this information is helpful to you as you apply to business school. Remember, no matter what the outcome, applying to business school is a character-building experience and chances are you will know yourself a lot better at the end of the process than you did at the beginning. Good luck!

Kayvon Pirestani

MBA 2005 Chicago GSB

M.S Carnegie Mellon University

lakegirl

good expereince to share!

Wanght

thanks for your share!

iloveduke

thanks for sharing!

yaya06

thanks a lot!

dapeng997

Thanks for sharing!

feelgood

thanx!