Cornell MBA Round 2 / Second Year Student with Adcom present / On-campus 2010

wawaoi

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, not gloom of night shall keep me from my appointed interviews! Borrowing that from the USPS, I figured that was a pretty good recap of my weekend. Friday night, Danielle and I had dinner with friends and we didn’t get back until pretty late. We slept in until about 9ish on Saturday, which was a welcome relief from the stresses of the past week. The original plan was to drive up to Ithaca on Sunday and stay at the Statler hotel, which is a hotel on Cornell’s campus that is student run. The only problem was the huge freaking blizzard that was scheduled to hit the northeast on Saturday. I didn’t think much of it at first until I spoke with my mother (who lives near Philly) who informed me that 8 inches of snow had just fallen in the first hour of the storm. It was right about that time that I panicked…

My fiancée and I started running around the apartment packing everything for the weekend. It was about 11:30 and the storm was supposed to hit NYC around 1, so there wasn’t much time to waste. I quickly called and booked a room at the Courtyard Marriott Ithaca, for the night (because I didn’t really want to pay another $250 to stay at the Statler for an additional night). We made great time up to Ithaca and didn’t see a drop of snow. The trip had started very well…

We found a local bar to eat at called “The Rose” and had a pretty good meal, with the locals seeming very friendly. It was pretty cold at night, so we didn’t hang around for very long. We made our way back to hotel and went to bed.

Sunday brought another day. We wanted to explore a little, so we went to an early movie to see Avatar (in 3D). I highly, highly recommend this to anyone who might want to see it. The theater in Ithaca was pretty spectacular. We only paid $11/person for a 3D movie. I am used to paying that for a normal Saturday movie in NYC…pretty good snack choices as well.

We then went to check into the Statler hotel. It is a beautiful hotel and they gave us a room with a view of the valley that is below Cornell. The campus is very much an IVY league campus, with brick and old stone throughout the buildings. We settled in and watched some football. After watching the Jets choke their game away, we went to the hotel restaurant. It was a very nice Italian place with a nice view of campus. After dinner we settled back into our hotel room and I tried to get some sleep before the big day…

It was no use, 10 o’clock turned into 11, into 12…I finally fell asleep around 12:30, only to wake up at 2:30! After some restlessness, I went back to bed around 3:30 and woke up at 7, so not terrible, but not a great night’s sleep either. I got up, ordered some breakfast and got dressed for my interview.

I arrived at around 8:50 for my 9:15 interview and waited in the admissions office until my interviewer arrived. I was supposed to be interviewing with an adcom, but was told that she would be joined by a 2nd year student. I didn’t know if this was good or bad, but I had to just roll with the punches. The 2nd year student arrived (along with the adcom) around 9:20 and after introductions, we made our way to a conference room.

The 2nd year told that this was going to be very conversational and that he would be conducting the interview under the supervision of the adcom. He started by telling me about himself and about his time at Johnson. Then we started the interview. Here are the questions that he asked, I don’t think you are going to find them as helpful because he tailored the interview to my work experience and the flow of our discussion.

Tell me why you chose your college.
Tell me about your internship at Bear Stearns.
Anything you saw that made you not surprised that it went out of business?
Tell me what ICAP (current company) is and what you do.
What 3 changes need to be made to fix the financial system?
Do you like the VaR model?
What is its main drawback?
What other schools are you applying to and why?
What is the main difference between Tuck and Johnson in your eyes?
Tell me how your teammates would describe you as a team member? (work and ex. curricular)
Asked me a long hypothetical question about morals and wanted me to detail my thought process for him.
Any questions for me?
The interview lasted for almost an hour and after that time I was escorted back to the admissions office. After that I met with Randall Sawyer, the assistant dean of admissions. We chatted about life in Ithaca and what having a partner there would mean. It was a really nice talk and it really helped with some of my concerns.The only bad part about the conversation was Randall telling me that I would still have to wait until Feb 15th to hear anything back. I had hoped that it would be rolling instead of a deadline…

With the interview and my interaction with some of the students, Johnson has zoomed past Stern to #1 on my list (of 2). I really loved the scenery of Ithaca and the small town feel. I think it would be the perfect place to spend 2 years and I am really hoping that I get some good news in February!