In-Office Chat With Associate Director of Admissions, Columbia (MBA)
Today we interacted with the associate director of admissions from Columbia Business school – Emma Case for an open-house session at our office for a candid and free exchange meet. To get a broad perspective on the study abroad experience. Her opinion covered the whole gamut of experiences one would face through the admission process for an MBA at Columbia business school.
Key Takeaways from the In-office Interaction session between Emma Case and Vibha Kagzi:
Well, Columbia takes both GMAT and GRE and for the first time, they have introduced Executive assessment. This executive assessment exam takes place for 90mins and focuses on the integrated reasoning section so if you haven’t taken GMAT or GRE please have a look into this test. Lastly, there isn’t any specific cut off scores for these exams but Columbia recommends a GMAT score range of 700 -760 so Emma suggests that one should take these different exams based on their test-taking style.
Here’s the perfect answer to your question. 99% of students have more than a year of experience but ideally, Columbia focuses on applications with an average of 3-5 years of experience as they want the students to bring out more cases and examples in the classroom to get more out of the program.
Columbia has three main essay topics and one optional essay topic. So basically, your first essay topic should be answering the question of how are you going to be a part of the community? what steps are you willing to take to help the community? Admission officers look into how specifically you have detailed your research.
The second essay should focus on the application, your MBA goal and your long-term goal and why particularly you are looking into Columbia Business School. One of the biggest mistakes people mention in their essays is “I would love to be in New York City” but Columbia does not encourage this topic as they try to look out for specific information like a reference to professor’s books, the student clubs, etc. Lastly, in the optional essay, one should focus on their academic records, their work experience in local companies, and other topics that would round up their application.
As people with an average of 3-5 years experience get admitted to Columbia, Columbia prefers at least one manager’s letter of recommendation which states the growth and general path of the company. This letter would help the admission officer to have a more detailed image of your application. If you can’t get the LOR from your manager, Columbia recommends a letter of recommendation from a senior employee of the company. Other than work experience LOR’s Columbia also accepts a personal or professional recommender’s LOR. For those who are from a family business background, they could focus on getting a letter of recommendation from one of their clients, vendor, suppliers, etc.
Hope all these key takeaways were helpful. If you ever need help or further guidance- Reach out to ReachIvy.com.
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