<p>What questions did you ask your alumni interviewer? I'm curious as I have an interview in 2 weeks.</p>
<p>I just had mine yesterday and the only one I got asked was ‘What is one thing Columbia won’t know about you when they read your application?’
It was just an informal conversation for me, a little about me, a little about my interviewer.</p>
<p>I asked whether he chose John Jay vs Carman, his thoughts on the Manhattanville expansion, his thoughts on the Core, and a lot about the arts at Columbia. I’ve done my research, but those sort of subjective things, it’s nice to get another opinion on them. </p>
<p>Like bioblade said, it’s a really informal conversation. Depending on how long yours is, and how busy your person is, it can be anywhere from a brief 45 minute Q & A session, or a 2+ hour discussion about…well…anything.</p>
<p>I asked my interview about the Core, and he said that it was pretty much a course on Cocktail Party Conversation 101 
He said it didn’t change his views/spark his interest in other fields/affect him all too much, but I’m sure different people view the Core differently. I found his comment funny though.</p>
<p>I asked what my interviewer liked and disliked most about his time at Columbia. He said he liked pretty much everything and the only thing he didn’t like was that the bureaucracy can sometimes make things difficult.</p>
<p>i have mine in a couple of weeks for the engineering school…did anyone here apply to engineering and have an interview with an SEAS grad?</p>
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<p>A stupid question like this deserves an answer like “I used to discreetly pick my nose in the back corner of geometry class.”</p>
<p>I’m a SEAS applicant, but I got a Columbia College interviewer.
Ironically, a SEAS graduate from 2 years back was sitting right next to us in Starbucks, so we exchanged a few words with her.</p>
<p>@Columbia’02
My interviewer was from the class of '09 and it was her first interview, so I don’t know. It was in the last few minutes, she was just like “oh yeah, columbia told me to ask x”. I talked about how fractals, especially in nature, had always fascinated me.</p>
<p>Columbia’s was probably my most enjoyable interview thus far, but maybe that was just the age difference. My interviewer wasn’t that much older than me and we both grew up in NYC, so we had a lot in common. She told me a bit about the History of NYC course, etc.</p>
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<p>This binary view of interviews is nonsensical given the holistic nature of the admissions process. The adcoms will use the interview report to learn specific things about people that they can’t otherwise determine, like how committed someone is to his activities or how much he’s really thought about whether Columbia is a good fit for him.</p>