Ask the Interviewer

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

<p>This year I'll be doing alumni interviews for Columbia (interviewing people, I mean) again, so I figured I'd give some interview tips/suggestions to those of you who are applying to Columbia this year, and take any questions that any of you have regarding interviews/interview-related stuff.</p>

<p>First, some general tips:
1.) Know what the Core Curriculum is!! This should seem obvious to most of you, but in the past I've mentioned the Core Curriculum and gotten confused expressions and very obviously BS-ed answers. Know at least about what Lit Hum and CC are, and reading up on the Core itself is definitely not a bad idea.
Note: If you're applying to SEAS you don't really need to worry about this, unless your interviewer is an idiot he/she should realize that SEAS students don't have to worry about the Core as much as CC people do.</p>

<p>2.) I'm interviewing you, not your parents! Again, this should seem obvious, but don't bring your parents along on your interview. It's totally understandable if you get a ride from a parent and get dropped off, that's normal. However, once they drop you off, they definitely shouldn't be lingering around, walking by the table where you're being interviewed. I had this happen one time, I was interviewing someone in a public place and one of their parents kept walking by trying to listen-in on the interview, and it didn't reflect well on the person I was interviewing.</p>

<p>3.) Write-Out Your Answers Beforehand This is something I learned to do when interviewing for jobs more than for college. If you do some searching you can find a lot of potential interview questions online. Copy and paste them to a Word document, and take some time to write out answers. This is a great way to prep for your interview, but one cautionary note when doing this is...</p>

<p>4.) Don't Sound (Too) Rehearsed If you sound like you're reading from a script you memorized, although it's not the end of the world, it makes me wonder if the answers you're giving me are actually your own, or if you had a teacher/parent/guidance counselor write out your answers for you. Answer questions in your natural way of speaking (as strange as that may sound). In all likelihood I'll end up asking something you won't have prepared for (primarily just to see how you think on your feet), so it will probably come out if you talk like a monotone robot for the traditional questions, and speak naturally for something out of left field.
Note: When I say naturally, I DO NOT mean be profane/use a ton of slang or anything. Around my friends I tend to swear a ton without even realizing it, but that kind of language has no place in an interview (from either the interviewer or the person being interviewed). Additionally, a little slang isn't totally awful, but at the same time you shouldn't be telling me about the wicked fun time you had studying mad sick redox reactions in chem.</p>

<p>Yes, I Know Columbia is in NYC If you're asked "Why Columbia?" during your interview, I really don't want to hear that it's in NYC. Despite my tendency to get lost anywhere I go, I realize that Columbia is in NYC. If you tell me you want to go to Columbia because it's in NYC, and that's your sole reason, I'll feel like you're a better fit for NYU. It's more than fine if you mention NYC in your response (and probably a good idea to know that Columbia is in NYC), but if your primary reason is that it's in NYC, at least talk about how you like the combination of a college town (Morningside Heights) with the greatest city in the world, and how it's so cool that you get to live in NYC while learning how little we all are in comparison to the great empires we learn about in Lit Hum.</p>

<p>Keep it Formal Although this is a somewhat casual interview, treat it like a formal interview. You don't need to wear a suit to the interview, but for guys a nice pair of khakis/slacks and a polo (or something at least that formal) is a good idea. Basically, you want to make sure you're dressed at least as formally as your interviewer. For girls clothing...yea I don't know anything about girls clothing, sorry. Additionally, when you're emailing me back about how excited you are for your interview/your availability/etc, keep it formal. Smiley faces are great if you're texting with your friends, but keep them out of email correspondence with your interviewer. Same goes for haha, lol, omg, and pretty much anything else that's in a certain Ludacris song. This is the start of your grown-up life, so act like it.</p>

<p>And most importantly:
Don't Stress!! Don't go insane worrying about your interviews!! Honestly I think about 95% of why Columbia does interviews is to make alumni feel like they're involved so that they'll continue to donate money. Honestly the first time I was assigned to do interviews was a day after I donated 10 bucks to some alumni fund. The best way to think of an interview is like an additional rec letter. You're talking to an alumni, trying to emphasize your strong points, and basically telling them what you want them to write in the rec letter. Your interviewer isn't there to scare you, they're there to give you a feel for life at Columbia.</p>

<p>Any questions, just ask. Good luck potential class of 2017'ers!</p>

2

<p>You seem like such a nice interviewer! I hope I have someone as nice as you for my interview in 3 years! (Class of 2020)</p>

<p>One quick question: what is Core Curriculum, and do we have to know Core Curriculum for every college interview?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

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<p>The Core Curriculum is a unique aspect of the Columbia education (along with a few other universities) where all of the undergraduate students must take the same core set of classes no matter what their major is.</p>

4

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I am a non-traditional student. I entered a Community College, manage to get an internship at an ivy league school that lead to a part-time job position. Now, I got accepted into Tufts and my major is Chemical Engineering. Is this worth the price granted that they are not giving me any money? it’s $43k a year vs. a state school $12k a year. Despite the fact of a 2 hr commute to the state school, I am concerned about whether the yearly salary of an engineer coming outta these schools will have such a difference in pay. Does anybody have some educated guesses on this topic?</p>

5

<p>IvyLeague2020, thanks, here’s a thread from a couple days ago about the core <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/1437989-core-curriculum.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/1437989-core-curriculum.html&lt;/a&gt; , so it’s really something Columbia-specific (though as raca1111 pointed out, there are a few other schools that have similar things). Honestly, the reason I ask about the Core during interviews is to see if the person actually wants to go to Columbia, or if they just want to go to any Ivy League school just because it’s an ivy league school (which isn’t a good reason to go to any school).</p>

<p>Chemhg, I’m sorry I honestly have no idea how to answer that. You might want to start a separate thread in the Tufts forum. This thread was supposed to be primarily for Columbia-interview-related questions.</p>

6

<p>Do you do interviews over Skype? My interviewer did interviews all over Skype (since he lived pretty far from the students he was assigned) and I was wondering what the major differences are.</p>

7

<p>I haven’t (yet), but if I was going to do an interview via Skype, it would most likely be the same questions at least. Personally I really like doing interviews in-person, I feel like I get a better sense of a person in-person than over Skype, but if it would be really difficult to get together with a person, I wouldn’t have any issue interviewing someone over Skype</p>

<p>Oh also, something I totally forgot before, ** Bring a resume!** It makes it a ton easier to interview someone, and to write an interview report about them, if they give you a copy of their resume. Nobody should expect it to be the greatest/most professional-looking resume in the world, but try to have a decently well-organized resume with you to give to your interviewer. But honestly, bringing any resume is way more important than having a great/professionally-done resume. I think my original resume from my interviews had my social security number on it (very big no-no), so don’t stress too much over how it looks.</p>

8

<p>About Columbia admissions:</p>

<p>What is the most important: SATs, GPA, class ranking, or extracurriculars?</p>

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<p>Assuming I had a 2400 SAT, top two SAT IIs were both 800s, my GPA was a 3.8 to 4.0 (in that range), I was ranked in the top 5% (out of 120 in a competitive private school), and I had a few focused ECs based on my passion for music and art, what would my chances be?</p>

10

<ol>
<li>Don’t ask about Barnard.</li>
</ol>

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<p>I’d say that depends somewhat on what they’re asking about Barnard, but I generally tend to agree. If someone asked me about Barnard I’d have nothing but positive things to say, in fact one of my best friends is graduating from there this spring, but I’d definitely be a bit confused why they were asking me about Barnard when the only people that I interview are those that applied to CC/SEAS. If they were asking about Barnard as in “Are Barnard girls easy” I’d honestly give a politically correct answer that gave the person no information whatsoever, and would view it as an unprofessional/immature question.</p>

<p>In terms of what matters most for admissions, all of the above, being great in an area won’t get you accepted, but being “lacking” in one may very well get you rejected. That’s really great that you’re so ambitious about getting into a good college IvyLeague2020, but it would probably be a better idea to focus some of that energy on making sure you do get the grades/scores/EC’s you want, rather than worrying about hypothetical situations 3 years down the road. Although it certainly is good to be informed about college, it really is somewhat of a crapshoot no matter how much you prepare, and at this point your energy would be better spent getting straight A’s and enjoying HS. Good luck!</p>

12

<p>Ok thanks!</p>

13

<p>I’m an alumni interviewer too and largely agree with metsfan’s points. I myself don’t want or need a resume, however; I can generally get the picture from the questions I ask – mostly about present and prospective academic and extracurricular interests, and what’s sought in a college. What I most look for, apart from passion, interest, and a real quantum of individuality, is confidence and fluency. The Columbia education is intensely verbal, particularly in the Core, with its small classes and high expectations for participation. I like someone who can hold a real conversation with me; who doesn’t just wait for questions and who doesn’t answer them as absolutely briefly as possible, as if to rush through the interview; who sees me as an equal and not as an interviewer; perhaps most of all, who can think for himself or herself on the spot (as you have to do in so many classes). The “nice” thing for me as an interviewer is, I don’t know your grades, scores, or recommendations. I can see you “fresh” and make judgments independent of your record – on you alone, as you appear to me in the meeting.</p>

14

<p>Gee, I wish I would have had OP as my interviewer back in November. I wrote about Lit Him in my supplement! Okay so my interviewer was a really, really old retired dude from up north who told me he hasn’t been on campus in over 7 years and spent a good portion of our time ranting about how Bollinger is a terrible president. When we started discussing my strong extracurriculars, which involve a ton of LGBT activism and advocacy work, he kind of frowned, grumbled something along the lines of “that’s very nice”, and then changed the topic. It was kind of disheartening, but overall the interview was a very enjoyable process. :)</p>

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<p>That’s rough, sorry to hear that citizenship. You should have a really strong application at least (since you talked about lit hum in your supplement). That was at least a bit unprofessional of him to rant about Bollinger, but I would think that a lot of people who’ve been doing interviews for a while may be less “by the book” (there literally is a book, on the ARC website there’s an interview handbook-like thing), but that still shouldn’t really happen. One would hope that most of the people doing interviews would keep their (potential) politics out of the interview and encourage passion in any positive extracurricular activity, but you’ll always get some people who aren’t “ideal” interviewers with any school (and as I’m sure your aware, your interviews views on LGBT stuff are definitely not the prevailing views on campus).</p>

<p>I guess another thing for interviews is to try to avoid topics that could be considered politics/political; although interviewers should view passion for any extracurricular as a great thing, at times interviewers can let their personal views influence their feelings on a candidate/aren’t as professional as one would hope.</p>

16

<p>Hi, can anyone tell me whether Alumni interviewers would be able to view my supplement submitted? Thanks!</p>

<p>Would they ask you to explain more about your favorite books?</p>

17

<p>We (the interviewers) don’t see your supplement, or very much else from you application. It lists 2/3 academic interests, and 3 one-word EC’s, and obviously we know where you got to HS and your phone number and email, but that’s pretty much all we know.</p>

<p>You wouldn’t necessarily be asked to explain “more” about your favorite books, but it is possible you could be asked something like “Tell me a good book or movie you’ve read/seen recently.” I think I asked something like that last year to see how the people I was interviewing would respond to questions they may not have prepared for (and because I was looking for a good book/movie rec). So I’d say it’s a less likely question, but still possible.</p>

18

<p>What are interviewers looking to accomplish/find in the interviews? (What kinds of questions would they ask and why?)</p>

19

<p>haha.thanks! metsfan. =)</p>

20

<p>I would say the main things I’m looking for are the following:</p>

<p>1.) someone who wants to go to Columbia (not just any school with a good reputation, but specifically Columbia),
2.) Good critical thinking skills (if I ask something they haven’t prepared for they’re able to come up with a good answer on the spot–for that I’ll try and ask something completely out of left field–If you had to choose between saving the lives of one 5 year old and 5 80-year olds, which would you choose…though it’d probably be something a bit less awful than that)
3.) Can you hold up your end of a convo (I’ll ask about things that you seem to be interested in and have you talk about them and how you got interested, etc. So no one-word answers)
4.) I’ll ask something to see about how you deal with stressful situations (lots of things at Columbia are stressful: the workload, social situations, the workload again…I don’t want the person I’m interviewing to freak out and have a nervous breakdown at Columbia)
5.) Passion–I want to see that your passionate about something, and I’ll ask questions to see if you are and what that something is.</p>