I am fortunate enough for one of my teachers to setup a meeting with me and his former student who went to Columbia. I was wondering what questions I should him, not just for me, but for you guys as well if you would like something answered. So far I asked him about:
If you are premed, then three questions come to mind:
Grade Deflation / Inflation. How difficult is it to maintain a medical-school-worthy GPA as a student at Columbia, and how difficult are the premed classes?
Physical Safety: How safe is the area around Columbia? Which nearby hospitals are likely to be available for your medical shadowing, and how safe is the area around those hospitals?
Access to Professors: How difficult is it to get to know your professors? You will want to be able to get good references.
Regarding your point about financial aid: This is a very important issue. If you are premed then you should be budgeting for a full 8 years of university. However, I would expect the NPC to be relatively accurate in most cases (unless your parents are divorced or own a small business or rental property).
Another issue for premed students is “plan B”. Most students who start off as premed students end up doing something else. However, I would expect Columbia to be quite good for many (not necessarily all) possible examples of “something else”.
Otherwise I think that you have a good list of questions.
I’d encourage you to ask this person about their personal experiences, especially if they are a recent grad. What did they like best? What would they change? What do they think makes Columbia unique? What do they regret?
I’m sorry to be pedantic, but this is pet peeve of mine (likely a result of my Jesuit education 
): alumni is plural. If the person in question identifies as a man, it is alumnus.
I don’t think there is any reason to expect a random alum to have insight into what the adcoms are looking for in an app or what financial aid is available.
Agreed. I certainly couldn’t answer financial aid questions about any of the colleges I’ve attended, except to a very limited degree based on what I or my friends received. I don’t know the full range of what is available. Nor do I necessarily know what aos are looking for: I could describe my own application as an example of one that was successful and maybe talk about the backgrounds of some of my classmates. Perhaps one could draw some conclusions from that, but it would be highly speculative.
For that reason, I agree with the above that the best thing would be to ask about their personal experiences. What did they like best? What kind of clubs did they participate in? Did they feel like a part of a community? How large were their intro classes and was it hard to get the classes you wanted? Who was the best professor you had and why, what was the best class you took and what did you learn from it? What did you do on the weekends? Etc.
I’m not applying to Ivies but this is what I always ask….
Where is your favorite spot on campus?
Did you have any fun school traditions?
What do you wish you knew before going to this school?
I agree with you. The main reason I asked about FA is because we come from similar backgrounds / income so I thought whatever he got would be similar to mine. He told me that having good stats is like a raffle ticket and its the story that actually sets you apart from the bunch of other straight A high sat students. Ofc this is his opinion and not something from an actual AO.
New York City is one of the most expensive places on the planet to live as well as one of the most daunting in terms of income-disparities, food insecurity, and an on-going housing shortage. My question is how much time do Columbia students spend off campus, - and is it worth it?
ETA: “Campus” being defined as the university itself plus the Morningside Heights neighborhood.
I would omit the question about premed. Fact is…you can be premed anywhere.
Ask about things that might make Columbia unique for YOU. Don’t worry about anyone here. This interview is for you.
I would recommend strongly against asking this question or other how-can-i get -a high gpa / are -classes-too-hard questions. It’s antithetical to the intellectual curiosity this level of school is seeking in applicants.
Focus on their experience: what do they like most and what surprised them about the school.
I edited the topic title to reflect this.
I was thinking based on the original post that the meeting was with a former student who has nothing to do with admissions. Perhaps OP can clarify this.
I might ask if he’d taken a class taught by Brian Greene or David Kipping.
I would – like others have mentioned above – ask about that person’s specific experiences. How was their transition to college? What made it challenging (if it was)? What suggestions do they have for an incoming student? What friends did they make, and are they still friends with those people? Did they feel that their college experience changed them? If so, how? If they could do it again, with the wisdom of hindsight, is there something they would do differently? Why did they choose the school they chose? Was the experience what they thought it would be? If not, how was it different?
All that said, I think the experience at Ivy League schools is very different than when I was at one 30 years ago. It wasn’t as competitive as it seems to be there days, with a proliferation of competitive extracurricular clubs…and such a focus on what comes next. Part of that is cost, I think; part is a sign of the times. This is a long way of saying that the things that made my specific college experience meaningful for me seem unlikely to be part of a current student’s experience at the same college.
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