anybody?

B - the short answer is they are all VERY competitive, esp in this economic environment. For a long time, the rule of thumb was that applying in the early rounds 'might' give you an ever-so-slight advantage. But in the last 2 years, with applications at an all time high, its pretty much even.

Regarding the Accel program - they like candidates who have a strong sense of their career past post-MBA, many of whom will go back to their former employer/business or profession.

Regards,

N

This may not be exactly appropriate for this particular forum, but I was wondering if anyone out there who applied early decision to Columbia this year could tell me whether they were notified early enough (dinged I suppose) to still submit Round 1 apps to other schools?

Thanks

Dear Bigeater1,

Thanks for your post. I'll echo Nikhil's thoughts on the level of competition in recent years at the top schools (b-school apps have been up across the board, etc). Having said that, I would still suggest that there is a difference in admissions-difficulty across the three options at Columbia.

In short, J-Term typically offers the greatest admissions odds. Next in line is the Early Decision option, which offers much better admissions odds than the regular decision round.

As to your question, there is no two-year option that begins in January for the MBA program at CBS. To learn more about J-Term and their admissions policies, you should check out this interview with Clear Admit's Deena Maerowitz (a former CBS admissions officer):
https://blog.clearadmit.com/2009/04/colu ... le-online/

Finally, as to Howell's question - the timing of an ED response depends solely on when you apply. In other words, if you apply to Columbia at the absolute start of the ED cycle, you should theoretically have a response by early October (just in time to pull the trigger on R1 applications), but you will need to have prepared those apps in advance, since the CBS result won't give you enough time to start from scratch on new applications, etc. Due to the fact that the timing is somewhat close here, most folks just apply to Columbia in the late summer/early fall for ED, and then submit other applications in R2 (January deadlines) if they aren't admitted at Columbia.

Best of luck,

Graham