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Columbia's new Early Decision process (is lame)
We're a big fan of Columbia Business School - great school, great connections, great city. What's not to love?
Except for the fact that CBS's tuition is nearly $10k per year more than most other schools - it's even more than Stanford, whose tuition is one of the priciest (and c'mon, who's foolin' themselves, a Columbia MBA is *not* the same as one from Stanford). And living in NYC is obviously mucho dinero. But, looking at ROI, CBS grads tend to make beaucoup bucks, right? So, okay, we'll overlook the little gouging issue there.
And we always have loved the Early Decision option at Columbia. In past years, we've seen some great candidates find a spot in this program, and they get the huge benefit of finding out tres early that they are headed to bschool in a year. They can celebrate, and drop the stress. They commit to Columbia in advance and that's one small factor that sometimes helps Columbia commit to them.
We know that people have long been suspicious of this binding Early Decision thing as a ploy for the school to raise their yield, but we always defended them, saying it's more about good business, in being able to nail down their incoming class earlier in the process, so they get control of things and know how their class is going to shape up. With the ED option, Columbia is not as subject to the whimsy and fickleness of applicants later in the cycle who are busy weighing options against their school and other schools, and with the ED option, Columbia completely avoids inflicting that whole trauma and drama and veritable hell-hole of the waitlist on people. Which we always felt was a kind and humane thing.
The waitlist is always perceived by people as some form of purgatory; it is invariably seen by the applicant from a glass-is-half-empty, I'm-a-complete-loser-and-they-couldn't-even-accept-me position. People really cannot see that it leaves them a chance; they're focused on how they weren't good enough and why couldn't they have just gotten an offer? The waitlist is a form of torment and it can really hit hard on the self esteem. (Not as hard as an outright rejection, sure, we'll give you that. But not exactly a confidence-booster either.)
"But wait!" you say. "Columbia doesn't have a waitlist? I thought my buddy applied to the J-Term and he was put on the waitlist?"
Ah yes, they have long had a waitlist for the J-Term, going back years and years. That's sort of a holding tank where they put candidates that they like, but they don't like enough to actually admit them -- yet. They want to see how the rest of the J-Term applicant pool shapes up before making a final yes/no call on you. So sure, the waitlist makes sense for the J-Term.
But the Early Decision cycle? No waitlist.
At least.... that's what we thought.
There have been plenty of changes implemented since the coming of the new admissions director at CBS, and many of them have caused us to scratch our heads. We think there must have been some political blow-up with Linda Meehan, the longstanding admissions dean at Columbia, because all of a sudden, she was out (originally doing some type of alumni relations gig - oh really?) and this new admissions person was in, very quickly, with little fanfare and no big announcement, which always strikes us as a little fishy. Especially since it happened in the heat of the season, sometime right around October or November last year. So we started out being a little suspicious.
But now we're just downright peeved.
Columbia now has added a "deferred decision" option to the Early Decision outcome. In other words, a waitlist.
ISN'T THE WHOLE POINT OF "EARLY DECISION" THAT YOU GET A DECISION??? LIKE, EARLY???
This happens to some poor unsuspecting applicants after they submit the app and get invited to the interview (hurray! hurrah!) and then a week or so later, blam-o. The status changes. They get all excited and log onto the app system -- and it tells them that they love you you're great but sorry. They can't offer you a spot quite yet. Maybe they will later? They try to smooth it out by offering all this complimentary language about how great you are, your "loyalty" and "commitment" are what makes Columbia great (say what? how does that work?) etc etc etc (nauseate).
But the bottom line? If you're willing to be strung out by them a little a LOT longer -- say, till like, February -- then they'd love to have you hang around till then. Just in case. Maybe later they'll have a look. And decide that you're not so bad after all.
After they've reviewed THE BULK OF THE REGULAR ROUND CANDIDATES.
Basically they're wanting to see if something better doesn't come along first.
Okay, okay, we understand. The alternative here seems to be that they reject these people outright. And that is not what we would want. (These are qualified applicants they're doing this to. It's not like they're borderline can't-get-in-anywhere types who were looking to take advantage of the better odds with ED. These are bright people, good grades, good GMATs. People that Columbia should have NO PROBLEM accepting into their class. Just our two cents. In case you were curious.)
But WHAT THE HELL?? They ask the person to answer back to say they're interested in this "deferred decision" thing (why don't they just call it a WAITLIST??) -- but they NEVER explain how the CANDIDATE'S ORIGINAL COMMITMENT TO THE SCHOOL WORKS FROM HERE.
In other words - the big deal with the CBS ED thing is - if you apply ED, you're committing in advance to accept an offer, should the school extend one. You vow to turn down offers from other schools. You have to check that little box on the application, saying you agree to that.
IF YOU AGREE TO THIS DEFERRED DECISION NONSENSE, DOES THAT COMMITMENT STILL APPLY???
They do not tell you. They just ask you to go along with their little game of what-works-for-us, sorry-if-it's-an-inconvenience-to-you. They want you to wait another FOUR MONTHS or so to find out a final answer. Which could still be a rejection. Where's the "early decision" in all this?!?
This.
Is.
Totally.
Lame.
By the time February rolls around, any well-qualified candidate is going to have applied to plenty of other schools, and what if those schools come back and say yes? And the ED app is still active, and the candidate has already committed to say yes to Columbia? Even if they don't yet have any clue whether Columbia is eventually going to decide to say yes to them?? And even if, when they checked that little box on the app agreeing to be bound by the Early Decision commitment, they had understood that they would hear back, like, early?!!
This is bull$hit. At least, in EssaySnark's opinion. Not that anybody cares what we think. But we're just sayin'.
We saw this happen last year, in December, and thought it was an anomoly.
Seeing it happen as "business as usual" in this year's Early Decision process is ... the best word we can find for this is "rude." And "arrogant" comes to mind, too. And we can come up with a lot of other words too -- lots of attributes that Columbia says that they don't want to see in their students. But it's okay for the admissions people to have these traits.
In EssaySnark's opinion, this "ED" process is a little, what you say, dysfunctional?
Columbia didn't used to do things this way. With this bait-and-switch, string-'em-out, show-no-respect-to-the-candidate kind of benefits-us-only thing. Up till last year, they treated their candidates... what's the word? Fairly?
Oh wait here's another one: ETHICALLY.
We're just sayin'.
at 8:07 AM
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Labels: Columbia, Early Action/Decision, rant, tuition, waitlist/deferred decision
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9 comments:
northern stars said...
i love your posts, your site, your insight! keep it up and keep it real!
October 13, 2010 2:11 PM
Guy said...
No offense but your post is inaccurate, wrong, and idiotic. I applied to CBS for ED way back in 2006, when Linda Meehan was calling the shots. I was deferred from ED to RD and ultimately was dinged. So much for your claims about the "new administrative regime" at CBS, as they most certainly used to do deferrals in the past. This has nothing to do with Mary Miller being the new director. Also, they most certainly do NOT require you to adhere to the ED terms once you are deferred to RD. Not only do they acknowledge that you are applying to other schools, they actually encourage you to do so, and simply ask that you let them know if you still wish to be considered in RD - pretty standard waitlist management and nothing "unfair" about it. BTW, I am currently a student at CBS so deferrals may actually boost your position as a re-applicant.
October 14, 2010 4:03 AM
essaysnark said...
@Guy, no offense at all! We love it when our posts are called idiotic! :-) We also appreciate hearing your report - except for the one-off last Dec, this is certainly not something we ever encountered before in our X years of helping CBS applicants, but clearly we aren't privy to everything that goes on and everyone's outcomes. It had seemed to coincide with the other recent changes that we feel are not applicant-friendly. (And again, while we love getting your take, nothing you can say is really going to change our impressions because you went through this 4 years ago - we're discussing recent changes.)
Maybe it was handled differently for you back in '06 but the fact is that today, the CBS adcom does not address the "binding" commitment at all when notifying an ED applicant of the "deferred" status - at a minimum you would think they'd be proactive about communicating this. If they did in the past, that's good, but they're not doing it now. Nor are they "encouraging" these kids to apply to other schools - please let us know where and when they do that?
Why do they call this a "deferral"? They have a "waitlist" for the J-Term - what's with the nonstandard terminology? The website says "Final decisions can be admission, denial of admission or wait list. Decisions can be rendered at any time and all decisions are final." Why have this "deferred" loophole? It does not engender trust.
Also, whether or not this is a MM change or it predates her arrival, doesn't it very much reduce the value of this "Early Decision" process, if you actually do NOT get a decision until February? February seems awfully late in the cycle. Last year we saw someone strung out till late Dec or Jan. But Feb.? Come on. The least they could do is to spell this out as an option on their website. There is NO mention ANYWHERE on the CBS website about this (and yes, we definitely call this "unfair") -- if you know of one please point us to it!
We remain disillusioned with the new CBS adcom.
October 14, 2010 1:21 PM
Category6 said...
I second the motion after having been just "deferred" to RD from ED. Strong recs, great scores, even uncommonly good essays (for me). Was hoping to hear a yes or a no...this is definitely unfair. I'll apply to 5 additional schools now. It costs at least a grand, and may be completely unnecessary.
Does anyone know what the odds are of being accepted after a deferral from ED to RD?
October 21, 2010 6:37 AM
essaysnark said...
@Category6 - sorry to hear you're also on the "D" list! Nobody will be able to answer your "what are the odds" question - even if someone can say what's happened in past years, it's totally irrelevant today since so many processes have been changed under the new adm dir. Our client last year who's ED app was deferred in Dec. found out in Jan. that she was rejected. Her app wasn't that strong so we weren't terribly surprised. No idea how things will play out this year. Good luck with those other apps!! And if you want to send your CBS essays over, EssaySnark would love to review them - and possibly post a critique - anonymously of course - if you're up for it! (it's [essaysnark at gmail] in case you were wondering)
And who knows, maybe CBS will come back with a 'yes' - they could do so at any time, right? Miffed as we are by this process, we're not giving up hope for any of our peeps.
October 21, 2010 3:27 PM
Ganesh Kumar said...
Here's an interesting followup on the deferral process. Apparently there are two types of deferred candidates. What are your thoughts, especially for someone who has been deferred to R1 rather someone still in ED?
http://gmatclub.com/forum/calling-all-cbs-2011-applicants-94306-2120.html#p822691
November 23, 2010 3:14 PM
essaysnark said...
@Ganesh, EssaySnark doesn't have direct access to the Columbia processes, however in reading through that discussion, it's only a second-hand report about there being "two" deferrals. This is our first-hand experience with clients: after interviewing, J-Term applicants might get offered to go on a WAITLIST with a final answer promised in December (maybe sooner); after interviewing, ED applicants might get offered a DEFERRED DECISION which puts them in the regular round, with an answer promised by February 1 (maybe sooner). The language in the communications from the adcom to these two types of applicants is different - J-Termers get waitlisted, ED applicants get deferred. (Regular-round applicants might get waitlisted too but that doesn't start happening until March probably.)
Luckily most of EssaySnark's clients are getting accepted outright and so our dataset on the WL/D-list stuff is tiny. However we doubt that there are two types of deferrals for ED applicants. We suspect that the report that one poster's friend who was deferred will get a final answer in December was actually for a J-Term applicant (unless the adcom changed their process halfway through when they realized how bunk the "deferral" nonsense is!). However, all is up in the air at Columbia; we don't know anything for sure either.
Please keep us posted @Ganesh - we're rootin for ya!
November 24, 2010 10:58 AM
Anonymous said...
Just an FYI. I got deferred from the ED round. I then let them know I would like to get reconsidered as an applicant and they let me know right away that because of the deferment, I was no longer bound to the ED contract.
December 7, 2010 8:13 PM
essaysnark said...
@Anonymous, thanks for that - yes we've heard that they've been clarifying this to other applicants too upon expression of interest in the DD process, however you'd think they'd state it right up front in the original deferred-decision "invitation"!!
December 9, 2010 9:33 AM
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