Columbia Business School

Welcome to your Columbia Business School MBA application course.

This is a step-by-step walkthrough for Columbia Business School’s MBA application. It will take you through every stage of the application process using detailed instructions, example essays, and insider tips.

Course Objectives

• Demonstrate genuine fit with Columbia Business School (not just NYC)
• Answer CBS’s relatively-long Employment questions and brutally-tight goals essay
• Draft CBS’s three application essays for 2025 – 2026 using your BRAINSTORM GRID
• Submit an application to get admitted to CBS MBA

Pre-Requisites

Before starting this school course, you should complete the following courses:

• Target Schools
• Resume
• Brainstorm

School Strategy

J-term: Columbia is unusual in that it has two course timelines: a traditional full-time program spread over 2 years with a summer internship (70% of students), and a J-term option starting in January where students generally don’t do a summer internship (30% of students). Use this to your advantage! If you don’t need an internship, you should strongly consider the J-term option where admission rates are far higher.

Deadlines: Columbia recently moved from rolling deadlines to traditional rounds. The traditional program has 3 rounds, the J-term option has 2 rounds. J-term rounds are out-of-sync with regular MBA deadlines, so if you’re starting the MBA application process early (or late) there may be a J-term round that suits your timeline better.

Competitive: Columbia (and NYU Stern) are based in the heart of New York City. This makes them attractive for applicants as a lifestyle choice. Therefore, both schools are more relatively more competitive than their rank would suggest. For example, Columbia’s admit rate is around 22% (class of 2025), which compares to its Chicago-based M7 peer Northwestern Kellogg whose admit rate is around 32% (class of 2025).

Essay Workshop

In August 2024, admissions consultants Sam, Alex and Malvika hosted a CBS essay workshop, where we used the mbaconsultant.com platform to write the 3 CBS essays. Watch the recording of that workshop here: