nilusha

I had my interview today with a Columbia alumnus today......... and I was supposed to meet at a starbucks. I went to the starbucks I thought I was supposed to go to early and everything and waited forever for him. Then I just assumed that he must have forgotten or something, so I go home and e-mail him, and he said that I was at the wrong place and we rescheduled for tomorrow. Did I totally screw up?

disasterpiece02

Different Starbucks maybe? They're everywhere nowadays.

Shraf

stuff happens

nahshimshimhaeyo

this happened with my mit interview; don't worry about it. like shraf said, stuff happens

Columbia2002

If your interviewer were me, you'd have totally screwed up. Several years ago, some dude no-showed me and had a lame excuse (and no rational explanation as to why he waited until 3 hours after the scheduled interview time to give me his excuse). I didn't reschedule it because I figured it would be more fair spend the time interviewing another kid who wouldn't have otherwise gotten an interview rather than to make a second effort to interview that dude. Maybe that makes me a jerk; I don't know.

At least you get a second chance. At worst, your interviewer might come in thinking that you're immature and not all that bright and can't follow directions. Or maybe he realizes the directions were bad and gives you the benefit of the doubt.

cerberus08

"At least you get a second chance. At worst, your interviewer might come in thinking that you're immature and not all that bright and can't follow directions. Or maybe he realizes the directions were bad and gives you the benefit of the doubt."

This is true. I'd be ****ed off.

interview anecdote:

I interviewed a guy for SEAS this weekend, who had no apparent interest in columbia. When I asked him why he wanted to attend, he spouted some BS about how he likes "the juxtaposition between really old architecture and modern research facilities". He didn't even know what hte Core was.

AAAHHH CRINGE. If you want to BS, do it right. Otherwise avoid it. Anywyas, i later found out that the kid got into Oxford, and so had no interest anywhere else. He wasted 45 minutes of my effing time--he could've just told me he wasn't interested at the outset.

The relevance of this to the original post is that your interviewer's time is precious-no matter who he/she is. You're lucky you got a second chance. Take the interviewer's number with you. And God forbid, if you screw up again, you can call and explain.

confidentialcoll

""the juxtaposition between really old architecture and modern research facilities". He didn't even know what hte Core was."
"i later found out that the kid got into Oxford, and so had no interest anywhere else"

dude, this kid could be on the forum, bad way to find out about columbia