The Columbia DEP Interview: The Current-Student Vibe Check
You got the interview invite. Now you're reading everything you can about what's actually going to happen, and most of what you're finding either covers the regular Columbia MBA interview or gives you a list of sample questions without telling you what makes this particular format different.
The Columbia DEP interview is different. Understanding how it works before you show up changes how you prepare.
TL;DR
The Columbia DEP interview is 30 minutes. Your interviewer is a second-year MBA student, not an admissions officer. The format is conversational, sometimes genuinely casual, and designed to assess fit rather than interrogate your application. It is a blind interview: your interviewer has not read your essays. Prepare for a real conversation, not a Q&A.
Who Is On the Other Side of the Screen
This is the detail that changes everything.
Columbia DEP interviews are conducted primarily by current second-year MBA students. Not alumni placed near your zip code. Not admissions staff. A student who was sitting in your position roughly two years ago, who went through a version of the same process, and who now interviews candidates as part of their involvement with the program.
Nicole Newham from Columbia's admissions team confirmed this in March 2026: most interviews are a peer-to-peer dynamic, designed as "a behavioral, two-way conversation" and "a great way to get to know about the school and the community."
That description is accurate, and it has real implications for how you should prepare.
The Blind Interview Format
The Columbia interview is blind. Your interviewer has not read your application before the conversation. They do not have your essays, your recommendations, or your personal statement in front of them. You can optionally share your resume, but even that is supplementary.
This is a deliberate structural choice. The blind format means every applicant enters on roughly equal footing. It also means the conversation cannot be driven by follow-up questions on specific things you wrote. The interviewer is learning about you from scratch.
For most applicants this is a relief. You are not defending your essay word choices or justifying a specific story you told. You are simply talking about yourself.
The flip side: because the interviewer has no prior context, you have to establish your direction clearly from the first few minutes. There is no application file doing work for you in the background.
What 30 Minutes Actually Feels Like
The clearest description I have heard from students who went through it: it feels like catching up with someone who is two years ahead of you, not an interrogation.
The Columbia general MBA interview has a reputation for being "surprisingly casual," and the DEP version carries the same character. The pace is slower than an HBS interview. There is usually room to ask questions. Some conversations run long because the interviewer is genuinely curious about something you said.
This is not the same as being easy. "Conversational" and "easy" are different things. A conversation that gets specific about your career goals and what you've done so far requires the same level of clarity that a more formal interview does. The difference is that at Columbia, the format does not punish you for being a human being.
The Weakness in the Format
The current-student format has a structural limit worth understanding.
Because your interviewer is a second-year MBA student, not a specialist in admissions or career evaluation, the conversation depth depends heavily on who you get. An interviewer whose background overlaps with yours, or who has been through similar recruiting, can go three levels deep into your goals. An interviewer who has never thought about your industry may stay at the surface.
This is neither good nor bad for you. It just means the interview is less consistently calibrated than an HBS or Stanford format where the interviewer has read your essays and is explicitly testing your narrative coherence.
Compare the three main M7 deferred interviews:
At HBS 2+2, your interviewer is an admissions committee member who has read every word you submitted. The questions are essay-driven. The format is structured and fast.
At Stanford GSB Deferred, you are matched with an alumnus who shares something meaningful with your background: geography, industry, or career direction. The alignment is a deliberate variable in the evaluation.
At Columbia DEP, you get a current student, which gives the conversation a peer quality that neither of the other two has. The tradeoff is less depth calibrated to your specific goals.
Knowing this changes your preparation. You cannot count on the interviewer understanding the nuances of your target industry. You have to explain it simply and compellingly, not assume shared context.
What They Actually Want to Know
The content of a Columbia DEP interview clusters around three areas.
Your academic background and what it tells them about you. You are still an undergrad or recent grad. They want to know what you've done in school: what you've studied, what you've been involved in, what you've learned about yourself in the process. This is different from a regular MBA interview where work experience carries the conversation.
Your early career direction. What are you going to do in the two to five years before you enroll? This is the DEP-specific version of the goals question, and it matters more than people expect. Admissions is evaluating your trajectory. A specific answer, even if imprecise, is better than a vague one.
Why Columbia makes sense for where you are going. Not a recitation of program facts, but a genuine argument for why CBS, and specifically CBS's strengths in your area, fits what you want to do. The interviewer may not be an expert in your field, but they will notice whether you've done any real thinking about this.
How This Changes Your Preparation
Two things to build before the interview.
First, a clear two-minute version of your story. Where you're from, what you've studied, what you're going to do next, and why you think an MBA at Columbia eventually fits into that path. Practiced enough that it flows naturally but not rehearsed to the point of sounding scripted. The blind format means you need to be able to establish your whole picture from scratch with no scaffolding.
Second, three specific things about Columbia that actually connect to your goals. Not "Columbia has a strong finance program." Name a cluster, a specific faculty member, a dual-degree option, or a target firm in NYC that is directly relevant to your path. The interviewer may not probe this hard, but if the conversation gets there, you want to have real answers. A prepared answer here also signals that you've done genuine research, which the admissions committee will see in how the interview is reported.
Spend less time memorizing answers to a standard question list and more time being able to talk honestly about your direction. The Columbia interview rewards people who have actually thought about what they want to do.
What Not to Do
Do not treat this like a job interview. The interviewer is not evaluating your technical competence or your resume qualifications. They are assessing whether you seem like someone who would add to the Columbia community. These are different evaluations.
Do not over-prepare to the point of sounding memorized. The conversational format is specifically designed to get past packaged answers. An interviewer who has been trained to look for genuine dialogue will notice when someone is running through a script.
Do not expect depth on your industry. If you are applying from a less common background, finance, or a niche that a second-year student may not know, prepare to explain your path clearly to someone who is smart but not an expert in what you are trying to do. The burden of clarity is on you.
Action Steps
- Write out your two-minute personal story today. Cover: what you're studying, what you've done that matters, what you're going to do after graduation, and why you want a Columbia MBA eventually. Say it out loud three times until it flows without effort.
- Do one mock interview with someone who has not read your application. Brief them minimally. Then see how the conversation develops from near-zero context. This simulates what will actually happen.
- Identify three Columbia-specific things that connect to your career direction. Use real names: a cluster, a professor, a dual-degree program, a specific NYC firm or sector. The Columbia DEP essays guide has a framework for this research.
- Prepare to ask one or two genuine questions about life at CBS. This is not a formality. The format has space for it, and an interesting question signals that you're actually curious about the program, not just trying to get admitted.
- Read through the full Columbia DEP program guide before the interview. Knowing the program structure and what Columbia values gives you context that makes every answer stronger.
If you want help working through your Columbia interview preparation alongside your essays, coaching is available here.