MIT vs. Columbia (non-finance post MBA goal)

So I'll try to tackle your issues point by point.

For your diversity of interests.... here's how I would assess Columbia's strengths and weaknesses from a career preparation standpoint. This is based on where my friends landed, the classes I have taken, and the extracurriculars I have been involved in. I had a pretty diverse set of interests myself coming in, so I did get to dabble quite a bit. Hopefully you can get some similar comps for MIT and decide what's best.

Core Competencies
Banking
Consulting
Value Investing
Int'l Business
Healthcare

Heavily Investing In
Technology
Entrepreneurship
Social Enterprise

Locationally Great At
Retail / Luxury Goods
Media
Real Estate

Student Directed
Private Equity
Venture Capital

"Needs (Serious) Improvement"
Marketing

In regards to your two stated interests, CBS is great at International Relations. We actually have an extremely tight connection with the School of International Affairs and a lot of students take cross listed classes - I know at least a handful who will graduate with both a MBA and a MIA. I have a little less knowledge of this field, but you should reach out to admissions to see if they'd put you in touch with someone who has followed this route.

If you are 100% sure on technology, I would probably take MIT. Their history and brand just run deeper in that industry so I might imagine you'd have a slightly easier time. To be fair, CBS is making a concerted effort to be a major player in the tech and entrepreneurship industry as well. The administration is investing a ton of money in this space, from bringing in amazing faculty (Jared Grusd, General Counsel at Spotify teaches Internet Wars, Steve Blank of Lean Launchpad fame, Arne Rees, COO of RSE Ventures teaches Cable Value Chain, David Pogue of Yahoo Tech, etc.) speakers (Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Drew Houston of Dropbox, Peter Thiel of Paypal, Jennifer Hyman of Rent the Runway, etc.), and also innovative classes - I took one that paired business school and engineering students to actually build an app and business plan over the course of a semester - there are FOUR variations of this class being offered now (Technology Entrepreneurship, Lean Launchpad (taught by Steve himself!), Launching New Ventures, and Intro to Venturing). CBS also has its own Startup Coworking Space in SoHo (https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/entreprene ... tartup-lab) and I had a few friends there over the summer.

The other cool thing is that being in NYC, you have easy access to a lot of internships, both in semester and summer time. Looking at spring-time internships there are literally a hundred on right now. From a summer / fulltime recruiting standpoint, I think we got all the right opportunities. I only dipped my toes into tech (I did VC recruiting mostly), but still got interviews at Amazon (Product Manager and Financial), LinkedIn (Global Product Group), Google (Tech Strategy). Other friends worked at Apple, Box, Blizzard, Pandora, and... Uber (so you can have contacts there! Matt Dorsey and Sebastian Wakim are there for sure). Tech in generally has shot up from like 0% of CBS exits to like 12% in just 5 years, which is pretty surprising.

In regards to the network, I would say give https://www.linkedin.com/alumni a spin. Set the school to CBS, type in a company name, and see who comes up. It'll give you a sense for what alumni are out there. I think it'll definitely help alleviate your fears... while certainly many people enter finance and consulting, for the vast majority it's a stepping stone job to something else. I think that's probably true at most schools.

In terms of community, I think it's pretty great. It was funny for me, because I ended up debating over Tuck and CBS - at first glance, two schools literally at the opposite ends of the community spectrum. But I think once you dive deeper and get away from the broad strokes that are repeated on forums, CBS has an extremely vibrant community. I mean it's hard not to when you all take classes together in such a cramp place as Uris Also, a lot of social activities happen off campus, which can leave Uris feeling a little light in the evenings and that partially explains it. But that's because everyone is at Rugby Happy Hour on Wednesdays or After-Party on Thursdays, etc. As a former NYCer, I basically told my NYC friends that I'd see them again in two years and that's pretty much held up.

This is a small subset, but check out https://twitter.com/hashtag/whycbs to see what my classmates are up to.

That's what I've got the moment, if there's anything specific you'd like me to expand on, feel free to ask.

You mentioned you did VC recruiting at CBS. How challenging is it to get a VC internship/full time job? How does CBS compare to other schools with this?

Given that you don't know what you want to do post MBA, I'd recommend you don't waste your time dissecting employment stats (which can be very misleading anyways) or try to tease out minuscule differences in reputation (which may not play out for you). Instead, focus on the school and student body culture. Business school is a lot more than an entry point to a job. It's a time to reflect, explore, learn, and meet new people. Try and talk to a bunch of people at each school and get a sense of where you'd be the most comfortable and where you'd the learn the most. You can tell a lot simply by talking with people - even when everyone's trying to sell you their school.

Agreed. Go to both schools' admitted student weekends, meet the people, and make your decision based on fit.

I wanted to thank you for your time and detailed reply. It was very helpful and confirmed what I suspected, that CBS is the right place for me. As many have mentioned, I went to both admit weekends and simply went where I felt I would 'fit'. The choice was extremely difficult, but all along in the back of my mind I knew the answer.

While it's silly to take anything on message boards seriously, and I tried to keep any conversations I've had out of mind when making my decision, I will say you investing the 30+ mins to really try and help me was much appreciated and I'm sure factored in, in some small way. Thanks again and if anyone has any questions on why I made my decision, i'm happy to help.

Best,

CBS Class Member of '17