Columbia Business School Vs. INSEAD 40% Scholarship January Intake

Congrats on your admits! This has been a brutal year for many of your countrymen.... congratulations on coming out quite a bit ahead in this game.

INSEAD is a very non-US school and a very secretive one too - they won't release their placement numbers nor average GMAT score and they won't even share how many people they admit. It is crazy. It is largely a Europe/Asia school and CBS is a US School. If you want to be in Europe or Asia, head to INSEAD or if you want to work in the US, CBS is the only path really.

For example, Insead does share a 50 page employment report, however https://www.insead.edu/sites/default/fi ... istics.pdf and it has a bit of data - the number of people reporting jobs is 613 and 50 of them ended up in the US - my understanding is that all of them came from the US (so they had work permits).

However, Insead is the school of consultants. Close to 50% of the class go into consulting roles and this would be a natural fit for you. CBS is not bad either in consulting but it is not as lopsided as Insead. One thing you should be aware of at INSEAD is that recruiting starts month 2 - you have 1 month to think about studying and then you are head-down into looking for a job. The 2-year MBA experience allows for a bit of a break and while you do have to search for an internship, it is usually an easier process and not as stressful. You do have a break between the two years to evaluate your career, goals, and adjust them. If you are pretty set on your future, then you don't really need this soul-searching time. Many like having it, however.

The way I see it, it comes down to: Consulting domination + Savings of time and money VS. Working in the US after graduation + 2-Year MBA experience

One way you can approach it is - assign some weights to these on a scale from 1 to 10 and see what sum ends up greater.