Director
Joined: 20 May 2013
Posts: 602
Given Kudos: 54
Location: United States
Concentration: Strategy, Finance
Re: Columbia FT vs. Haas Part-time
[#permalink]
02 Jun 2014, 07:48
If you want to switch into Consulting, Columbia will be best as it's much easier for career switchers to get into consulting from Full-time programs. That said, of the Top-10 schools, Columbia is weakest in Consulting (or 2nd weakest, after Stern), and is still very much a finance school. If you want to stay in tech, Haas makes the most sense.
PT and FT life-style is MUCH different, as is the recruiting (even if you have access to the same resources...in actuality things turn out much different). So really decide whether you want 2 years of HUGE debt, but a more relaxed and fun experience, with higher salary increase. Or 3 years of a ton of stress and less shot at top jobs, but substantially less debt. Also, on average, the PT people have GMAT scores ~50 lower and much higher acceptance rates, so keep that in mind from a network perspective (at most programs there is minimal interactions between FT and PT people).
Personally, I'd never do a PT program because I wouldn't want to deal with 3 years of both work and school, and I want the traditional B-school experience (trips, EC's, not working for 2 years, formalized recruiting, etc). Your values may be different, there's no right and wrong answer, and it's something you need to decide for yourself.