90% of the billionaires with an MBA who made their fortune through finance have obtained their master’s degree from one of these three schools - Harvard, Columbia, and Wharton. Columbia, rooted in New York, has access to top leaders in the industry, as guest lecturers, speakers, and mentors.
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Columbia MBA Class Profile
Application Volume and Acceptance Rate
Columbia class of 2021 has admitted 1130 students out of 6971 applicants, a higher intake than 755 in 2020. The acceptance rate is 16%, and eventually, 782 enrolled in the program.
GMAT and GPA
The average class GPA is 3.6, ranging from 3.2 to 3.9. The average GMAT score is 726 that ranged from 580-780.
Work Experience
While 99% of the class had at least one year of work experience and 5 years on average, the work experience ranged from 3-8 years, with the oldest at 41 and the youngest at 23 – most registering as 28 years old.
Diversity
40% of the class is represented by women, 44% by international students, and 33% by minorities of US origin. By integrating technology and data science into the curriculum in 2020, Columbia earned STEM designation for its MBA and EMBA programs that offered international students a chance to work in the US for 3 years post completion of the program under an extended Optional Practical Training (OPT) permit.
Undergraduate Degree and Pre-MBA Experience
While Stanford and Wharton had higher students with an undergraduate major in Humanities, Columbia prefers undergrads in Business (29%) followed by Economics (20%) and Engineering (17%). Technology (3%), science (7%), and humanities (8%) fare lesser than social science (14%). When it comes to the industry experience, Columbia chose 30% of the class with exposure in Financial services over consulting (23%).
Marketing/media professionals represent 14% of the class and technology (8%), non-profit (5%), healthcare (4%), real estate (4%), military/government (2%), energy (2%), manufacturing (1%) is below 10% of the class.
Columbia MBA – Two Class Entry (August and January)
Students are admitted to the Columbia MBA program in two rounds - August and January. August entry is the most preferred by the applicants as they can take up summer internship jobs, unlike January entrants, and are eligible for merit-based scholarships. 70% of the class chose August entry over January. January entry is chosen by students who wish to remain in the same industry post-graduation, are company-sponsored or those with entrepreneurial ambitions.
Columbia MBA Curriculum
The core curriculum covers Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Statistics, Economics, Strategy, Operations, and Analytics, with the managerial role as the focus. Marketing and the Global Economic Environment in the core are two unique features of the program, with the former sensitizing the students on the interconnection between productivity, competition, exchange rate, and growth and its impact on government policies.
Columbia Business School has structured the courses around:
• Division (Accounting, Decision, Risk and Operations, Finance, Management, and Marketing)
• Centers (Chazen Global Study Program, The Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics, The Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate, The Tamer Center for Social Enterprise and The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing – Value Investing)
• Program (Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Management, Media and Technology, and Private Equity)
• NYC Immersion Seminars (Function-focused experiential learning with NYC as the background)
• Master Classes (Industry-focused experiential learning projects – 2nd-year students)
MBA students have the option to choose from over 325+ electives. Although specializations are not offered, the highly customizable nature of the course schedule allows students to orient towards an industry or a post-MBA function.
For those who plan to develop a concentrated understanding of two functions – Dual Degrees in Architecture, Dental and Oral Surgery, Engineering and Applied Science, International and Public Affairs, Journalism, Law, Nursing, General Medicine, Public Health, Social Work, and Education are other options.
The unique learning experiences at Columbia are provided through Master Classes and Immersion Seminars – two electives that have been consistently quoted by the Alumni as the most valuable at Columbia.
Columbia MBA – Placements (Post-MBA Salary and Percentage)
As most of the students come from a Finance and Consulting background at Columbia, the 5-year Industry acceptance trend also shows students choosing these two industries. In financial services, investment banking and investment management is a slow winner. The year 2020 severely affected the manufacturing sector due to COVID. Less than 2% of the class chose the consumer products industry. Media and technology are showing a positive increase not only in entertainment but in hardware/software/telecom and in internet services.
The Fintech industry has slowly emerged as a reliable industry for post-MBA placements, with the representation fluctuating between 1-1.2% since featuring on the employment report in 2019. The positive shift in trend towards Healthcare had begun in 2019 before the Pandemic after a subdued 2018 (1.8%), and offers are now stabilizing at 3.8%-3.9%. The casualty has been New York’s real estate industry that had a consistent 4% representation, but COVID-19 paused the demand for commercial real-estate, evident in the offers slipping to 1.4%.
34.1 % of grads with management consulting function took home the highest pay in the year 2020. 5-year salary analysis reveals that management consulting to be the preferred function among graduates at Columbia, followed by Investment banking, investment management, private equity, and venture capital. A high compensation was acquired by less than 1% of the class in General management, Marketing/Sales, and Real Estate functions.
5-year trend analysis (2016-2020) on Columbia post-MBA functions shows declining offers in Business Development and Buy/Sell-side research roles. Marketing and General management roles have steadily picked up in the same timeframe.
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Reference
Columbia MBA
Columbia MBA Career Statistics