Best M7 MBA Program for REPE
What is the best, straight cut dry best, M7 MBA program for Real Estate? Not looking to debate the mba vs MSRE thing here, just want to here opinions on best MBA program.
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Either Wharton or Columbia.
Wharton has the biggest cred in real estate overall, they have an actual real estate dept within Wharton. At Columbia and Harvard, real estate is technically taught in the architecture schools.
The Zell Laurie center at Wharton is very well known. I'm in NYC, and I think I find more Wharton people around here at all the big firms than any other, followed by HBS/Columbia (granted, these are east coast programs so.....)
If you are wanting to be on the west coast... Stanford and Berkeley are prob top picks.
That's not true about Columbia. The MSRED is through the GSAPP, while their real-estate MBA focus is through the Milstein Center. They are separate entities and should not be conflated.
That is correct, they don't historically have much of a real estate focus compared to other places, and nothing like Wharton. CBS is trying to step it up, they hired NYU Stern's main RE professor a few years ago.
Do you mean the MBA program doesn't historically have much of a real estate focus? Because if you are, that is again not true. The CBS MBA program has an enormous real estate club, and their students end up at all of the top development and investment shops in offices all across the country. The placements are far superior to their MSRED program. As susan.cera said, Wharton MBA and CBS MBA are the top two real estate programs.
If you need to know more, you can PM me.
No disagreement on the club or presence in the industry, HBS is very similar. I'm talking about the academic program/coursework. At Columbia (as Harvard), the main RE program is outside of CBS (in architecture), at Penn, it is in Wharton. This may make a difference as to what coursework options you have (I can't speak to current offerings, as I know CBS has intentionally made some critical hiring moves to up their game in recent years).
Coursework and placements don't have much linkage, but if someone is totally brand new and wants to learn more CRE while in school, I would recommend the one with the widest selection of offerings. Unless it's changed recently, Wharton tops the M7 MBA programs in that field. If someone is coming from an RE background or otherwise has had RE coursework at UG or elsewhere, then I would say it doesn't matter. In fact, don't waste the time/money on the RE coursework, take finance or something more useful.
This is straight up incorrect, because the person is asking about MBA options. CBS alum here and wanted to clear a few things up.
The Milstein Center is inside CBS. This is who organizes all curriculum and offerings for Real Estate.
CBS, unlike Wharton, does not have majors, so this may be the source of your confusion (seems evident you haven't pursued an MBA and are looking at this from your UG days). At CBS, you pick and choose the electives you want, and the RE offerings for MBA students are out of this world- those guys get dedicated classes to RE M&A, RE distressed , immersion courses, and on and on. A lot of people also get insemester internships in REPE and Development, which gives a leg up if you don't have prior experience.
No one should be conflating an MS in real estate and MBA because they are different schools at Columbia- completely different programs. There is next to no overlap between people going for CBS MBA and the other MS degrees- they don't sit in the same classes.
Not gonna comment on whether it's better than Wharton, cuz I don't know, but I wanted to clear up the facts for people looking to pursue RE.