MSRED/MSRE Megathread 2020

It is possible to get into some of these programs with no traditional RE background. A lot of prior discussions do talk about other individual using an MSRE/MRED to break in from other non-related areas of work, but there are also comments that say the first gig after grad school can be hard to land because employers would still put you in the same pool as newly-minted grads who have recently finished their undergrad.

Other discussions on this topic do tend to praise the MBA more than the MSRE mostly because MBA programs are longer established, more known/available and have lots of options career-wise. MBA admissions are more competitive though.

What kind of FP&A do you do, and how long have you been there? You may be able to make the hop a little sooner without actually having to pick up a fancy masters degree.

Not OP, but I also had a sub 3.0 GPA and I've always found the best way to deal with it is to own it.

You briefly explain why, what you learned from it, why you are a more mature person now, and why your failures won't be replicated in the future. You need to practice this answer like a politician would so that it sounds logical and makes sense and flows, but don't lie, don't make excuses, and don't try to deflect.

"I fucked up because I was immature and unfocused. Through my time at X company, I've learned responsibility and have had success with X, Y, and Z. I've also taken leadership positions in _____ organization and volunteered in my spare time with ______. I want to attend your program to accomplish A, B, and C and I now know how to succeed in school by focusing on ________."

Then go do it. I made the honorary society for my grades in graduate school.

If you have the chance to go to MIT or Harvard for RE- then the only answer (barring an extraordinary circumstance) is to run don't walk to attend. It will pay national even global lifelong dividends in every way possible. There are strong intercollegiate relations across all schools and those contacts could prove extremely beneficial one day (especially given the growing intersection of tech and real estate that we are seeing).
 

The same imperative would apply to an elite top 3 mba especially Wharton given its congenial/cooperative real estate community and outsized graduate success.

Aside from this and especially if you are in NYC (the BigRE center of the world) completing NYU's MSRE program with emphasis on the finance and investment designation is the next best decision. If you have the ability to consistently reach out and earnestly build relationships (and work to maintain them over professional life) within this alumni network there is literally no one or nothing outside of your professional reach. I would say this, and the program’s near complete even fervent emphasis on giving graduates very practical/holistic/industry -sought skills upon graduation such as being able to (under direction/review/scrutiny from a working nyc MD/CIO/CDO/CEO in a form and level he expects from underlings) model every investment type/class or novel scenario presented, on the fly, and defend vigorously the substance (assumptions, conclusions, drivers, thesis, etc) not just mastering the superficial modeling style and format (GI/GO).

In terms of the above posting - plenty of students pass on Columbia/Cornell for NYU RE given NYU’s is one of the oldest programs in the country (which does not face major shake-ups on the top administrative/leadership level every few years or gross changes to its basic structure and focus or the program’s curriculum giving an unknown even shaky quantity feel to the degree - see Columbia’s msred history and various ongoing student complaints) and gives many local pre-grad internship opportunities which can be essential in having a well rounded and adequately experienced resume, and full employment lined up when your student loans becomine due. Especially if you are a career switcher with a humanities pedigree seeking to objectively rebrand yourself as a more business/finance/quantitative  -oriented professional by way of their decades old programmatic Finance & Investment Major. A distinction that an architecture-centric (e.g., bricks and beams) msred will not give you. This, and maybe the fact that NYU's expansive, seasoned and generally highly approachable alumni community can give you all the connections you need without ever having to leave the msre program and reach out to the broader university alumni. I have heard more than a few times that Columbia BS/BA and MBA grads may not look at Columbia MSRED as kindred academic spirits and are not chomping at the bit to help them —to be polite about it. Or have a overweighted international alumni base disproportionately returning to mainland China/Korea each year and who wanted a summary vehicle to place Columbia on their resume and don’t have any lifelong nexus to NYC or the larger NY real estate community. By way of example, google: “china msred columbia LinkedIn”. Then remove the search term “china” and run the Google search again. The results are largely: immutable. Many gainfully employed highly experienced NYC real estate professionals seeking a master’s cannot or will not leave their employ for 2+ years and will choose NYU’s program because it gives them the higher -order finance investment skills and the lifelong local social network without sacrificing the most highly -valued item in real estate which is real work experience/career progression (setting aside the other matter of substantial lost income which can equal six figures unto itself). Several are fully or partially sponsored by their firm (ex, Clarion, Blackrock, etc; search LinkedIn for the ms degree plus uninterrupted work histories for similar results). You won’t meet these particular local well -placed high value seasoned professionals in other programs (or have them as fellow alumni) since the format makes it impossible for them to keep their desired jobs and study at the same time. 

The real estate game (PE/IB/Development/Consultancy, etc.) is filled with shoots and ladders, hard walls and black holes (the likes of which you had no idea about until you progressed through a variety of roles). Most won’t start off with a rich beneficent uncle to fund them or a seasoned industry mentor to gingerly guide them which is why a real estate master’s degree or top mba can have exponential value (in avoiding a lot of needless pain, preventing a lot of wasted time and short circuiting what can seem like a interminable journey getting to where you want to go).

Despite this, if you don’t enter any re master’s with the intent to squeeze the (insert explicative!) marrow out of the program (short list: number one, by an order of magnitude, being to intern as much as humanly possible pre-graduation to the point where you have time for little else, networking with classmates and project-mates like it’s a job and learning about their experiences/issues/likes/dislikes in their current re firm and their overall career goals/aspirations, seeking out active re entrepreneurs in your program - there will be quietly many and asking if can you volunteer on some deal aspects on the weekends or in your free time, going to “all” the events inside and outside of class from the topical panels, xyz re summits to competing in and supporting the national case study competitions/events, creating working relationships with professors who are in great part there because they really love real estate and want to help people get ahead in a increasingly tough business- trust in the fact that most of these guys know/respect the struggle, going for coffee chats with people in the industry or alumni and thereafter keeping in touch (pick a monthly goal and stick to it), thinking like an investor from day one while in school and crafting investment theses and bouncing them off colleagues, modeling in your free time, deciphering real deals on the side (the net is filled with PDFs of property level/portfolio level OMs and REIT prospectuses, some of which are like textbooks for the uninitiated and can hip you to new investment strategies, companies/employers/successful career bios and geographic areas with improving or deteriorating fundamentals) and asking yourself does this deal/type/structure/strategy interest me, etc.) then it won’t be nearly (emphasis strongly added) as beneficial in mitigating the above.

In fact, if you are not willing to do the above or at least push on all those cylinders consistently — I would say skip doing a master’s degree in real estate altogether (even such long standing industry gold standards as MIT or the NYU RE program).

These highly -focused degrees are not VIP Passes and require consistent sweat equity from start to finish (and even well after you graduate in the form of keeping connected to your alumni social network and attending their regular industry -wide events, and generally staying involved in the alumni community) in order to maximize their full potential and deliver the desired career results over the long term. Starting any msre/d program with this extremely sobering reality in mind will give you the absolute best chance of success.