Columbia MBA part time vs Wharton MBA full time for a "former" financial technologist

I have been in my career in financial technology for a couple of years, and I decided to apply to MBA programs because I want to get closer to the client side of banking.

I applied for the full-time MBA program at Wharton and was accepted, and I applied for the part-time MBA program at Columbia and was accepted. Now I have to decide.

There are a couple of factors here. Namely, if I go with Columbia part-time then I can keep my current employment, and my employer will cover about 10k a year without any strings attached. It would probably take me three years to complete the part-time MBA.

I know that Wharton is more prestigious and possibly has better exit ops, but how can I justify the opportunity cost of two years' wages and an extra 30k in savings. Am I crazy to refuse Wharton? Thanks in advance.

11 Comments
 

Wharton releases their interview invites for R1 on Oct 31, and their R1 decisions come out on Dec 16.

Columbia does not have a part-time program.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 

Yeah this is awful trolling since Wharton round 1 decisions are not out yet. If you want to make a career transition, a full-time mba is always preferable to part-time due to having access to ocr for internships.

Columbia has an executive mba program, which actually is not a typical part-time program like the ones offered by booth/kellogg/haas/stern. The executive mba students at CBS get access to OCR for full-time jobs (not internships though, which is a deal breaker for those wanting to do banking or consulting) and can join all the full-time clubs.

 

Correct. Executive MBA is a giant rip-off that charges around 25% more than full-time but delivers almost none of the benefits. And the student caliber of Executive MBA programs, even at Wharton/Booth/Columbia, is dismally low.

 

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