Q&A: Cornell MSRED Student

I wouldn't say there's a significant discrepancy between the MSRE and Johnson MBA students at the top half, but I would say that Johnson students have a higher floor than MSRE-only students. While the top-half of the MSRE only students are comparable in recruitment and opportunities, I would describe the floor for the bottom half as lower than the floor for Johnson students. 

I will caveat that a significant amount of recruitment is based on the strength of the individual prior to entering the program. The majority of the program have some experience in real estate, such as myself, but are rerouting their careers. Many of those with strong work experience within the space have had strong recruitment outcomes, even with the COVID environment. 

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My strategy was to focus on high-hit rate and networking with individuals that would be "stickier" than to go with a big shotgun blast approach. I looked for alumni of Cornell/my undergrad/my old companies and focused my efforts on former engineers/architects/construction people that were more knowledgeable about the career switching portion and would be receptive to someone that was in my position. I know many people approached it from a wide lens but I just found it frustrating and extremely time consuming with minimal benefit. I had a couple people that were extremely helpful out of the 50+ people I reached out to and got the majority of my opportunities through those few people. 

Cornell also has access to virtual career fairs where employers such as Hines, BX, Greystar, and other major real estate players were present and was helpful in getting first rounds and introductions to recruiters. Cornell normally hosts multiple career fairs respectively to Hotelies, Real Estate, and MBAs. The administration also gets you in touch with alumni within relevant industries and regions to get you started if you ask and are helpful in getting some traction. 

I wouldn't say any major issues outside of any other university that you'd attend. Students are taking trips to NYC every weekend so finding a ride there and back isn't a major issue, and Cornell has a bus to NYC for coffee chats if nobody's available. Ithaca has an airport right beside campus and Syracuse is an hour away with direct flights anywhere along the east coast + Chicago/Denver. All of my coffee chats/recruitment was virtual for the year anyways so it wasn't a major inconvenience to get in touch with people. 

Having a social life at Cornell was easier than expected with a relatively large student body for an Ivy and the general isolation. Ithaca is genuinely a college town and most of your socialization will be with other graduate students within the town. Unfortunately, you won't get the big city feel and amenities from other city-based programs, but you're also not dealing with city costs on top of graduate school costs which add up. COVID definitely put a damper on meeting people, but I ended up meeting with a ton of people outside the real estate program with relevant interests within MMH, CRP, Johnson, architecture, and other relevant graduate programs. The Baker program itself is smaller than others but there are a ton of people at the school and region with similar interests that you'll see in other programs within your classes.

I'd say that most of the students have around 3-5 years of work experience with some from fresh out of undergrad to 40+ years old. I'd say the largest percentage are architects but that probably only makes up around 20% each year. It really is a huge mixed bag of people; some from brokerage, construction, PE, trading, PWM, consulting, leasing, you name it. Nearly all have some sort of background in finance or architecture/engineering/construction. 

I would say that the majority of the graduates come out at Associate/DM/AVP level employees, pretty similar to post-MBA placements. Again, most of your opportunities are going to be based on your previous experience and standing; a construction PM can come out to be a DM, someone fresh out of undergrad will be anywhere between an analyst to associate. 

As noted above with the base, the variance on student backgrounds coming in the program drive the base for the Baker program, along with the lack of placement to IB/Consulting roles. MSRE programs are not a silver bullet; you will most likely not be coming in as a VP for Related if you came out of undergrad straight into grad school. That being said, MSRE programs can place a former consultant into a LifeCo, or an accountant into a buyside role. I would not consider the MSRE as a guarantee of any roles, but a really good opportunity for someone who is smart but wasn't knowledgeable about the industry in undergrad/high school, or someone who needs additional credentials for a promotion to leadership.

Regarding banking, I would say that the program does not discredit you in any way in getting a banking role but may not be the accreditation you need to get the foot in the door. If you're coming from an irrelevant industry such as myself, I would recommend going through the Johnson program for a more organized placement and if you're dead-set on IB. Most people I know who could have been placed in REIB at a BB could have already pivoted, but left banking or chose to come back to school. Most of us are mid-to-late twenties and would rather work 40-50 hours at 150k+ starting rather than 80+ at 200k+ starting so lifestyle has a big part in why most don't pursue banking at this point. Again, I have seen many Johnson/Baker dual degrees go to BBs and some Bakers, however through a combination of less interest, less organized recruitment, and higher student achievement variance, not too many go to REIB. 

I was definitely hesitant coming to a virtual environment, but I figured that in 2 years the environment would be better and I wasn't getting any younger. I had a great lifestyle and fairly good comp, however I felt like I extracted as much value as I would need in going to a development role and that it was time to go. 

I looked at going to MIT, Cornell, and Columbia MSRE(D) programs and briefly at MBAs in the range of Tepper, Kenan-Flagler, Darden, McDonough, etc. I didn't get into MIT and chose not to apply to MBAs because of my development focus and didn't want to take classes that were irrelevant to my goals. While MBAs obviously had better placements in consulting/banking/etc, placements in development and REPE were somewhat comparable. I ended up choosing Cornell over Columbia based on having a 2-year program which allowed for internships and the reputation of Cornell in the real estate space. I am also not hell-bent on being in NYC and I thought that having a "tighter" Cornell network would help me place better than having a huge number of alumni that were less likely to pick up the phone or respond to my emails. 

I looked to work for a developer for various reasons, not just for finance experience. I'm interning at the job I would like to do, brushing up on all aspects that include project management and the actual building part of development on top of finance. I'd imagine that starting a development company with a development background or investment background would be fine, but you'd also be able to supplement things that you'd need additional expertise on with your partners to cover some bases. I really think to only options to starting your own company would be having experience in the space or having an ungodly bank roll to start.

I would really, really encourage you to get at least a small amount of experience before coming back to school, especially if you can get a job relevant to the field you're in. Even as an engineer, I learned an absolute boatload about project management, the built environment, and the discussions that needed to happen to get things moving. I would say that having at least 1-2 years in industry would definitely help you spring board your career rather than just going from grad school out. I understand that some programs skew younger, but having experience will help you get the most out of your experience at school, both from an education and opportunity standpoint. 

If you're set on going straight to grad school and want to learn as much as you can in a couple months, I'd just read The Real Estate Game and binge read CoStar reports and listings so you'd generally know what's going on in the area. There's not too much that you can learn in a short period before school, so this would be a fairly optimal way of using your time. 

Regarding the concentrations, I think most of the curriculum is very flexible, especially in the last year/semester where you have a lot of optionality when it comes to coursework. I really think that the difficulty of modeling and finance is incredible overstated and overestimated, especially on this forum. The finance isn't harder than the freshman Chem and Physics classes in engineering and you'll pick it up very quickly if you've done anything quantitative in the past. The RE financial modeling course at Cornell is really, really, good, but also isn't impossibly hard to pick up with a technical background, especially if you've taken any CS courses in the past. The finance concentration is very suitable for going into real estate finance, with a ton of people from non-finance backgrounds pivoting into finance heavy roles. I think that a lot of people start the program looking at development but end up looking to get out of it once they realize some of the more nitty gritty aspects of it. 

Recruitment starts earliest for finance heavy investment roles, with REIB, big REPE, and LifeCo recruitment starting in the summer before you even set foot. These roles are definitely heavier in early networking and you'll need to hop on these immediately if interested. Midway through fall, we had our first career fairs hit and you'll get some introduction to headhunters that are coming in. Some of the bigger development shops send headhunters for networking and to start the clock on development recruitment as well.

After that, a lot of internship recruitment rolls from late fall into spring, especially with mid-sized finance roles and development. A lot of the development heavy hitters end up recruiting from a need perspective and recruitment goes into mid-late spring. Even shops like Related/Hines/Greystar weren't finalizing all roles until late-April, so the development cycle is much more extended compared to investment roles. RE finance roles outside of LifeCos, REIB, and the biggest PE shops definitely recruited later than I expected, especially with the COVID environment. Not sure what happens outside of COVID, it probably moves all recruitment a little earlier than this year. This year was also especially brutal with a lot of shops pulling internship openings mid-postings citing COVID changes. 

From what I've seen at Cornell so far, A lot of people got roles in NYC, DC, Florida, Texas, California, etc. Most people have regional roots from where they're coming from and move back, but it's not unheard of to move out of where you started. FWIW, I was in Zooms with a bunch of candidates for a couple companies that covered a wide number of locations and saw MIT MSREDs but was mostly filled with T-25 B-schoolers. 

Regional programs (Denver, A&M, etc) would probably be more limited in geography. USC probably places better in the west coast than we do, but I wouldn't discount them from the east coast either. I haven't personally seen anyone from Columbia and Harvard in the same Zoom rooms/interview sessions, but it definitely doesn't mean that they don't place well throughout the country. I'm sure that there are alumni/students on the board that could chime in and give more color to each of those programs.

It obviously helps to have direct experience but any RE experience + graduate school has been generally effective from what I've seen. Something like FP&A + grad school is more experience than enough for a lot of Associate full time roles. 

FWIW, I've seen MBAs with 0 relevant experience pivot fairly regularly and students with little experience go directly to grad school and making it into development. Better experience has a better chance at placing in more institutional roles however. 

I think you would be competitive for the program. Recruitment in general is more holistic and admissions standards aren't publicized so there tends to be higher variance and better emphasis on fit and story rather than raw scores.

I want to say that I heard back around late February to early March when I applied. 

We've had some PE/Investments placements and a couple people with offers from their internships so far, but this year's class is dev heavy so the recruitment lags a little bit. I'd say that about 1/3 have some sort of hard/soft offers on the table as of the end of 2021 and I would anticipate full employment by the end of school year barring sponsorship needs and other circumstances. I personally have 3 final rounds and two additional second rounds this week so I'm planning to be locked before the spring semester starts. I've got a couple soft offers at this point but I'm shooting a bit higher especially with the market. 

To be honest, I thought I was going to need to settle for a smaller/regional developer and take more of a chance on myself when I first looked into CRE, but my opportunities have completely blown my expectations out of the water. I do think having a very reputable state school engineering degree has been looked more kindly upon than I anticipated and similar profiles could easily do the same thing.

Congrats! Honestly I'm not 100% sure on min/max funding or total quantity. I received a decent chunk of funding and it came with my offer letter, however this may change from year to year.