Please advise !! Got accepted Into MRED program at Columbia , Cornell and NYU ? Really confused

It really depends on your goals and location (as real estate is as local an industry as it comes).

As mentioned many times before on WSO - there are no official rankings for these programs AND employers are never going to use any MSRE as a short-cut to know if you are smart (aka a sorting tool) or not (as is the case with a very limited amount of credentials: ex, US MD, M2-3 MBA (strictly), CFA, fully funded PHD in technical area. To hold these credentials you have to be in top ~95+ percentile and beyond of candidates - which correlates fairly reliably with an IQ in top 5%+ or so of national pop).

However, an MSRE does shows a (very) high degree of dedication/commitment to real estate and a substantive level of technical skills in the concentrated area (together with possessing a leverage-able network you individually have sewn together from your program for your benefit and that of future employers and partners). Suffice it to say - (your local) network is everything and this is twice/thrice as true for real estate.

In terms of the programs listed, I think the credited response (and supported by anecdotal and objective evidence) here is:

NYU for Finance/Investment (given the depth one concentrates in this area, electives/capstone included, making this as much a bona fide finance degree as it is a real estate one - thus post grad opps swing liberally from finance/direct investment roles to development; and the curriculum known as "technically practical" aims at allowing students to hit the ground running day one at an acquisition shop, fund, etc) and having a more experienced/seasoned student body and adjunct profs who are consistently very local and embedded in every corner/tier of the NYC RE industry (from RE PE to Dev to Inv Banks). There is a very strong commitment to NYC real estate in the NYU program (which is both a pro and a con depending upon your post grad location goals).

Reputationally, and performing LinkedIn searches (of/for all the top NYC programs) this program has the most long-standing entrepreneurial history BY FAR (with students starting their own firms and hiring alums being more of a rule than exception; offering internships; coming back to speak to incoming classes, etc).

One caveat is that the program is relatively long (and thus considerably more costly) with most students taking over 2 years to complete the degree. Best results achieved out of this program by using the "school-internship-school-internship, etc method" (or do it concurrent if you can swing it the workload) giving you ability to graduate with both academic and "real world" experience chops.

Columbia if you want to do development given its strong ties to the NYC architectural and planning worlds, and the programs being housed in the arch school. The program can be completed in just over a year and this is very attractive from a ROI perspective. I am wary of the alumni power given how much of the msred class are foreign-born students overwhelmingly/especially from Asia wanting to "stamp" the Columbia name on their CV and permanently leaving NY/C upon graduation or after post-grad w/e. The new dean (formerly a professor from the NYU ranks) seems sincerely focused on helping create post-grad opps for students..

Cornell if you want to get a more broad and MBA-centric MSRE (which makes this degree unique among the array given its connection with Johnson school) and are not immune to spending 2 years or so in Ithaca. I have noticed a trend on corporate bios (of bigger firms) (and on Linkedin) with execs having a Cornell Hotel Undergrad degrees paired with NYU RE Finance degree suggesting some type of (skill-set and networking) synergy or connection between the two programs/schools.

A final note (!) - each of these programs has proven themselves to open the door to each area of real estate (e.g., pick a program/degree and the position you want, search google/linkedin and you will find John/Jane Doe with said title or company - as i write this a cursory google search shows the present MD of acquisitions at Peebles Development Corp did his MSRE at NYU in Finance and the Associate Director did Columbia's MSRED and both give back to their respective schools; same search shows the Finance Director for JDS Development is an NYU Finance MSRE and their PM is a Columbia MSRED) -- but it will +ALWAYS+ be up to you to pry it the rest of the way and push yourself through. If you don't network, network, network (and fair to say- intern, intern, intern during your program) no degree, deemed top or not, will help you. And for more color, there are a great many people who have been (wildly) successful in RE without a top tier MBA or an MSRE but loved the industry and knew how to hustle daily for years (as an off the cuff example see the founder of ng: http://naftaligroup.com/).

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