Real Estate and the MBA

October 24, 2007 :: Admissionado Team

Real estate, and real estate development especially are GREAT tickets into business school. Compared to consulting, banking, and other areas, real estate is relatively underrepresented. This means that your chances will increase if you get some good experience there.

The trick is, how do you get a great job? And the answer is rather straightforward. You have two choices–either sign up for a large firm with some sort of analyst program (ING Clarion, Lehman, Trammell Crow Residential), or look for a smaller firm where you can have some great front-line experience. If you apply for schools in the next year or two, and you have some SOLID development experience, you will be way ahead of the game. Network, network, network. RE is a tough biz to break into.

The good news, is that surprisingly few folks who apply to school will have any ACTUAL development experience. Take it from me, I applied to HBS and Stanford (and got in) based largely on my RE development experience (and some great essays…) And by the way, as you probably know, USC has a cool real estate program which you could mix into your MBA experience there. So, if it doesn’t turn out to be Stanford, that’s okay too.