Berkeley Haas School of Business

16. Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA

Haas School of Business

Executive MBA Admissions

440 Student Services Building #1912

Berkeley, CA 94720

Admissions: 510-643-1046

Email: emba@haas.berkeley.edu

Columbia Business School

The Executive MBA Programs

Uris Hall

3022 Broadway, Room 216

New York, NY 10027

Admissions: 212-854-1961

Email: apply@gsb.columbia.edu

Website: http://www.berkeley.columbia.edu/index.html

Apply Online: http://www.berkeley.columbia.edu/learn-more-and-apply.html

The Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA program brings together two leading faculties from two top-ranked business schools in two of the world’s great business centers—New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area—to create a single unique program. The only Executive MBA partnership between two top-ranked U.S. business schools, classes for this program meet 18 times in California and seven times in New York, with the option to spend a term in New York.

This is also a pricey program. Outside of Wharton’s San Francisco and Philadelphia EMBAs, and Kellogg’s program at Northwestern University, this is the fourth most expensive MBA in the world.

Core courses taken in early semesters focus on building and expanding essential business skills. With this foundation, students customize their final terms to meet individual professional needs and personal schedules, combining pragmatic and application-based coursework with an emphasis on electives. In addition, a required international seminar completes students’ global education.

The Berkeley-Columbia program begins in May and finishes 19 months later, in December. Graduates receive two degrees, one from Columbia Business School and one from the Haas School of Business.

Application Deadline: February 1

Latest Up-to-Date Executive MBA Rankings:

2012 Poets&Quants: 16

2011 BusinessWeek: NR

2011 U.S. News & World Report: 9

2010 The Wall Street Journal: 23

2011 Financial Times: 22

Rankings Analysis: Berkeley’s partnership EMBA program with Columbia Business School in New York is disadvantaged in the rankings game largely because BusinessWeek excludes all partnership programs from its EMBA rankings. That exclusion impacts Berkeley’s position in PoetsandQuants’ composite ranking where it comes in 16th, down three spots from its 13th place finish in 2011. If the program were included in BusinessWeek’s ranking, it would very likely make the top ten of all EMBA programs in the world.

In any case, the program lost ground in 2011 due to slightly weaker showings in both the U.S. News and Financial Times’ rankings. Berkeley lost two places on the U.S. News’ list, falling to ninth from seventh in 2010. The school lost a far more significant nine spots in the FT list, dropping to 22nd from 13th a year earlier. That’s why this program fell to 16th overall.