A good way to determine whether the MBA path is right for you, as well as how to go about it, is to hear from students who were in your shoes as applicants not long ago. This is what Spring Admits is about, bringing you tips and insights from past Spring clients and current MBA students of various business schools and industry backgrounds. Our current interviewee is Tal Weinstock, a Columbia Business School MBA Candidate (class of 2027).
Tal, where does this blog post find you today?
This post finds me at 30,000 feet, trading flip flops for dress shoes. Flying straight from a few days in Jamaica to a wedding in Michigan for a classmate I met during my first year at Columbia. The MBA has a way of scrambling your calendar and your map in the best possible way.
Walk us through your pre-MBA background.
My path to Columbia was anything but linear. I started my career in the Israeli Defense Forces as a tank training instructor. From there, I went to Hebrew University to study law and philosophy. During my first degree, I worked at a cybersecurity education startup where I got an early taste of fast-moving company building, then as a legal intern at Goldfarb Gross Seligman in the Capital Markets and Corporations Department.
After taking the Bar exam and knowing I wanted to pursue an MBA, I joined Volumez, a B2B cloud infrastructure startup, as a Business Operations Manager, where I also became an R&D Project Manager.
What made you decide to pursue an MBA?
By the time I finished my legal internship, I knew two things clearly. I didn’t want to build a career as a lawyer, and I wanted to live abroad again. I had done a student exchange in Vancouver during my undergraduate years, and that experience of being somewhere completely new, building a life from scratch, had stayed with me. I wanted to do it again, but this time with more intention.
The MBA checked every box. A genuine academic experience, a real pivot in career direction, and a reason to relocate and plant roots somewhere new. I looked at the MBA as more than just a degree; it was the right move at the right time.
Why did you choose this particular school?
Choosing a school was never just about rankings. I knew I wanted M7, but I also had a real constraint: my husband’s job required him to be near a specific set of offices, which meant the city mattered as much as the school. That narrowed the list quickly.
New York kept coming up as the obvious answer, and the more I looked at it, the more Columbia made sense beyond just the geography. The access to employers here is unlike anywhere else. The city is the recruiting pipeline. For someone pivoting into a new industry and building a career from scratch in a new country, that proximity felt like a real advantage.
Columbia was the convergence of all of it. The right school, in the right city, at the right time.
What surprised you about the actual MBA experience?
What surprised me most was how much cultural context shapes everyday interactions. Something that feels completely normal to you can mean something very different to someone else. It reminds you to stay open, listen carefully, have a dialogue with everyone, and not assume your way is the default. That has been one of the most valuable lessons so far.
Have you already made definitive plans for the summer internship?
Yes. This summer I will be interning on the Merchandise Strategy team at Bloomingdale’s, which still feels a little surreal to say out loud.
Retail and fashion had always been the dream, but growing up in Israel it never felt like something I could actually pursue. The industry there is small, and I had no direct experience to point to. So I took a more practical path, law, then operations, always quietly shelving the dream for later.
The MBA changed that. Within my first month at Columbia I gave myself permission to actually go for it. I joined the Retail and Luxury Goods Club, went to every event I could, and started being honest with myself about what I wanted. I also kept one foot in tech recruiting, because switching industries is hard and I knew I needed a backup. But my energy was in retail.
The turning point was a corporate day at Bloomingdale’s. I walked in, met the team, felt the energy of the place, and left knowing that was where I wanted to put my effort. The rest was a lot of hustle, creative outreach, and finding ways to show what made me different. It wasn’t easy, but I ended up with the internship I had been quietly dreaming about for years.
None of it would have been possible without New York. Networking events almost every week, world-class guest speakers, and access to people and companies across every industry. The city is a resource, and learning to use it well is half the MBA.
What surprised you about the actual MBA experience?
The biggest surprise was how little the academic side turned out to be the main event. The first semester is intense in the classroom, so I expected the degree to feel like a degree. It doesn’t. The lectures and coursework are real, but they run parallel to something much bigger and harder to describe.
The actual curriculum is everything else. The people you meet at a club happy hour, the guest speaker who changes how you think about your career, the trip you almost didn’t sign up for, the networking event you left feeling completely different than when you walked in. You learn to put yourself out there, to handle rejection, to get back up and try again. You also learn to handle FOMO, because there is always something happening. A party, a gala, a concert, a club event, another trip, and then another one. The calendar never empties.
Another thing that surprised me was how intentional you have to be. Time is the one thing nobody has enough of, and if you are not deliberate about how you spend it, it disappears. The MBA doesn’t reward passivity. It rewards people who show up with a direction, even a rough one, and keep refining it as they go.
What makes your school unique?
I can only speak from my own experience since Columbia is the only MBA program I know from the inside. But my honest take is that the city and the school are equally important, and the combination of the two is what makes it hard to replicate.
New York means the career opportunities are limitless, but it also means your social and cultural life is limitless. The best concerts, restaurants, exhibitions, sports events, and everything in between are all right there. A great program in the center of everything, with no tradeoff between ambition and living well.
Add to that the fact that Columbia is an M7 school, which means the people around you are exceptional, and you start to understand what makes it special. And because CBS is one of the largest MBA programs, you will always find your people. The community is big enough that there is a group for everyone, and close enough that it still feels like a community.
The city is the differentiator. The program makes sure you are surrounded by the right people to take advantage of it.
What is it like living in the city/town where the campus is located?
Real talk: New York is expensive. That is not a surprise to anyone, but living it is different from knowing it. That said, for what the city gives back, it is worth it.
I live near Columbus Circle, which turned out to be a great call. Close enough to campus that the commute is easy, right on Central Park, clean, safe, and on the subway. Downtown is also just a few stops away, so you never feel stuck in the Columbia bubble. You can be in Midtown, SoHo, or Brooklyn within twenty minutes.
The city itself is hard to describe to someone who hasn’t lived here. The food alone could take years to get through. There is always a new restaurant, a new exhibition, a concert, a rooftop, a market, a neighborhood you haven’t explored yet. The pace is relentless in the best possible way. You never run out of things to do, and you never feel like you are missing out on the world while you are in school, because the world is essentially right outside your door.
On housing: talk to people who have lived in several different neighborhoods and apartment types. Everyone has a different setup and different tradeoffs, distance from the train, space, a doorman, proximity to campus. Figure out which tradeoffs you are actually willing to make, not which ones sound fine in theory. And before you sign anything, go walk the area. Spend time there at different hours. What works for someone else may not work for you, and the only way to know is to feel it yourself.
Any misconceptions about your program you’d like to clear up?
The most common thing I heard before starting was that Columbia is harder to bond at because everyone is in New York and New York already has its own life. It is completely wrong.
People come to business school for the social experience as much as for the career. Some of my closest friends in the program had been living in New York for years before school started. They didn’t come because they needed a new city. They came because they wanted the experience, the community, the trips, the late nights, the whole thing. And that energy is contagious.
The social life at Columbia is relentless in the best way. There are class events, club trips, dinners, weekends away, and moments that happen spontaneously because you are surrounded by interesting people who want to make the most of it. The city doesn’t pull people away. If anything, it adds to it. You have the best possible backdrop for all of it.
What advice would you give to MBA applicants to your school, or in general?
Start early. Not because the applications are long, though they are, but because the most important questions they ask require real reflection. Why an MBA? Why now? Why this school? Those answers get sharper the more time you give them. And start the GMAT early too. It is the one part of the process where time spent practicing compounds, and leaving it to the last minute is a mistake most people regret.
Don’t chase names alone. Spend time understanding what makes each program different, what kind of people go there, what the culture feels like. Be honest with yourself about where you would actually go if you got in. The ranking matters less than the fit.
I also strongly recommend working with a consultant, especially if you are coming from outside the US. The culture of these applications is specific and hard to navigate alone. You don’t know what you don’t know. Find someone you trust, who understands your story and your goals. The process is stressful enough as it is.
I started this process convinced I was going to LBS. I ended up not even applying. The more I researched, the more I understood what I actually wanted, and that clarity changed everything.
How has your MBA influenced your career and mindset so far?
The most important thing the MBA has taught me so far has nothing to do with a classroom. Know your strengths and learn how to use them in a new context. There is no one right path, and the sooner you stop looking for it and start figuring out your own, the better.
Don’t give up on the dream you quietly shelved because it didn’t seem realistic. Mine was fashion and retail. The MBA gave me the permission, the tools, and the environment to finally go after it. I landed an internship I am excited about, and that feels like a real step forward.
But the internship is one thing. Each person finds value in something different, in the MBA and in life. For some it is the career pivot, for others it is the network, the travel, the friendships, or simply the experience of living somewhere new and figuring out who they are outside of their old context. Don’t let recruiting consume your entire first year. The MBA is much more than that, and the parts that have nothing to do with a job offer are often the ones that stay with you longest.
