Columbia MSBA Admit: How Aviva Got Into Columbia, NYU and HKU

Updated 2026/10/16

Today’s guest is Aviva, a graduate of the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies program (Finance major) at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU). She shares how she applied to US Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) programs, along with her startup and internship experience in college. Aviva (Instagram: @ingaviva_) graduated with a 3.9/4.0 GPA and an IELTS 7.0, and received MSBA offers from several top US and UK schools:

• Columbia University MSBA (where she enrolled)
• HKU MSBA
• The University of Manchester Data Science
• New York University MSIS
• New York University Management of Technology

About Columbia University’s Master of Science in Business Analytics

Columbia University in the City of New York is a long-established Ivy League school in Manhattan. Its Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA, official site) is offered jointly by Columbia Engineering and Columbia Business School. It combines data analytics, machine learning, statistical modeling and business strategy, and trains people to make data-driven decisions and improve operational efficiency.

The MSBA is a STEM-designated program of three semesters, scheduled for 18 months, though it can also be completed in 12 months. It starts in the fall. Students can finish the following August, or do a summer internship and graduate the following December, which is what most students actually choose (a year and a half, graduating in December after the internship). The curriculum is cross-disciplinary and practical. Students need 36 credits, structured as follows:

• At least 18 credits (usually 6 courses) from the IEOR Department at Columbia Engineering;
• At least 12 credits (usually 4 to 6 courses) of electives at Columbia Business School, offered by two divisions: Decision, Risk, and Operations (DRO) and Marketing;
• The remaining credits can come from other graduate schools, such as the School of International and Public Affairs, the Law School, or the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

All students also take a year-long, zero-credit course, IEOR E4598 Business Analytics Practitioners Seminar Series, where they hear from industry speakers about new technology and real problems in their industries.

According to official data, Columbia MSBA graduates have consistently strong career outcomes. For the Class of 2023, 96% were employed within three months of graduating. They went into a range of industries (40% Financial Services, 30% Technology, Telecom & Internet, 8% Consulting, 6% Healthcare, 18% Other) and a range of roles, from the usual MSBA jobs like Business Analyst, Data Scientist and Risk Analyst to Product Manager, Digital Marketing Data Operations and Investment Analyst. The site does not publish how many MSBA graduates stay in the US to work, so it’s unclear what share of international students go home after graduating and what share stay.

Columbia also sits in the middle of New York City, which gives MSBA students access to Wall Street financial institutions, multinational tech companies and top consulting firms, and with that strong industry connections and hands-on experience. For students who want to start working quickly or build practical experience, the MSBA combines theory and practice with a global outlook, which makes it a very attractive option.

Interviewee Profile

Aviva runs an Instagram account, @ingaviva_, with 16,000 followers, where she mostly posts about personal growth and daily life.

Here is Aviva’s background at the time she applied, for reference:

• NYCU Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies (Major in Finance, AI cross-disciplinary program) GPA: 3.9/4.0
• IELTS: Overall 7.0 (6.0), No GMAT/GRE
• One semester on exchange at Peking University, where she represented Peking University and won first prize in the Beijing region of an international competition

Work Experience:

• 8-month finance internship at a publicly listed tech company
• Co-founded a MedTech start-up and served as CFO & supervisor for 2 years; selected for TTA’s VIVA TECH delegation and invited to exhibit in France (Europe’s largest innovation show)

Research Experience:

• RA, Corporate Finance, NYCU (four years, a feature of the program)
• Capstone project x1
• Undergraduate research grant project x1
• Conference paper x1 (second author, ocean engineering, water-related)
• Patent x1 (pending at the time of application)

Other Experience:

• Academic excellence award x2
• Student council officer, club officer, finance lead for an annual academic conference, and founder of her own rural education team
• 20+ competition awards (only 8 listed, some of them won representing Taiwan)

Recommendations:

• Chairman of a well-known accelerator x1
• Project advisor (professor) x2

🎓 MSBA Applications and School Selection

Why did you decide to apply for a master’s in business analytics (MSBA)? What career goals did you want it to help you reach?

I studied finance in college, but finance at my school leans toward information management plus finance. Thanks to the research projects built into my program, I started doing a project with a professor in my first year.

At the time I wanted to go into pure finance and aim for investment banking. Then my professor asked, “Can you code?” and that one question pulled me into fintech, machine learning plus finance. I kept doing similar research after that, and I’m still writing code and doing finance-related analysis today, so business analytics was a natural choice.

I actually hesitated about doing a master’s at first. Going to the US for a master’s felt like something only rich kids do, and with no scholarship and very high tuition, I almost backed out. But I’m an active person, and compared with research, where the payoff is slow, I probably prefer hands-on things like building a startup. I also found that Taiwan has no business analytics programs, so there’s no education in this area, and if I wanted to take my research further, studying abroad was the best option. So I decided to go abroad.

How did you build your school list? What criteria or factors did you consider (curriculum, career resources, location, school name, etc.)?

When I planned my school list, I based it mainly on my background (BG). With a pretty good GPA and background, I aimed for the top 50, so I started from #1 in the QS rankings. The main things I looked at were:

1. World ranking (school name) (I still mainly wanted an Ivy)
2. Safety (no places with high crime rates, like Baltimore)
3. Length (only programs longer than one year, ideally a year and a half, so I could do an internship)
4. Degree type (professional master’s, MSc)
5. Curriculum (data processing plus business)
6. Subject ranking (not crucial, but I still looked at it)

How did you research schools on your own? Did you use any tools or platforms (QS rankings, Reddit, LinkedIn, etc.)?

At first I wanted to go to Singapore, but then I found the job market there was even worse than in the US, and the BA (Business Analytics) programs I wanted required the GRE. So I applied to Hong Kong, but Hong Kong sent results so fast, and I hadn’t really planned on going there, so I reluctantly turned it down. I still wanted the US.

Choosing US schools was actually pretty simple. I’ve always cared more about overall school ranking than subject ranking, and I knew clearly that I wanted to combine business with data analytics, so I just went down the QS rankings one school at a time. Since I hadn’t taken the GRE, picking among similar programs was easy. I chose schools in 3 steps. First, I listed every program I could possibly choose, regardless of curriculum or timeline, and at the same time used the free school-selection consultations of 20+ admissions agencies to get a rough direction based on my BG.

In step two, I cut programs that were one year or shorter, had a curriculum I didn’t like, were out of reach, had poor reviews, or were SPS-type schools. Some schools also required an IELTS of 7.0 and recommended 7.5. I still had 18 schools on my R2 list then, so I also cut schools that recommended 7.5 and might require English classes if you fell short (UIUC, for example). In the end I applied to only 7 or 8 schools in the US.

I applied to the UK later only because I was so anxious, and only to Manchester (fast results, no application fee, and no recommendation letters).

Early on, when I wanted Singapore and was still preparing for IELTS, I was afraid I wouldn’t get the score, so I used https://www.mastersportal.com/?redirect=false to check which programs only needed IELTS 6.5. Once I passed, I stopped using it.

The rest of my school selection was basically as above. The biggest help was the many study-abroad agencies willing to give me free consultations, and one consultant in particular was really kind and gave me a lot of advice (he does it out of interest, not for money).

The tools I mainly used were the QS rankings and US News. I read reviews on Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, Dcard and 1Point3Acres, read each program’s official website for the program overview and curriculum, used Gradcafe to see roughly when results came out in past years, and kept refreshing Reddit when results were about to come out (because some schools release results to US and UK applicants first). To look at other applicants’ stats, I also used the OfferLand admissions chances tool.

When I was writing my application essays, I read Jason’s blog.

What made you choose Columbia’s MSBA in the end? What resources or support do you think it can give you? Was it a hard decision?

Not really. By the end of March, every school except Manchester, HKU and NYU had rejected me. Write your essays properly, seriously XD

Once I got Columbia, I pretty much knew I’d go, because I wanted BA, and Columbia was the only true BA program I applied to. The others were information systems or DS, so only Columbia fit the business analytics criteria. I did think about NYU’s MSIS for a while, but Columbia’s name and resources as an Ivy, with both the engineering school and the business school behind it, were more appealing.

You originally focused on Hong Kong and Singapore. Why did you switch to the US? What changed?

At one of Jason’s events I connected with a senior who was doing a BA in Singapore. She said she sent out over a thousand applications, got through the first round at only 17 companies, and received just one offer. Hearing that, I felt the job market in Singapore was pretty grim. Singapore is also really hot.

As for Hong Kong, I just don’t like the high-rise environment there. I’ve been to Hong Kong several times and really don’t like the atmosphere, so I never planned to take the Hong Kong applications seriously. Later, talking with seniors and professors, I realized I could pay in full for some US public schools (UIUC, for example), so I figured I might as well do a US master’s. After narrowing down my list, I found I didn’t have many options, and after talking with my parents, I decided to take out partial loans and go to Columbia.

✍️ Essays and Application Lessons

You said “the thing I regret most from the application period is the essays.” Can you explain what happened and why you regret it? What would you do differently?

The essays are my biggest regret, because I did everything myself and wrote just one template SOP, only changing the school name. I didn’t write to each program’s strengths. For example, UT-Austin actually leans toward HCI and UPenn leans toward statistics, but I wrote all of them as BA applications.

When I looked back, I thought my CV was probably fine, and my BG covered most areas. It wasn’t top-tier, but it shouldn’t have gotten me rejected that much. Later I looked carefully at other admits’ BGs and asked friends, and it really did seem the essays were the problem. If I did it again, I’d write to each school’s strengths. Adding even one paragraph is better than adding nothing.

What tips do you have for writing MSBA essays? What should you emphasize (technical background, internships, data projects)?

The main tip is to understand what BA is. BA, DA and DS are quite different. What are the differences?

Once you know that, highlight the connection between your experience and BA. For example, I had done research on finance and machine learning, so I played that up, focusing on data-driven decision-making. What matters is the analysis after the model, not the process. Running a project on some impressive, complicated model is beside the point.

How did you handle the different essay prompts at each school? Any templates or time-management tips to share?

I wrote one version first (for Columbia’s MSBA) and then adapted it to each school’s specific rules (word limits under 1,000 and so on). The content was mostly the same. For time management, I think you should have everything ready a week before the deadline and read it over several times, instead of still working on it two days before.

Try to submit to schools one at a time instead of many at once, or you’ll mix up your files. I made a folder for each school, even if that folder held only one file, so everything stayed clear.

🧠 Standardized Tests and Application Strategy

Did you take the GRE or GMAT? How did you decide whether to take it?

No. I wanted to, but I overestimated how fast I’d get IELTS done, and I didn’t get the IELTS score I wanted until around September 15. At the time my parents had cut off all financial support, so I was interning to earn money while writing my thesis and keeping up with my coursework. After IELTS I had no energy left for the GRE, and that made my results pretty bad. Personally, I think you should still take the GRE and not gamble on it. But if your programs basically don’t require the GRE/GMAT or make it optional, it doesn’t matter much either way, because they won’t count a missing GRE against you. (For example, if GPA is 50% and the GRE 10% when you submit one, then without a GRE, GPA might become 60%. I made those numbers up, but the weight gets redistributed.)

Based on your results, how much do the GRE/GMAT actually matter for MSBA applications?

Based on my results, if a school says not required or optional, the GRE/GMAT isn’t that important. My program was optional and I still got in, so personally I don’t think it matters.

But that’s because I had already filtered out every school that required the GRE when building my list. I think the GRE/GMAT is still pretty important for students applying to BA programs. Almost 99% of programs require it!

💼 Startup and Internship Experience

Can you tell us about your startup? Why did you decide to found this medtech company?

I started a medtech company in the first half of 2023. I was lucky: I happened to meet a group of like-minded friends who had lab technology and wanted to start a company. I met them at a networking event, we teamed up and won at FITI, and then we won an award at U-Start. To get U-Start’s NT$500,000 grant, you have to register as a business, so we went from competition teammates to co-founders.

In short, it happened by chance. But as we entered more and more competitions, the company became a very special experience for all of us, and we started wondering whether we might one day make a living from it. So we kept going. More than that, watching the company grow, seeing the other members grow, and seeing a demo gradually take shape has been really rewarding.

As a startup CFO, what financial planning or fundraising did you actually work on? Were there hard moments?

I mainly do financial planning. Besides the company’s labor and health insurance and tax filings, I write financial projections and handle equity allocation. I also cover marketing and some HR and operations management (at a startup, everyone wears several hats). The hardest time was probably when I was competing, working, keeping up with classes and doing research all at once, plus the occasional brand collaboration for my social media. With all of that at the same time, I went to bed very late every night and ended up in the ER. Before the IV drip was even finished, I was asking if I could go study (I had a midterm the next day).

The harder part of the startup has been the team. It started just for a competition, and now it’s a proper company with quite a few employees and interns. Learning how to act like a company leader is still something I’m working on XD

At your finance internship at a Taiwanese listed company, you worked on ESG reporting. How did that help your MSBA applications?

I think internship experience is the most important thing for business analytics (BA) applications. Unfortunately, mine was fairly thin in this area, so do more internships if you can!

My internship happened to fall when the company was preparing its ESG report. I was the one sorting vouchers and turning the previous year’s records into proper data. The worst part was searching tens of thousands of documents for a few specific ones. Back then I was literally flipping through vouchers saying I wanted to quit.

For me, the biggest value of that job was applying financial statement analysis in the real world, since I also had to handle the English financial statements. Going from theory to practice, you notice quite a few gaps between what you learn and what you use, which was interesting. As for applications, I don’t think it helped directly. But a professional master’s wants to see that you have practical ability, so showing you have workplace experience may matter more than what the job actually was.

What do you think is the biggest plus of startup experience for a master’s application? Was any part of it especially persuasive in interviews or essays?

I think “startup” is a very broad word. Selling things on Shopee can be a startup, running social media like I do can be called a startup, and selling breakfast is a startup too. The key is showing people your startup isn’t one of those, and that it either matters to the world or has real business value. You can point to seed funding raised, what exactly the company does, market size and potential, the stage it’s at, and so on. In my essays, I wrote that our company was running a PoB at one of Taiwan’s largest medical institutions and working with some large Taiwanese tech companies (with letters of intent), how much seed money we had built up from competitions alone, and how much we expected to raise. I think the point is to show its market potential.

📊 Research and Academic Background

You did three research projects in college, all very practical: fraudulent financial statement detection, IPO failure prediction, and ocean engineering. How did you present them in your application?

I just put down exactly what data I worked with, how many records, which models (SVM, XGBoost…), and so on. Since I was applying to BA programs, I wrote it in this order:

1. What the project does
2. What data I processed, how much, and which technical models I used
3. What the final analysis showed

How would you suggest younger students build “academic highlights” to strengthen a master’s application?

If you don’t have internships, or if your internship is a bit boring like mine was, do projects with professors from your first to third year, even if it’s just doing odd jobs. The point is for your CV to show hands-on ability beyond a good GPA and doing well on exams.

Research vs. practical experience: which helps more for MSBA admissions and jobs?

Practical experience. The MSBA is a professional master’s aimed at employment, not research, so research ability matters less. According to data from study-abroad agencies, admitted applicants from mainland China have 3 internships on average. I had fewer (only 1), but one thing is certain: you need to show enough practical ability. Also, BA jobs are actually pretty hard to find. People usually work full-time for a year or two before doing a BA master’s, which improves their chances later. I did it out of interest, so the job search will probably be rough (haha…

🧑‍💼 Personal Brand and Social Media Influence

How do you balance building a personal brand with classes, internships and a startup?

By grinding (just kidding). I sort things by priority. Classes always come first. My personal brand is a side project I do for fun, so it comes last (I didn’t even put it on my CV). I put whatever adds the most to my future résumé, or the most basic thing, my grades, at the top. I only did my internship in the first semester of senior year, and you have to show up on time for that, so there’s no flexibility. The startup is more flexible: I’m not the CEO, and my work can be divided up and weighed, so it goes in the middle. I’m also an ENTJ and a bit of a workaholic, so the fuller my life, the happier I am. I use a lot of spare moments and try to fill all my time.

That said, I’ve been pretty lazy since I got into school XD A lot of projects and competitions clash with going abroad and graduating, so this semester is relatively free.

Did running your social media bring any unexpected opportunities? How did it shape your understanding of business analytics or telling stories with data?

Social media was an unexpected bonus. I haven’t actually used it to do any business analytics or learn about storytelling with data. What I did learn were skills for brand collaborations and how to communicate as either the client or the vendor. That isn’t why I chose business analytics, though. The main reasons are that I’ve long done research on finance plus machine learning, and that NYCU’s finance program is officially called Information Management and Finance, so I had to take some information management courses. I don’t analyze my account at all. I post whatever I want, whenever I feel like it. Low reach makes me a little sad (the IG Insights report), but I don’t change anything based on it (very zen).

You have 16,000+ followers on Instagram at @ingaviva_. Did you include this personal branding in your applications? Were schools interested?

I left it out entirely, because I was applying to business analytics, not marketing. My other experience already filled two pages, so I honestly don’t know if including my social media would have helped.

🌏 College Experiences and Exchange

You went on exchange to Peking University and won a competition representing the school. Can you tell us about it? Any culture shock?

It was a pretty amazing experience. While I was on exchange at Peking University, I happened to enter a university-level competition there. Before the results came out, the entrepreneurship center called and asked if we wanted to try a bigger competition run by China’s Ministry of Education. We entered without really knowing what we were doing, and somehow got picked to represent the school. In early July, while I was on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, they suddenly asked us to submit our presentation for the Beijing round. I pulled all-nighters for days and barely slept to finish it. Then, a week before I left Beijing, I got a call saying we had passed the preliminary round and were in the finals… My friend (and co-founder) flew straight from Taiwan to Beijing for the pitch. The whole competition was completely bizarre. We got grilled hard during the pitch, and the next day we heard we had won first prize… So surreal.

Culture shock wasn’t a big deal. Before the exchange I had only been to mainland China once, but I had a few close friends from the mainland who told me about life there, so I didn’t have much trouble adjusting in Beijing. Peking University students are very competitive, but I think Taiwanese universities have good faculty too! Daily life and culture are actually quite similar. The main thing was that prices were so low I felt like I’d suddenly gotten rich, and when I got back to Taiwan, prices had gone up again. Insanely expensive.

You took part in many competitions and programs in college (FITI, U-Start, social innovation and more). How did they shape your career and values?

Honestly, apart from competitions and programs where we ranked first in Taiwan or represented Taiwan, I don’t think they were that useful. For example, FITI is Taiwan’s largest university research startup program, but nobody abroad has heard of it, and since I didn’t win first place there, it doesn’t look that great on a CV. It won’t help my career much either. I’ll probably look for jobs in the US, and since that’s abroad, these don’t matter much. They aren’t international competitions, and lots of people don’t even know where Taiwan is QAQ. As for values, I’d say it’s about helping people who are less fortunate, within my means (from the social innovation part).

❤️ Advice for Younger Students

If a younger student wants to take this MSBA path abroad, what advice would you give?

If you’re sure you want to do BA, build up more internship experience, ideally at multinational companies. BA is a practice-oriented field and most graduates go into jobs, not research, so whatever you build now will help when you look for internships during the program!

What do Taiwanese students most often overlook or underestimate when applying to MSBA programs? What would you recommend trying when building your profile?

I think the thing people most often get wrong is blowing up the data-processing part. For BA, what probably matters more is how you use the data for analysis afterward. Data processing and analysis results should be about 1:1. Write it too technically and it easily reads like DS or DA.

Finally, if you could give just one piece of advice to someone still unsure about studying abroad, what would it be?

Be brave and go for it. The world belongs to those who dare!

I only realized quite suddenly that I could go to the US, and to such an expensive school at that. It took a long time of talking before I was allowed to go. Dare to dream~