If you are an Indian finance professional with an offer-less spreadsheet open to three tabs, Kellogg, Booth and Columbia, and you suspect they are interchangeable at the price of roughly the same loan, they are not. On the Class of 2025 numbers, the kellogg vs booth vs columbia india decision is really a question about how much of your plan depends on finance, and how much of it depends on New York. This post compares what each school's own employment data says, then splits the answer by profile. For the wider US landscape, see our MBA abroad hub.
What the Class of 2025 data says about finance
Start with the share of each class that went into financial services.
Columbia placed 35.4% of its Class of 2025 in finance, with roughly 17% in investment banking and nearly 7% in investment management, per Poets&Quants. Median base salary was $175,000, and 92% of the class had offers at three months. Consulting took 33.2% and tech 10.2%.
Booth sent 31.6% of accepted offers into finance and 36.7% into consulting, with tech at 14.1% (Poets&Quants). Median base was also $175,000, and 89.1% had offers at three months. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase each hired 11 Booth graduates. New York accounted for 26.7% of Booth hires, while Chicago alone took more than 30%.
Kellogg is the outlier. Only 21% of its Class of 2025 went into financial services, against 38% into consulting and 19% into tech, and 90% had accepted a job within six months of graduating (Kellogg). Median base was again $175,000. Its finance employer list is real (J.P. Morgan, KKR, Warburg Pincus, Evercore, AQR), but finance is the second or third story at Kellogg, not the first.
Notice what is the same. A $175,000 median base at all three means salary will not separate these schools for you. The mix of jobs will.
If you are an Indian investment banking analyst targeting a bulge bracket return
Columbia is the cleanest answer. About one in six graduates entered investment banking, the campus sits inside the New York recruiting calendar, and you can network with senior bankers during the semester rather than flying in for a weekend. Compare it directly with Wharton in our Columbia vs Wharton note for IB applicants, and read the Columbia January vs August entry breakdown before you choose a start term, because it changes your internship timing.
Booth works for banking too, but you will be doing more of the heavy lifting in New York from Chicago. Kellogg is a weaker fit for a pure banking return, and I would not pick it for that reason alone.
If you are a buy-side or investment management aspirant
This is where Booth earns its reputation. The school's finance brand rests on rigour in valuation, investments and quantitative methods, and its flexible curriculum lets you load up on that coursework. Our Booth deep dive covers what the admissions process rewards. Columbia's roughly 7% in investment management is a useful benchmark: the buy-side path exists at both, but neither school publishes a clean private equity count in the reports cited here, so ask each admissions office for the three-year trend rather than assuming.
Kellogg has a credible pedigree here as well, with KKR, Warburg Pincus and AQR on its employer list. If you also want the option of switching into consulting or a corporate strategy role, Kellogg gives you the widest net. The Kellogg MBA guide for Indian applicants explains how its teamwork-first brand shows up in admissions.
If you are a CA, CFA or credit-side professional who is not sure finance is the endgame
Be honest with yourself about the "not sure" part. If you may end up in consulting, a fintech product role or a corporate finance leadership track, Kellogg's 38% consulting and 19% tech numbers are an asset, not a distraction. Booth sits in the middle: finance and consulting together took about 68% of its class. Columbia is the most finance-concentrated of the three, and that concentration is useful only if you are committed.
A mismatch here is costly. Paying for a New York finance recruiting machine and then pivoting to a Midwest consulting role wastes most of what makes Columbia expensive.
The H-1B reality none of them can fix
Whichever school you choose, you are still exposed to US work authorisation. The September 2025 presidential proclamation introduced a $100,000 payment for certain new H-1B petitions. USCIS guidance clarified that it applies to new petitions for beneficiaries outside the United States and does not apply to change-of-status filings, which covers many F-1 graduates moving to H-1B from inside the country (BU ISSO, Yale OISS). That helps students already in the US on OPT, but the rules have kept moving since, so check current status before you commit to a loan.
Finance recruiters know this. Banks that sponsor are used to it; some boutiques and funds simply will not. Ask each school how many international graduates it placed in the US last year, not only how many it placed overall.
Which school should you choose
Choose Columbia if banking in New York is the plan and you are comfortable with the narrowest set of outcomes. Choose Booth if you want the strongest analytical identity and a flexible route between buy-side finance and consulting. Choose Kellogg if finance is one option among several and you value a collaborative cohort. If you are weighing Wharton as a fourth option, see Wharton vs Booth for Indian finance applicants.
Our team can map your profile to the right school in a profile evaluation, and an application editing review is worth doing once your shortlist is down to two. If you are early in your career, the MBA and MIM programmes page covers shorter alternatives.
Common questions
Is Columbia better than Booth for finance? For investment banking in New York, yes, by recruiting proximity and the 17% banking share. For quantitative and buy-side work, many Indian applicants prefer Booth. Both reported the same $175,000 median base in 2025, so pay does not decide it. What decides it is which function you want in year one.
Is Kellogg a good school for finance? Yes, but it is not a finance-first school. Twenty-one percent of the Class of 2025 went into finance, with strong buy-side names such as KKR and Warburg Pincus on the employer list. Consulting is larger. If your finance goal is firm and specific, Columbia and Booth show you more peers on the same path.
Can an Indian student get a finance job after an MBA from these schools? Yes, but sponsorship is the constraint. Recruiters hire international graduates every year, yet visa costs and policy shifts reduce the number of firms willing to sponsor. Treat a non-US fallback, such as London or Singapore, as part of the plan rather than a failure.
Which of the three is cheapest? Check each school's current cost of attendance on its own site, since figures change every cycle and we have not verified a single comparable number here. Compare the full two-year cost, including living in New York, Chicago or Evanston, rather than tuition alone.
Sources verified 17 October 2026. Next review: 1 January 2028.