Swanand

To switch to risk management, maybe he should go for the CFA and then start applying for positions. Not many of the students from Princeton or MIT are aspiring for risk management careers and being admitted at 40 with previous IT experience will not be easy. Both schools admit candidates with good academic credentials, good GMAT/GRE and some relevant experience.
Princeton is actually more difficult to get in and they admit way fewer candidates compared with MIT. Admission rate is 4% for Princeton and about 8% for MIT. Princeton’s program is more quantitative, and MIT’s is more general.
Writing the CFA while finishing graduate degree is very doable if you are in a MFin program. I took level II a few days after my finals at MIT MFin last June and found it really easy. The one year of rigorous finance training would give you very deep knowledge in finance, including theoretcial and analytical contents that are not in the CFA curriculum. Took level III last week and found it quite doable as well if you were still in the program. You would be surprised by how easy you find those AM essay questions, compared with essay questions on MIT’s finance finals…