Adam was reaching out for my advice on behalf of a student who used to be part of the KLLC program a couple of years ago. She is starting to think about graduate business school options and, eventually, would like to end up at a management consulting firm, like McKinsey, Bain, or BCG. Her question to me was about which B-schools she should be looking toward to follow her desired career path. Adam’s email to me was entitled “Stanford GSB vs. HBS”, but, as you’ll see below, this requires a little more than just choosing between one of the two schools tied for #1 ranking in the world right now.
By the way, Adam’s reference to “the new last name” is because I got married at the end of the summer and he has been joking with me about how I need to change my last name to my wife’s. hahaha. 😀
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Adam wrote:
Good morning, Marquis!
Meet [KF]. [KF] lived in the Kelley LLC a few years ago — before you became a KLLC rock star.
We were chatting this morning about post-graduation plans, business schools, and consulting, and I thought I might connect the two of you — since you’re both working on taking over the world.
So, for someone who’s looking to end up in the world of Bain/BCG/McKinsey, which MBA program should they set their sights on? (Or did I set up the subject line with a completely false dichotomy, because there are other more important factors along the way?)
Hope you’re doing well — and learning to remember the new last name.
Adam
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My response:
Hey, Adam…and nice to meet you, KF. 🙂
Adam, your question about which school to attend based on a desire to join a Big-3 consulting firm is a great one, but it is difficult to answer concisely because there are so many issues at play. In fact, this could be a good topic for me to cover during the KLLC sophomores session when I visit in October. “Stanford GSB vs. HBS” is a good quick answer, but it isn’t exhaustive.
Thinking about this question with the benefit of hindsight, I’d recommend keeping the following points in mind when choosing a B-school with the goal of ending up at a Big-3 management consulting firm:
- Overall reputation of the program: I don’t know any other way to say it, but, if one wants to go to a top consulting firm, he or she should target an MBA program with a strong reputation. When I was at McKinsey, I was often approached by students from low-tier programs with requests for me to help them get into McK and I always told them that it would be a longshot for them to get in. Not that they didn’t receive a good business education at their schools, but the Big-3 firms tend to source their talent from among the top B-schools in the world. So, if an applicant is coming from a B-school that is ranked #50-#60 in the US, he/she is fighting a huge uphill battle.
- Strength of the program in subjects that are relevant in management consulting: Subjects like strategy, general management, and operations are key to many of the engagements that consulting firms complete for clients. Programs with strengths in these areas tend to be attractive to firms when they are recruiting for new talent in the MBA ranks.
- Number of first-round interview slots for the top firms: From the perspective of employers, the admissions teams at the top-tier MBA programs provide a great service by screening for the top candidates in a given year’s crop of applicants. This allows employers to assume that the “best” schools will end up accepting the “best” of the applicants and will end up with the “best” students. As such, consulting firms (especially the top ones) tend to consider certain schools as core schools for recruiting purposes and invite many more students from those schools to participate in first-round interviews than from non-core schools. Of course, it isn’t impossible to score a first-round interview invite if you go to a non-core school and going to a core school doesn’t guarantee you a first-round interview either. That said, a strong candidate who attends a school where more interview invites are given has a much higher chance of receiving one.
- Proportion of each class targeting management consulting: This metric will give you an idea of whether the students are interested in going into consulting. If a given school’s students aren’t really interested in pursuing consulting, then it isn’t a good investment of time and resources for the top firms to focus on recruiting at those schools. If many of the students are interested in consulting, then the firms are more likely to get a higher yield by recruiting there. Also, as a candidate, you’d benefit from having more classmates with whom you can prep for the interview process.
- Proportion of each class who actually go into management consulting: #4 was all about the number of students who WANT to go into consulting. This point is all about the number of students who successfully make it through the process and get a job offer. It doesn’t make sense for the top firms to invest resources to recruit at schools where the students don’t tend to make it through the entire interview process, so they tend to focus on schools where they’ve found applicants who were converted into offerees.
With these points in mind, my advice would be to target the top-5 schools (Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, and Booth), assuming that the fit of culture and academic strengths matches one’s background and preferences. Other top-10 to -15 schools (e.g., Sloan, Haas, Tuck, Ross) are also possibilities, but they don’t necessarily maximize on all of the factors that I’ve listed above.
When it comes down to getting the desired gig at a top consulting firm, all you need is to be one of the people from your school to get that coveted offer. Whether you’re one of 30+ folks in your MBA class who ends up at McKinsey (like I was) or you end up being the only person from your class who ends up there (like a few of my friends were at their schools), the key is to get the job and, when you hit the ground, you’ll be on the same playing field as everyone else in your starting group. So, my overall advice is to pick the business school that is the best fit for you and then work your butt off to be one of the kids from your MBA class who gets one of the few consulting positions up for grabs.
KF, I hope the above comments are useful as you think through the business school options that you’ll face in a few years. Good luck with the rest of your studies at IU.
Marquis
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