Brown and Cornell Are Second Tier

College Search & Selection
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<p>About recruiters’ point of view. You might want to consider this table when citing recruiters opinion:</p>

<p>1 Harvard University 100.00
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 100.00
6 Stanford University 100.00
7 University of California, Berkeley (UCB) 100.00
10 Yale University 100.00
12 Columbia University 100.00</p>

<p>16 University of Michigan 99.00</p>

<p>17 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) 98.00
18 University of Pennsylvania 98.00</p>

<p>25 University of Chicago 96.00</p>

<p>28 Cornell University 95.00</p>

<p>33 Duke University 93.00</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2010/indicator-rankings/employer-review[/url]”>http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2010/indicator-rankings/employer-review&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>[Job</a> Recruiters Prefer State Universities Over Ivy League Colleges - WSJ.com](<a href=“Job Recruiters Prefer State Universities Over Ivy League Colleges - WSJ”>Job Recruiters Prefer State Universities Over Ivy League Colleges - WSJ)</p>

<p>[Best</a> Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ.com](<a href=“Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ”>Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ)</p>

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<p>I get the impression that the value of Harvard MBA, or for any ‘top MBA program’, is somewhat exaggerated. A quarter of Harvard MBA second years looking for employment failed to land a gig after on campus recruiting (after spring semester internship recruiting for 1st year students and fall semester recruiting for 2nd year students). Forget Goldman IBD Associate position or MBB Associate positions, these HBS students failed to land A JOB. And, if you don’t have a pre-MBA experience in top finance position, you don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of landing that 6 figure gig in BB IB or Trading division. Harvard MBA, or any top MBA, would be valuable for those who already have strong finance/ consulting experiences who excel in networking and interviewing skills. Just attending HBS isn’t likely to be the golden ticket to success for just anybody. I am quite skeptical of the added value of MBA, considering 2 years of opportunity cost and 100 k of tuition.</p>

<p>Sakky, I encourage you to rethink about the value of a Harvard (or any other top) MBA for the price and opportunity costs that it incurs of its students.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/2/24/mba-student-hiring-steady-span-stylefont-weight/[/url]”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/2/24/mba-student-hiring-steady-span-stylefont-weight/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p><a href=“http://www.mba-channel.com/channel/article/job-market-mixed-experience-in-2010/[/url]”>http://www.mba-channel.com/channel/article/job-market-mixed-experience-in-2010/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

84

<p>"Yet it seems that it is precisely those jobs in MBB, whether international or domestic, that would cater the most heavily to the top (US) private schools. "</p>

<p>I looked through roughly 320 McKinsey profiles yesterday. If that sample size is anything to go by (and 320 consultant profiles in a company that has 9,000 consultants is a pretty significant sample size) your statement seems incorrect Sakky. 25% of the profiles completed their undergraduate studies at an international university and 25% at universities not considered “top private (or public) schools”, such as Arkansas, Babson, Florida A&M, Georgia Tech, Lafayette, Purdue, Rutgers, Trinity, UCSD, UIUC, University of Missouri, UT-Austin, Vollanova etc… </p>

<p>Some private elites did suprisingly poorly, particularly Dartmouth, Duke and Williams, with none of them having more than 3 undergrad prepresentatives. Given all the praise heaped on them on CC for their placement into Management Consulting firms and Investment Banks, I truly expected a farlarger representation of these schools. From the profiles on the McKinsey website, it certainly does not seem like they do any better than other elite private universities. The most well represented instititutions (for undergrads and overall) were Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Chicago, Michigan-Ann Arbor and Northwestern.</p>

<p>[McKinsey</a> & Company New York Office - Home](<a href=“http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/newyork/consultants/index.aspx]McKinsey”>http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/newyork/consultants/index.aspx)</p>

<p>I also looked at the profiles of BCG employees in the New York and Chicago offices, although admittedly, the sample size in this case was not large enough to draw any conclusion. As expected, Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Dartmouth, Michigan, Chicago and Northwestern were the most well represented.</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in New York and New Jersey - Leaders](<a href=“Contact Us | New York City, New York | BCG”>Contact Us | New York City, New York | BCG)</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in New York and New Jersey - Meet Us](<a href=“Contact Us | New York City, New York | BCG”>Contact Us | New York City, New York | BCG)</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in New York and New Jersey - Women](<a href=“Contact Us | New York City, New York | BCG”>Contact Us | New York City, New York | BCG)</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in New York and New Jersey - NYC Recruiting](<a href=“Contact Us | New York City, New York | BCG”>Contact Us | New York City, New York | BCG)</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in Chicago - Meet Chicago Leaders](<a href=“Contact Us | Chicago, Illinois | BCG”>Contact Us | Chicago, Illinois | BCG)</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in Chicago - Chicago Associates and Consultants](<a href=“Contact Us | Chicago, Illinois | BCG”>Contact Us | Chicago, Illinois | BCG)</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in Chicago - Chicago Women](<a href=“Contact Us | Chicago, Illinois | BCG”>Contact Us | Chicago, Illinois | BCG)</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in Chicago - Recruiting Contacts](<a href=“Contact Us | Chicago, Illinois | BCG”>Contact Us | Chicago, Illinois | BCG)</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in San Francisco - Local Leaders](<a href=“Contact Us | San Francisco, California | BCG”>Contact Us | San Francisco, California | BCG)</p>

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<p>Michigan and Northwestern are regional targets for MBB based on what I’ve heard from friends who go to these schools and are graduating this year. They are solid if you want to work in the Chicago office but not for much else.</p>

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I don’t think that’s big enough of a sample size to draw any sort of major conclusions. In fact Alexandre, you should be careful to only include profiles who started working at MBB at the Associate Consultant level right out of undergrad to truly measure the effect of the undergrad.</p>

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Those are just random profiles posted on those office sites that don’t bear much resemblance to an overall analyst class. Besides, Duke will have a giant representation in the Atlanta and DC offices while Williams and Dartmouth do well in the Boston offices.</p>

<p>For instance, I know for a fact that there are 10 kids at BCG, 10 at Bain and 8 at McKinsey from Duke working at these firms nationwide which is on par with Wharton. I’m not sure about U of M’s numbers but I know that the school is only recruited for the Chicago office at Bain for instance and that it had much fewer first round interview slots for BCG than Duke had. This is what separates a “target” from a “top target”. I don’t have senior friends at Williams or Dartmouth so I can’ comment there.</p>

<p>For instance, someone who does his BSE in UMich Engineering and then gets a Harvard MBA before working as an associate at McKinsey got hired from the job out of Harvard so it deserves the credit for the hire NOT Michigan. This is just an example.</p>

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<p>“Michigan and Northwestern are regional targets for MBB based on what I’ve heard from friends who go to these schools and are graduating this year. They are solid if you want to work in the Chicago office but not for much else.”</p>

<p>Your “friends” are misinformed about Michigan. McKinsey and Bain recruit at Michigan (not just Ross) nationally. </p>

<p>“I don’t think that’s big enough of a sample size to draw any sort of major conclusions. In fact Alexandre, you should be careful to only include profiles who started working at MBB at the Associate Consultant level right out of undergrad to truly measure the effect of the undergrad.”</p>

<p>LDB, the McKinsey data is a pretty good reflection of reality. 320 profiles is a very significant number and cannot be swept away. Those 320 profiles are evenly split across levels (partners, principles, associates and analysts) and locations. We are not talking about a sample size of 30 out of 1 million. 320 out of 9,000 is a very significant number.</p>

<p>And I am not sure how you surmised that BBM recruit at Ross regionally when one of the BCG partners in the NYC office as well as one of the recruiters in the NYC office are both Michigan alums. </p>

<p>Bottom line, Ross (undergrad and grad) is clearly more of a “top target” than Duke where McKinsey is concerned. I am not sure about Bain and BCG. </p>

<p>“Besides, Duke will have a giant representation in the Atlanta and DC offices while Williams and Dartmouth do well in the Boston offices.”</p>

<p>Not the McKinsey office. Of the many profiles of McKinsey consultants I looked over, I did not see any Duke alums in the DC office. Bain does not even have a DC office if memory serves. Perhaps the BCG office in DC. Suprisingly, when I looked at BCG’s profile in DC, I saw 1 partner that is a Duke alum (undergrad at Duke but apparently recruited from HBS), but I also noticed another partner that is a Michigan alum!</p>

<p>[BCG</a> in Washington D.C. - Meet Us](<a href=“Contact Us | Washington, DC Office | BCG”>Contact Us | Washington, DC Office | BCG)</p>

<p>“For instance, I know for a fact that there are 10 kids at BCG, 10 at Bain and 8 at McKinsey from Duke working at these firms nationwide which is on par with Wharton.”</p>

<p>You will forgive my skepticism LDB, but after claiming that over 400 Duke students are placed into front office IB positions and BBM jobs, I will require proof to back your statements. Please provide links to back up your numbers. I always provide actual evidence to support my claims, I suggest you do the same.</p>

<p>“someone who does his BSE in UMich Engineering and then gets a Harvard MBA before working as an associate at McKinsey got hired from the job out of Harvard so it deserves the credit for the hire NOT Michigan.”</p>

<p>I agree…to an extent. First of all, it is Michigan that opened the doors for that person to get the initial job that landed her/him at HBS. Secondly, one’s loyalty to one’s undergraduate institution, especially one like Michigan, is very strong. Regardless, of the 22 (out of 320) Michigan alums at McKinsey, more than half completed their terminal degree at Michigan, and at least 5 of those were recruited as undergrads. Feel free to go over the pofiles.</p>

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<p>Back to the original topic, only very unreasonable and ignorant people would think of Brown and Cornell as “second tier” schools. Both are easily counted among the best universities in the world.</p>

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<p>lesdiablesbleus, I wonder do you usually get your weird stories.</p>

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<p>Actually, I think we can all agree that all HBS students could surely have found not only “A JOB”, but could land a quite good job - just perhaps not the caliber of job that they wanted. After all, truly if they could have found nothing else, they could have always gone back to their old, pre-MBA job. </p>

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<p>Absolutely 100% false - plenty of people successfully use the MBA to transition into a top finance position from a non-finance background. In fact, that is one of the key rationales for obtaining an MBA in the first place. </p>

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<p>Lazykid, then to extend that train of thought, I would encourage you to rethink the value of the undergraduate degree at any school. Let’s face it, the average undergraduate, frankly, doesn’t really make that much money. The average liberal arts major - and most people are liberal arts majors - makes only around $35-40k to start, if he can find a job at all. </p>

<p>Let me put it to you starkly. The typical undergraduate has to pay for 4 years of tuition, living expenses, and opportunity costs, yet after all that, will earn a relatively low salary. On the other hand, an MBA student only sacrifices 2 years worth of tuition/living-expenses/opp-costs, in return for a far higher salary. So if the MBA is a losing proposition, then the bachelor’s degree is even worse. Yet are you prepared to argue that people shouldn’t even go to college at all?</p>

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<p>Hmm not too sure actually. I would have believed it maybe 5 years ago. But now the former Yale president is actually doing something about Duke’s international rep. They’re actually building some Duke headquarters at China. Crazy amount of Duke money is going to international services…at least that’s what my brother tells me.
Apparently a lot of people at Europe know Duke. Its just the Asian relationship Duke is more focused on.</p>

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<p>EDIT: RML, that table is BS, you know it. Don’t lie! How could your table be SO DIFFERENT from moneydad’s??</p>

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<p>It’s pretty arbitrary in general to define what a second tier school is.</p>

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<p>No; it’s not BS, MrPrince, and you know it.</p>

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<p>Several sources have indicated that a quarter of 2nd year MBA students at numerous top business schools failed to land a job post on-campus recruiting. What that means is that these folks need to use networking and self-job search in order to land a job, if they can land any job at all. And, most elite companies’ hiring is structured; they tend to hire only those fresh out of school via on-campus recruiting or lateral hiring from other comparable firms. The implication is that these MBA folks probably won’t end up with a top job, unless they have some serious connections or networks to bank on. Lastly, if a MBA student goes back to the same pre-MBA job after incurring six figure school debt and forgone incomes of two years, it sounds like attending the MBA program was not the best decision for that person. </p>

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<p>Maybe during economic boom years, finance sectors hired decent numbers of former engineers for tech or quant positions out of MBA. Many of these jobs have been reduced, with MBA students gunning for these positions remaining steady. Which means, very competitive process for anyone to land a top finance job out of MBA with limited to no finance experience pre-MBA. And, much of FO Associate positions at BB are taken by people who were former IBD or Trading analysts. At the very least, BB would very much rather hire a MBA student who was a BB IBD analyst for a FO Associate position (and there are plenty of these types at top Business schools), over someone who just had a regular corporate job. Which brings up the issue of whether attending a top MBA is a real value-adding deal for anyone choosing to attend.</p>

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<p>First thing, the opportunity cost of attending MBA program is significantly higher than that of attending undergrad. An average undergrad has no pre-undergrad full time job experience, so only viable option is to attend college. On the other hand, a MBA student needs to quit full time corporate work for two years to attend MBA. Second, attending a college has become almost of a cultural norm within the U.S. during this period. But, attending MBA is largely a person’s choice. Third, an average cost of attending undergrad is significantly cheaper than that of attending a MBA. HBS costs over 50 k a year. An average state school probably costs less than 10 k a year. Lastly, making 40k a year to start out of undergrad isn’t that bad of a condition to be in. I know of several unemployed law students at my school who say they would be happy to make 45k a year at some firm after law school.</p>

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<p>You guys are pretty funny. In the end, all of these schools are great and will prepare you for a management consulting career if you succeed at the undergrad level and have demonstrated analytical abilities to these top notch employers. Bickering over arbitrary numbers is a silly exercise as there’s no ironclad proof one way or the other. While these firms (specifically talking about MBB) are somewhat prestige wh*res with regards to undergraduate affiliation, even they aren’t so cynical and actually look at the applicants resume and interviewing abilities before giving an offer. </p>

<p>Harvard has a lot of really smart, driven people. The “average” Harvard student is probably more impressive of a candidate than the “average” Duke student (where being average is still quite a feat). Thus, simply by percentages, Harvard would probably perform better than Duke from a recruitment standpoint. However, is this causation or correlation? Would a high school senior be ill-advised to choose Duke over Harvard simply because there are a larger number of individuals from Harvard getting the job offer they covet? Would he/she be better prepared for this career simply by going to Harvard, or would the same individual succeed just as well had he/she decided to attend Duke? (These are all rhetorical questions, by the way). I think it’s fairly clear that the individual will succeed and fare in the recruitment process essentially the same either way. There is not going to be a huge difference from the individual’s standpoint.</p>

<p>The same goes with Duke v. Michigan. Duke, on average, has perhaps more “impressive” students than Michigan on a percentage basis. But that doesn’t mean going to Duke gives you an automatic heads up. If you are a driven and motivated individual and succeed at any of these fine institutions, you have just as good of a chance as anybody else. Choosing Harvard over Duke, or Duke over Michigan won’t have that grave of an effect and I think people are overstating it. Having said that, these firms do have a cut-off point so I wouldn’t recommend going to SW Missouri State if it’s your dream to be a McKinsey consultant. No matter how well you do there, it’s not going to cut it unless you have some major connections.</p>

<p>FWIW, in regards to geographic recruitment at Duke, based on people I know, McKinsey essentially lets the students choose the office they want to be based out of. Thus, the Chicago/NY/Boston/etc. distribution should be roughly equivalent to the student body geographic representation. On the other hand, Bain essentially recruits at Duke for its Atlanta office. BCG, I’m not as well versed at, but I think is more similar to Bain and recruits for its Boston office mostly from Duke…Carry on.</p>

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This is more or less completely false. I’m a senior and I know there are 3 classmates working for Bain in Boston, 2 more for Bain in New York, 3 doing Bain in Atlanta and 2 others working for Bain in some other cities but I’m not sure where. BCG is even more spread out and there are 3 seniors working in Chicago, 1 in Dallas, 3 in Atlanta, a couple in DC, 1 in Los Angeles, etc. etc. Duke is a target for all major offices nationwide for MBB and internationally too in Asia for Bain.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.joinbain.com/apply-to-bain/bain-on-your-campus/school_events.asp?school_id=5[/url]”>http://www.joinbain.com/apply-to-bain/bain-on-your-campus/school_events.asp?school_id=5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>^OK! lesdiablesbles. Duke is a target for… Duke is great for… Duke is this, Duke is that. Can you just chillax? Please?? People KNOW Duke is good for all this. Okay? Maybe Alexandre isn’t acknowledging that just to tick you off. Can you post something on CC without having to mention Duke at least twice?? Clearly not you buffoon. So why don’t you actually get hired by Goldman Sachs, get a hot girlfriend, and live the life instead of constantly coming on to CC and projecting useless information about Duke that we all know?</p>

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<p>MrPrince, I acknolwedge that Duke is great. I always list Duke among the very best universities. I just do not agree that Duke is superior to Michigan. I think those two universities are roughly equal in terms of quality.</p>

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<p>^ But for undergrad?! … :D</p>