<p>I have to agree with Xiggi and TK. CMC is something on the order of one-half the size of even WILLIAMS. A one year snapshot of where a single cohort group wound up for grad school means nothing. Maybe they like I-banking and consulting, who knows?</p>
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<p>That’s the point, TK, that I wanted to say but missed it (my fault.) </p>
<p>I think SCHOOL CULTURE and STUDENT ORIENTATION must have played a big role why some top-caliber schools like CMC, Chicago or Pomona don’t send as much students to top MBA programs, which, unfortunately, resulted to those schools’ unfavorable record on some top B-Schools’ notebook. So, while both CMC and Duke have top-notched caliber students, Duke does have a more helpful environment for those who are dead set on getting onto a top MBA program. I think it matters if you circle yourself around people who have the same passion, interests and goals as you do. Maybe that sounds silly or dumb to some of you. But I’m sure it doesn’t for some, thus I raised the issue to the OP.</p>
<p>I do not doubt that CMC students are generally as bright and as talented as those students from Duke. Their stats say that they’re almost identical. But, as your link per se suggests, it appears that CMC students are more passionate in getting onto top grad/postgrad and medical programs than grad business programs. Thus the more I would suggest that the OP should check on this angle of her school selection process. Then again, if she doesn’t care where to attend MBA that much, either school would be more than okay to serve her future goals.</p>
<p>^^All the more reason to want more data; fifty or sixty graduates a year are a small enough sample size to call for a few lagging indicators.</p>
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<p>It is only silly and dumb because you are building an entire line of arguments based on sketchy and unscientific data and, unfortunately, an imperfect knowledge of the environment of the school as well as a total lack of real understanding of how admissions work in the US, including to the “top” business school. </p>
<p>For example, you seem to believe that the school you attend might provide a direct passport to a certain type of graduate school.</p>
<p>I cannot fault you for not having access to the real data (which is drastically different from the incomplete and suspect numbers you used) but I can fault you for confusing your opinions with anything close to the reality, and especially when pretending it might offer sound advice to a young student who does not know better.</p>
<p>RML, how in the world does it matter if you surround yourself with similar people who share your passion if you’re interested in a vocational program you won’t be eligible for until you’re about at least 3 years out of college? </p>
<p>Duke’s environment does not foster a pre-MBA career path any more or better than CMC does. And again, the low representation of students from schools like CMC at top MBA programs must be due to either a lack of interest in vocational post-grad education or a very low student ratio. While I’ve heard stories of Wharton favoring certain schools, I actually believe the top MBA programs actually want many liberal arts graduates in their program.</p>
<p>weeks later and MrMom is still on here spouting gross unfounded over generalizations with schools he has absolutely no connection with. what a complete and utter non-surprise. He should really refrain from giving advice that could ruin the lives of others.</p>
<p>"Ask your average American “What are the top five colleges in America? and they will likely answer “Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, Ohio State, and Baylor”.”</p>
<p>Gallop poll paints a different picture with Americans going with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford. But what do facts based in mathematical rigor know? Less than MrMom’s assertions of course.</p>
<p>Exactly why I didn’t bother to respond. No one that isn’t living under a rock would mention those five colleges before Harvard but of course MrMom has to resort to red herring to save face–signs he/she doesn’t have a clue about Duke or anything for that matter.</p>
<p>“Gallop poll”? Seriously? I think Secretariat leads the Gallop Poll. Thanks for the laugh, Mr. McKinsey.</p>
<p>BTW, if you don’t get the reference to “Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, Ohio State, and Baylor”, you are seriously out of touch with the average American. Allow me to point you two in the right direction:</p>
<p>[2013</a> NCAA College Football Polls and Rankings for Week 10 - ESPN](<a href=“http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings]2013”>2022 College Football Rankings for %{week} | ESPN)</p>
<p>^I’m well aware of that poll since my team Stanford is #5 and not Baylor in the BCS. You literally have brought nothing to the table to back your assertions. Nothing at all. </p>
<p>Rabid college football fans know what the top academic schools are in their conference. ACC fans would point to Duke, SEC fans are quick to point to Vandy, Big10 to Northwestern,and pac-12 fans to Stanford. Only in your bizarre unfounded world would they point to Alabama or Ohio State as the best academic school. Keep at it though; we definitely need more comedic relief in these forums given you won’t ever have a McKinsey interview.</p>
<p>As others have mentioned, please refrain from providing analysis on institutions you have absolutely no credibility to comment on. First hand experience trumpets your fifth hand generalizations any day.</p>
<p>MrMom can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think he is making a fairly innocuous, fairly uncontroversial point. Outside certain small circles, and with the possible exception of a very small number of schools, your college reputation (the “brand”, per se) doesn’t have all that much power to shape your post-graduate outcomes. Not in this case, anyway. Choosing Duke or choosing CMC won’t lock you into, or exclude you from, an MBA or other path. They are two excellent schools; you can safely choose based on personal preferences (or “fit”), focusing on the kind of undergraduate experience you want.</p>
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<p>It depends on which ACC fans you ask. :)</p>
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<p>That’s a good question, Jwest22.</p>
<p>Several top business schools are actually admitting younger students, and students who came straight out of undergrad. Harvard, Stanford and Wharton a few more top B-Schools, have actually been allowing fresh grads to enroll on their MBA programs for a few years running now. NYU has just launched a similar program through the help of an alumnus. Those programs are intended to those students who wanted to pursue MBA from the start. </p>
<p>[NYU</a> Stern | Press Release | NYU Stern Receives a $10 Million Gift for a New Scholarship Program](<a href=“Press Release | NYU Stern Receives a $10 Million Gift for a New Scholarship Program - NYU Stern”>http://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/news-events/berkley-scholars-program?src=homepage_feature)</p>
<p>It is true, however, that the regular route to a top MBA program is to work for 3-5 years. But all these top MBA programs thoroughly check the backgrounds of the candidates – they look at the kind of jobs the candidates held prior to applying to their schools. According to one of the contributors of the thread that TK linked above, sakky, who’s actually an HBS alumnus, said, in 2013 alone, McKinsey alone accounted for the prior work experience to more than 100 of HBS students. And, that is not counting the other elite consulting firms, as well as, the top Investment Banks such as Goldman Sachs, UBS, Citi and such high-profile banks that HBS students held prior to getting admitted to HBS. So, there really is a clearer path to take for those who wish to go to a top MBA program. Go to a school that sends larger number of grads to top banks or firms because they’re eventually able to land a place to top MBA programs. Duke has a very good record of sending grads to those high-profile banks and firms. I have no clue how good CMC is when it comes to that. This is something the OP might want to know prior to making her final decision, too.</p>
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<p>Well, it’s certain controversial to some hypersensitive people who seem to have had their sense of humor removed in graduate school. But thank you for getting it, despite the tongue-in-cheek rhetoric.</p>
<p>My major point is that almost no one on CC understands the “average American”. Myself included, only I’m aware of it and willing to admit it. We here at CC aren’t average Americans, don’t hang out with average Americans, and certainly don’t have the same knowledge, experience, or opinions as the average American. Let alone those of us (not me) who went to HYPSM or even a middling school like Duke. (Insert humor here.) Or work for McKinsey. (Insert humor here also.) We live in a kind of bubble where we think the average American is just like us, only less well-educated and less well-paid, but wants to be us. Good thing you don’t work in marketing, because you’d be out of a job really fast. Know this - one half of all Americans are below average, and you’d be shocked at how low “below average” really is.</p>
<p>Even among us Top 5 or 10 percenters, our knowledge of the “top schools” is somewhat limited, unless you happen to be in the college application process or recently were in it. (I will readily admit that two years ago, D’s top choice was not on my radar and I knew nothing about it other than the fact that it was occasionally referred to on TV and in film. I would never have placed a bet on this being the school, and it was only by virtue of the fact that I recognized the name and the school we wanted to talk to had a long line that we wound up where we are in this process.) Outside of HYP, schools are better known for their athletic prowess rather than their academic prowess. Stanford is kind of a borderline case that people sort of know as the Harvard of the West, but the average person really knows it as a football and basketball perennial. And it’s no secret the despite Michigan’s fine academic standing, it truly is known for sports above all. Most people are shocked by how good it’s considered. This is a VERY sports driven country, and schools that don’t have well-known sports teams, with the exception of HYP, just aren’t well known, period. Even by people who are in the Top 10%. Ask anyone who is contemplating sending their kid to a top LAC - the most common reaction when you say your kid’s top choice is Williams or Amherst or Pomona or Bowdoin or Carleton is, “Huh? Where’s that?”, followed by “Sounds cold!”, unless you are applying to Pomona.</p>
<p>BTW, it works the other way as well. Sports powerhouse schools are often overrated by their fans as to academic quality. Here in the Midwest, I often hear the statement “Why doesn’t she just go to Big State U? It’s a great school!” My unsaid reply is “Compared to what?” Yes, I’m snobby. I mean, it’s good, but it’s not great. It’s not one of the Top 100 Schools That Really Run Things, and when you have the talent, grades, test scores, and the means to pay for it, you guide your kid to one of the Top 100 Schools That Really Run Things. Not a school that hangs out around the 150 to 200 range, despite occasionally breaking into the Top 10 in the sports rankings. (Unless she really want to go there and that would be great because it would be so much cheaper, but let’s be realistic, you’re willing to pay for something else because it really does kind of suck, and thank God she not even applying because it’s just a giant high school. With bigger columns.)</p>
<p>So, you or your kid gets into the Top 100. Back to Duke or CMC. What’s it going to get you? A fine education, either way, no doubt. If you do the work. Neither will have a golden pathway to prestige and power, but both will, on occasion, open doors through just the right person recognizing the name and the quality it represents, giving you the interview, and allowing you to sell yourself as just the right person for the job. Or maybe it tilts the selection committee in just the right way that you win the tiebreaker and get the rare admission into school X, which will in turn open a few more doors. Our lives turn on so many small breaks that we never see, all based on decisions we made so long ago, we don’t remember making them. (See the long line above.) There will be times when going to CMC will tip the scale, and there will be times when Duke will tip the scale, but what we’re really hoping for is that either CMC or Duke will tip the scale more often than Big State U.</p>
<p>RML wrote:
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<p>I said the same thing at post#42.</p>
<p>I will repeat what I wrote earlier, but with different words. And, fwiw, I really hope none of the kids who are dreaming about the golden path to a career of boundless riches and plan their life around attending the right schools will … read the “advice” built on such faulty foundation. </p>
<p>To keep it short, what it wrong is selecting a (UG) school based on the “potential” to be recruited for the “right job” and getting into a “top” business school, and it is especially true when comparing the two schools debated here. Deciding to apply ED to one or the other should be based on multiple factors and NONE of them should be based on “getting in” a certain graduate school. More important should be the general environment and the TYPE of instruction and academic environment. There is a world of difference between learning accounting or advanced finance through the Socratic method and a system based on large lectures and TA’s assistance and grading. And the differences are even more important for classes such as ethics, or the ones that fall into the typical Liberal Arts curriculum and develop critical thinking and reasoning. One could well-served to read about how Wharton builds its curriculum! </p>
<p>The statistics are irrelevant! And especially when used to support a misguided notion.</p>
<p>Well, people could interpret data differently. I agree that what we have is insufficient. But it tells something somehow. </p>
<p>There is a difference in getting accepted into a top B-School - and - getting into a less prestigious B-School coming from certain schools, thus I raised the issue to the OP, if she’s really decided to attend a TOP b-school. Again, if she’s not, then she can ignore the issue that I raised. </p>
<p>The data I’ve gathered suggests that the top b-schools are more brand conscious. Meaning, certain schools appeal to them more. Or, we could also say, they have more respect for some schools than others. And, my theory is that, some undergrad schools have a good record of sending grads to high-profile jobs too. Again, why that is so, that’s for the OP to find out. </p>
<p>Here’s the latest list of undergraduate schools that has at least one grad that got into Harvard Business School. [Undergraduate</a> Institutions - MBA - Harvard Business School](<a href=“http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/admission-requirements/Pages/undergraduate-institutions.aspx]Undergraduate”>Undergraduate Institutions - MBA - Harvard Business School)</p>
<p>As you can see no one has gotten in from CMC. I don’t know what that tells you. But if I were the OP, I’d check why no one got admitted from CMC to HBS, if I really, really want to get into HBS and such top b-school someday.</p>
<p>OP, I find this a good read. Try reading this article, you might gain some insights from it, if you’re planning on getting into a top b-school someday.</p>
<p>[Wharton</a> admissions: As elitist as you’d expect? - Fortune Management](<a href=“http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/08/wharton-admissions-as-elitist-as-youd-expect/]Wharton”>http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/08/wharton-admissions-as-elitist-as-youd-expect/)</p>
<p>^the premise of the article is flawed given it’s based on a singular applicant - I could just as easily point to an applicant from University of Houston getting accepted at Wharton as an example of there being no elitism within Wharton. John Byrne the author, is a laughing stock known for shoddy journalism and obsessive linkedin stalking (as you can tell from the article) - he’s widely derided by consultants here. </p>
<p>McKinsey recruits at CMC (specifically only for the LA office) and Duke (strongest applicants for the NY office and the remaining for the other east coast offices). We hire more Duke graduates - this is a function of interest and stronger Duke representation within McKinsey (due to Fuqua).</p>
<p>^I agree. I don’t see how that applicant is “obviously qualified”, at least not with the information provided The author didn’t mention any accomplishment at the workplace; instead he just added his own spin:
Depsite what he said about “hottest economy”, “a boutique IB in Beijing” is probably like a nameless IB in Washington DC. In general, the more impressive positions are in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Also, if he didn’t accomplish anything special (reasonable speculation given the fact that the author mentioned nothing), he’s just like one of the many equally or more qualified but boring applicants from the IB industry.</p>