I am not stating it’s the preferred route. I was just juxtaposing my experience against your kind explanation of the process of getting into a grad school.
My one and only point was that there is this odd echo chamber response to every sane analysis of cost benefit The constant comparison of super schools that aren’t top 20 USNWR based on their ability to get you into an IB analyst class with much lower odds than the grad school odds you reference.
Cheers!