Where McKinsey & Co. Find The Most MBAs

students

Entrepreneurship is the sexy post-MBA job, but the reality is that less than 5% of grads from top MBA programs start a business at graduation. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, 34% of all graduate business students seek consulting positions after they earn their degree. My suspicion is that the figure is even higher among full-time MBA candidates.

True, many will work as consultants for a few years, and then down the road start their own business. If you are in that vast mass of MBA wannabes planning or hoping for a job in consulting immediately after you earn your degree, the following ranking is for you. We’ve examined U.S. News’ top MBA programs and the number of grads who have gone into consulting from each one.

Certainly, schools where a high percentage of graduates go into consulting or schools where the absolute numbers of grads going into the industry are high indicates that the program has the recruiting ties, placement track record, and alumni network, as well as the curriculum, to support your consulting goals. The following data tracks the percentage of each class that goes into consulting as a “function”–not an industry–so the numbers may differ somewhat from numbers who go directly into McKinsey, Bain, BCG and other firms (see A New Look At MBA Consultant Factories). The figures include graduates who take corporate jobs in strategic planning or internal consulting so in every case are higher than what the industry numbers would show.

YALE, KELLOGG & DUKE PLACED LARGEST PERCENTAGE OF GRADS INTO CONSULTING

Last year, Yale’s School of Management led the consulting pack, with 30% of its graduating class of MBAs accepting jobs with the likes of McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting Group. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business were next, both sending 29% of their Class of 2013 into consulting. They were followed by Duke (also 29%), Michigan and MIT Sloan (both at 27%).

And when you look at the absolute numbers of graduates who took jobs in consulting, Wharton led with 191 of  its 800 grads. Not far behind were Kellogg (180), Harvard Business School (175), Chicago Booth (146), and Michigan (140).

However, the numbers fail to paint the full picture. Dig into the schools’ class profile, placement stats, curriculum, extra-curricular activities and opportunities to determine which schools to apply to. Ultimately you want to apply to programs that will take you where you want to go and that are likely to admit you.

Percentage of Grads Going into Consulting

 

School Full-Time Graduates # Reporting Consulting Jobs % of Grads
Yale 230 69 30%
Kellogg 627 180 29%
Duke 434 124 29%
Michigan Ross 512 140 27%
MIT Sloan 390 105 27%
CMU Tepper 208 55 26%
Chicago Booth 579 146 25%
Emory 123 31 25%
Dartmouth 266 66 25%
Wharton 800 191 24%
UVA Darden 312 74 24%
Georgetown 248 55 22%
NYU Stern 375 83 22%
USC Marshall 210 45 21%
Texas McCombs 271 56 21%
Harvard 905 175 19%
Notre Dame Mendoza 129 22 17%
UNC Kenan-Flagler 283 48 17%
Cornell 282 47 17%
UC Berkeley Haas 241 40 17%
Indiana Kelley 216 35 16%
Columbia Business School 730 107 15%
Stanford 391 49 13%
UCLA Anderson 369 41 11%

 (See following page for table on number of grads going into consulting by school)

Linda Abraham is president and founder of Accepted.com and co-author of the new, definitive book on MBA admissions, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

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