Mr. Tier 2 Consultant

There’s no doubt that Stanford likes consultants. In fact, most top business schools do. In the GSB’s Class of 2020, there were 77 admits who had been working in consulting when they were admitted. There were an additional 39 who had previously held a full- time position in consulting. But as you certainly know McKinsey, BCG and Bain (MBB) dominate the feeder companies: 44 of the incoming class had been working at one of the three firms when they applied to the GSB, with another 26 who started with MBB before making a career switch. So what about the second-tier firms? Deloitte was on the resumes of 12 Stanford MBA students, not including two more from Monitor Deloitte. So if you work at Deloitte, you are in good shape. There were three from Oliver Wyman, two from PwC, one from AT Kearney, none from Accenture. I go through all this to note the importance of feeder companies in admissions. That is largely because the more highly selective a firm is, the more likely it is a signal for elite MBA admissions. You have strong stats, including your 770 GMAT which is well above the class average, and you are a STEM grad with a good GPA from a highly respected school. The lack of powerful extras–golf doesn’t really do it–is a drawback to your app at Stanford as well. The GSB likes to see leadership in an extra that demonstrates your investment in something other than yourself. None of this would matter except that you are going to be competing with other candidates with similar profiles except they worked at MBB, went to an Ivy League school, started a nonprofit to help the disadvantaged. In that case, a 730 GMAT is just fine. For all these reasons, I’m not all that confident that you’ll meet Stanford’s very high hurdles.