Admitted to LBS and HEC: which one should I choose?

LBS MiM!!!

I am assuming that you are a European Citizen already. If not, HEC is a better option as it is easier to get the French citizenship than it is the UK citizenship.

Do you speak French at a business fluent level? If not, I would just advise you to go to LBS. A lot of the networking that you will do at HEC will involve a decent level of French for you to be successful.

Overall, LBS is a better brand and all of the major consulting firms go through there.

HEC is better if you want to live in France. You can also get to the UK from there, but it is a bit tougher. However, the darling of every French recruiter's eye at HEC is the Grand Ecole students. You will have to explain your program to them and because it is close to the degree that the GE students get (MSc in Management), you will constantly have to explain how your program is different and you still might get lowballed in salary by recruiters who confuse the two.

If you have more questions on this topic, feel free to PM me.

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Go with your numbers, I wasn't doing rigorous research - just looking at their website. Could have easily been looking at the wrong thing. To answer the red flag question - no it is not a red flag. This is just a school preference. Either Harvard or Stanford does not publish a detailed report and we all know how those schools do in elite recruiting.

You're best option is to contact current students and see what they have to say with regards to numbers and recruiting. LinkedIn was helpful to see where MBA alumi by school are, can probably use that for this as well.

I hold a B2 certificate in French, but I am far from business fluency: no way I can handle a case interview in French, given my current language proficiency.

As for the Grande Ecole / Not-Grande-Ecole issue, I know that the Grande Ecole Program is HEC's flagship course, but is there so much difference as you said, Guyfawkes? If we take LSE as an example, I think recruiters don't wonder much about the differences among MSCs in Management / International Management / Managerial Economics / Economics and Accounting etc etc..they would only see "London School of Economics" and a business-related degree, but it seems it's not the case for HEC and for France in general. I would really appreciate if you could further clarify and give me more details on this :)

First of all, congrats for the offers!

Well, to be honest, high-level recruiters know the difference between the MIM and the MSc in Strategy at HEC (because it's their job to know that), but this doesn't mean they will prefer someone from the MIM than the MSc. If you already know you're interested in strategy there isn't much of a difference between them

Take also in consideration than while the HEC program is quite consulting-oriented, many people from the MIM at LBS decided to pursue other careers (mainly finance), as it was their only pre-experience program, and that is why LBS MIM as a lower percentage of alumni in consulting. I'm expecting this to change from next year though, as they are starting a pre-experience finance program.

To be honest you can't really go wrong with each of them, but I would personally choose LBS due to location, slightly better brand imho and more opportunities/chances to tailor-made your MIM (it would be different if we were comparing LBS with the 2-years HEC MIM).

One more thing: I am italian as well and I was really set off on applying to LBS, but I changed my mind due to personal reasons. Anyway, I know that basically every Italian who graduates from the program and goes into consulting is working in the italian offices. I'm pretty sure this is not true only for LBS but for every foreign high-profile program, it seems like consultants always go back to their native country offices. Keep that in mind if you absolutely want to work in MBB in London.

PS I'm thinking about apply to both of these programs next year, would you mind share your profile? :)

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Just a couple of things to consider:

-it is unlikely that you will end up at a UK MBB office as a continental Europe student at a London school. I am quoting this directly from my interviewer for the LBS MiM, which I also got into back then. According to them, for consulting, most students land something in their home countries -unlike what was said above, I can tell you firsthand that BCG recruits very very heavily at HEC (the most of all MBB) -at HEC, you will suffer from a kind of "discount" versus Grande Ecole and MIF students -the MiM at LBS is grossly overpriced even without factoring in the cost of living in central London

It's a tough decision. Good luck.