2024 ADC/APD Summer Programs/Full-Time Applications Thread

Starting this thread for 2024 ADC/APD Summer Program/FT application! 
 

Summer Programs:

Other firms of interest include:

  • Health Advances
  • IQVIA
  • Putnam
  • Clarion
  • CRA

Feel free to add in additional firms that are recruiting for PhD but not on this list.

184 Comments
 

Based on the most helpful WSO content, it looks like you're setting up a thread for the 2024 ADC/APD Summer Programs and Full-Time applications, which is a great way to share information and updates among peers. Here's a bit more detail on the programs you've listed:

  • McKinsey Insight: A program designed for advanced professional degree candidates to get a sneak peek into management consulting at McKinsey.
  • Bridge to BCG: Offers doctoral students, postdocs, and medical residents the chance to learn about the world of consulting and get a view of what a career at BCG could look like.
  • Bain ADvantage: This is Bain & Company's version of an introductory program for ADCs (Advanced Degree Candidates) to experience the consulting industry and Bain's culture.
  • Connect to Clearview: Aimed at life sciences advanced degree holders to explore opportunities in life sciences consulting.
  • Link to LEK: Provides an overview of life as a consultant at L.E.K. Consulting for those with advanced degrees.
  • EMBARK with EY-P: EY-Parthenon's program for advanced degree candidates to experience strategy consulting.

Other firms of interest that you've mentioned, like Health Advances, IQVIA, Putnam, Clarion, and CRA, are also well-known for their work with PhDs and other advanced degree holders, often in life sciences, healthcare, and strategy consulting.

If you're looking to add more firms to your list, consider looking at previous threads from 2020 to 2023 on Wall Street Oasis, as they may have additional firms that have been of interest in the past. Remember, networking and getting to know each firm's culture and work can be just as important as the application itself. Keep an eye out for application deadlines and prepare well for the interviews. Good luck!

Sources: 2023 ADC/APD Summer Programs/Full-Time Applications Thread, 2020 ADC/APD Summer Programs/Full-Time Applications Thread, 2020 ADC/APD Summer Programs/Full-Time Applications Thread, 2021 ADC/APD Summer Programs/Full-Time Applications Thread, 2022 ADC/APD Summer Programs/Full-Time Applications Thread

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

I got invite in mid Feb and did it this Monday I think the recruiter mentioned there won’t be more bc they will be reviewing applications. I’m not sure if this is the one you are referring to?

 

Yep, that's the coffee chat I was referring to. Thanks for sharing the info. Based on last year's timeline, I think they should send some notifications this week.

 

Based on what I heard from current associates at LEK, it doesn't really matter whether you participate in Link when it comes to FT applications.

I know some people who got rejection notices earlier today. I haven't heard back either way. It still says "application under review" in my portal.

 

Also received a rejection:

Thank you for expressing interest in McKinsey & Company's Insight 2024 program. While we appreciate the time you took to submit an application, we unfortunately are unable to invite you to the program. We will not be able to provide individual feedback on this decision. 

If you remain interested in our career opportunities and meet our APD candidate qualifications for this cycle, our full-time Associate application deadline is June 7, 2024.   

If you are graduating prior to December 2024 or currently working full-time, you can apply as an experienced professional. We encourage you to apply for the appropriate role 2-3 months prior to your graduation or at any time if you are working full-time. Please review current openings on our Careers site. 

Thank you again for your interest in McKinsey & Company.  

 

I received a rejection. This is the email I got.

Thank you for taking the time to apply for our Insight 2024 Program. While we are very impressed with your application, we are unable to extend an invitation to this particular event. We often have to make difficult choices between many high caliber applicants and would like to emphasize that the majority of our advanced degree recruits each year did not participate in a selective program in advance of submitting their full-time application and interviewing. 

 

We hope that you remain excited about exploring McKinsey and would love for you to apply for our full-time Associate opportunity by June 7, 2024! Your background is a strong fit for the consulting pathway. Since you already have a profile in our system, this should be a quick process! Please also note that you will not need to retake the digital assessment game, Solve. 

 

We will continue to host virtual events to help you stay connected and finalize preparation for your full-time Associate application. Our APD website will remain your number one resource for all updates.  

We hope that you remain interested in exploring opportunities with McKinsey & Company and look forward to getting to know you more in the coming months! 

 

This is the same email I received. Are you by chance in the southeast? I am interested in seeing whether the variability is due to applicant profiles or based on region/recruiter drafting the email.

 

You mean university? No I am actually from the northeast and I applied to various locations around US (I don’t necessarily remember which ones unfortunately).

 

Same email I got. I’m not sure if it actually means we had good/better applications, or if it just depends on who drafted the email. I also applied in the NE, fwiw. 

 

I just got rejected for Bain ADvantage. Very generic rejection email. I kind of expected it because I hadn’t participated in any outreach events or networking before application. I might be wrong but is it true that Bain prefers people who have been actively participating in their events?  Currently, it’s impossible to know what makes a difference to your application since I am sure everyone has stellar profiles already.

To people who atleast got invited to attend case workshops or interview, do you have any tips on how to network ? Any specific pointers on resume writing ? Anything that made a huge difference (for example unique experiences, major, gpa, location, etc)? Do they only truly hire from the top target schools?

Really appreciate your inputs. Please help us navigate what seems like a black box at the moment and hope we can help each other out as a community. 

 

truly a black box! I only did a coffee chat with an alum from my school who is now at Bain (target school, northeast), got a workshop invite, thought I did well at the workshop and got rejected. Thinking whether it's worth to reapply to Bain in the regular cycle since they staff primarily out of ADVantage.

 

Thanks for sharing. It doesn’t seem like it’s an open and accessible pathway. Bain did visit our school but they weren’t actively encouraging any

networking or chats for ADC candidates. This has got me second guessing about applying FT to Bain since they claim to be a ‘people centric’ firm. The process is not transparent at all for Bain. I believe McK and BCG have done a much better job in keeping opportunities open for ADC candidates. I would rather devote more time to firms who seriously consider hiring ADC candidates.

 

The one-way interview deadline is today at midnight, so I don't expect to hear anything until the end of the week or beginning of next at the earliest. I only did mine last Friday.

 

I just (3/26 afternoon) received an email with a survey asking to confirm office preferences. They indicated there will be an application update in mid-April. 

 
Most Helpful

I'm concerned that MBB won't be hiring a lot of APD's in this cycle.

I have three APD friends currently at B and the other B. All three of them have been doing mostly beach work or completely benched for the past 6 months, and apparently a lot of their recruitment year colleagues are in the same position. Firms are actively trying to increase attrition rates to shred the hires they've done in the 21-22 cycles, and one strategy is to use their lack of involvement in projects as a justification to CTL them. There just aren't enough projects to sustain them regardless of performance. 

I asked why the firms are even hiring then, and they think it might be to keep up appearances and/or maintain good relations with MBA programs. So I wonder if the share of APD hires might decrease to better accommodate MBA hires. Regardless, it sounds like it's tough to break into. Maybe I need a second PhD - that'll show them.

 

For those that got Bridge2BCG, did you all get referrals? Trying to figure out how I could make myself more competitive for FT

 

Any updates on Oliver Wyman or Trinity? I know someone who has gotten a reject from OW, but no offers or interviews so far…

 

Did anybody get acceptances or interviews from McKinsey Insight? I applied and completed the McKinsey online game, but unlike my classmates, never got a rejection email from McKinsey. My application also isn’t appearing in the McKinsey dashboard when I log in (as pending, rejected, or successful) and McKinsey’s recruiting operations point of contact hasn’t been able to get any info for me. Has anyone received an acceptance or invitation to interview?

 

It's firm dependent. Most T2s tend to hire almost exclusively from summer externships due to the small consultant class sizes. For MBB:

1. McKinsey: Historically hired about equally from full-time/ McKinsey Insight given that Insight is a small program relative to McKinsey's size

2. BCG: More from Bridge to BCG, some full-time historically. For 2023 however full-time hiring was frozen outside of a few major offices like NY and Boston, but FT hiring for those were dramatically decreased compared to previous years.

3. Bain: Hires almost exclusively from Advantage regardless of economic conditions. Very rarely hire from full-time. FT hiring during 2023 was completely frozen in the US for ADCs.

Sauce: ADC SO that applied last cycle and received McK + BCG offers

 

A lot of BCG interviews happened last Friday and results aren't out yet for many offices. Most smaller offices (New Jersey, Philly, Pittsburgh, Austin) etc have released results already likely due to their smaller sizes and they offer rates are decent from what I heard. Larger offices like NY and Boston I heard that they released rejections but no offers yet so can't gauge offer rates at those offices yet

 

Has anybody heard back from LEK re: FT interviews yet? (I know their FT deadline isn't until June 17.)

 

I haven’t heard either, though I know it’s office dependent. I’m located in the NE. FWIW my application status changed to “in progress.”

 

Don’t want to be pessimistic but I wouldn’t count on McKinsey much this year. I got Insight this year, and traditionally Insight guaranteed first round interviews/ early interview time slots. However, this year McKinsey told us Insight peeps that were getting lumped with full-time to compete for interview invites (yep, invited were no longer guaranteed even for Insight). To me, this all screams that they don’t want to hire and are just doing Insight for appearances sake. Glad to have gotten BCG through Bridge at least but yeah McKinsey has been pretty sucky 

 

Got a McK interview invite for August. It’s virtual and then there’ll be an onsite later if the first round goes well. 

 

Happy to eat my my words but Mckinsey seems to have given interviews to every Insight person I know (me included). Good luck everyone!

 

West coast office here, but my interview date is for late August, seems to be very different from other offices Iknow (NY, TX). Anyone else has the date for late Aug instead of beginning of Aug?

 

I got an invite via Diversity Connect - Houston Office for Aug 1st/2nd. Excited for the opportunity, made it to the decision round for BCG post-Bridge but wasn't extended an offer.

 

I’m guessing it’s not a great sign for those of us who didn’t hear from McK yesterday 🥲

 

h4h0zbnn0:


I’m guessing it’s not a great sign for those of us who didn’t hear from McK yesterday 🥲




Yes just received the standard rejection.


Same.

 

Other than the usual MBB, which other consulting firms (inlcuding boutique firms) are you guys planning to apply or have applied as an APD candidate more for general Associate as well as life sciences consulting roles?

 

A lot of life science firms also had summer programs similar to MBB which I also applied to (L.E.K, Oliver Wyman, Trinity, Putnam, Guidehouse, etc.)

 

No news either. For Bain Advantage, the acceptance rates were similar from last year to this year (~1/3 got offers). However, last year for FT hiring Bain was basically frozen for ADCs so…

 

Any update about from Bain FT ADC? I had a consultant at Bain peep at my linkedin multiple times last week and my delulu brain is reading into it too much

 

I’m not counting on Bain this year, tbh. In addition to them usually recruiting from the ADVantage program, I know several MBA consultants currently employed there who are effectively furloughed until 2025 because the market has been in a slump. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, though. 

 

Just received BCG invite for the video cover letter for FT roles. Wondering if it is being sent out to everyone? It wasn't mentioned in their ADC recruiting guidelines for this year.  

 

Anyone done with the final round of McK and waiting/got the offer? I've still not heard from Bain's Boston office so not sure what's going on there?

 

R1 to R2 is couple business days like mentioned. For R2 people I know and myself got their results same day whether acceptance or reject. 

 

Interviewed 8/21 and got the final round invite for NYC this morning (1 business day wait). Rejects went out at the same time, interviewer called me shortly after I got the email. Honestly pretty surprised with the result since I didn't think R1 went all that well.

Anyone who's already done a final round/gotten an offer, any advice??? 

 

Final round honestly feel the same as first round. Make sure you improve on any feedback that first round interviewers gave you, that's about it. Gluck!

 

Thanks! Glad they didn’t throw any curveballs. My feedback was all very positive, though I only spoke with one interviewer afterwards (and it was the one I did better on). Guess I’ll just … do the same plus work on the parts I personally felt weak on, lol

 

Didn't think the case itself was challenging but didn't like the format. Messed up the math and didn't have time to go back and correct my error which sucks.

 

Glad your fit went well! I really messed mine up - had great and structured stories set for the questions they asked but my anxious brain went rogue and told bad stories in a poor manner. What a mess.

 

Well, McK final round was catastrophic, lol. The first 2.5 interviews went okay, but the last math problem took >20 minutes of the interviewer leading me through by the hand to get to the right answer. It wasn’t even hard; I was just exhausted and misunderstood the prompt. Brutal. 

 

Yep, second interview only ran about 30 mins, they just had me do a framework and then one exhibit interpretation. They said either today or Monday for the decision. Hoping they just put me out of my misery before the weekend, haha

 

Just had final rounds McKinsey NY too, first two interviews well lasted full time, #3 absolute whirlwind, the interviewer seemed like he was just trying to get out of the office - fit took 10 mins case took 12 mins, framework, chart review, and one math, I asked a second question after and he left the meeting mid my question, partner was even texting and telling me to pause so they could work on something on their computer… likely not a good sign, at least should get the R today from HR sounds like?

 

Not necessarily a bad sign - they could genuinely have been busy or just trying to test you. My first interviewer also walked away at one point and my second stopped the case after framework and exhibit. They were all kinda brusque, but I chalked that up to pressure testing and didn’t let it phase me. Fwiw my McKinsey “buddy” told me she completely whiffed one of her final round interviews and still got the offer. They also told me the decision could be either today or Monday. 

 

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