McK vs Bain for Bschool?
Jul 13, 2022
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From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship
“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”
McKinsey for H/S. Bain for W
Thanks - is this because Bain is strong in PE? How significant of a difference is it between McK/Bain for H/S?
More about qualifiers that McK/Bain vs. H/S/W use. McK selects for leaders regardless of industry (tech, public sector, social sector, finance, etc.), and Bain selects for top talent with a skew towards finance. H/S similarly selects for leaders across industries, while W prides themselves in PE/IB/HF placements. Just check for Alumni and this will be clearly validated - there are obviously exceptions but this is directionally the case.
Wouldn't consider it to make a significant difference (still goes down to each candidate's story, experiences, so on) but definitely helpful.
I think this is completely unsubstantiated
Don't listen to astarryworld, she's completely incorrect, and the only reason they'd have more alum is because they are bigger, that's it. Hell, the director of admissions at HBS right now is a former Bain manager.
MBB has equal chances. After that, there's a dropoff with OW, LEK, Parthenon, etc. but you have just as much a chance of H/S at Bain as you do at McKinsey, and anyone else telling you otherwise is 100% wrong.
Not true. Former Bain consultant?
Check out these deep dives on the MBA class of 2020 at HBS and GSB - https://fortunaadmissions.com/resources/mba_class_analysis/
For HBS, 81 students had worked at McKinsey & Company, 55 at BCG, and 52 at Bain. Given that Bain has less than half the employees of McKinsey, and BCG has about 2/3 the employees of McKinsey, if we control for firm size, MBB firms have equal success rates across H/S. The story is similar for Stanford GSB.
Bump
Absolutely zero difference between any MBB for b-school placement. Who you are as a candidate matters much, much more (your firm is a tiny factor in the overall decision process). Choose based on other factors.
Even with the (albeit not drastic) difference in pedigree between McKinsey and Bain? What about in geographies where the difference can actually be quite big?
.
If you think McK is meaningfully more prestigious than Bain in the eyes of people who matter (I'm not talking about your average reader of the NYTimes), then that is a naive take. Bain wins its fair share of cross offers against McKinsey. They're both the pinnacle of the industry and, again, there are 20 different things going in an MBA application. Your firm is a tiny piece of that.
I'm assuming we're talking about North American offices here. There may be pockets geographically where McK is the only game in town, but those are edge cases.
Interesting, thanks!
MBB has equal chances. Period.
Cool
W
Candidly, Harvard and Stanford (and more Stanford than Harvard) admissions at both firms have gotten very, very challenging for MBB. Now days, if you’re not a URM or LGBT woman or have something very unique or impressive in your profile, you usually need to spend a year or more outside the firm to distinguish your story.
What do you think is the biggest driving factor of this trend? That mbb classes have gotten a lot bigger or because H/S are looking for a different kind of candidate now? What about for international applicants? Also, any idea what the acceptance rate from MBB these days are?
Not sure on the key drivers but bigger classes sizes is certainly a big part of it. The admission process is also generally just more demanding now (GMAT averages are higher, more requirements for your involvement outside of work, etc.)
Acceptance rates shared internally are only for sponsored candidates, and most MBB applicants aren't sponsored, so I don't have specific numbers to share.
Can definitely corroborate this. We collect acceptance rates on anyone who worked with the grad school team to apply (since sponsorship decisions come after you get an acceptance, not before) and both H/S have seen a significant downward trend in the last 10 years. Rest of M7 (including W) still sees pretty great acceptance rates though. It's just H/S where it might actually be advantageous to leave and get more diverse experience before applying.
Would also caveat that even though acceptance rates are worse than before, it's still a much better picture than overall acceptance rates to H/S
Thanks, can you give some color on what H/S acceptance rates at your MBB are at now and how much they’ve declined in recent years? I heard that 10-15 years ago BCG applicants to HBS had a 60% acceptance rate or something ridiculous
Depends a lot on which industry u plan on working in post school and which schools you’re looking to go to
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