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Much like HYP admissions, it is only approximately meritocratic in my view. After a minimum bar, it is pure random chance and luck based on a multitude of factors and biases on the part of evaluators.
Overall, there is minimal meritocracy , not just in these institutions but in our economy in general. The illusion of it preserves our faith.
Rising Star
M3 is spot on. Type 1 and Type 2 errors are not equal.
I’m a successful partner at a good firm making quite a bit of $. I couldn’t sniff an interview at MBB as an undergrad because my GPA through two years of school was mediocre. There’s no question in my mind that I would have done great at McKinsey. But I don’t somehow see it as a failure or a miss on their part that they wouldn’t interview me and realize how awesome I was when I was a 20-year-old college senior. They had their choice of people who looked better on paper and missing out on my talents hasn’t exactly cost them much.
It didn’t cost me much either... the money buys you the same stuff irrespective of how well-known and respected your employer is :-)
Rising Star
I bet the HYP analog is a good one. Higher caliber on average, but the best people that don’t get into those schools are easily more talented than the median that do.
I don’t work at an MBB but have competed with those companies and have come across enough people who are either current or former MBB consultants. My read is that the average caliber of the people there is the best in consulting, but if you let me handpick a team at my firm, I’d take them in a heartbeat over the median team at one of those shops.
I imagine HYP selection is a lot more holistic. There isn’t a very high bar to get an MBB interview out of top b schools, so your previous background and accomplishments don’t play a huge role. Once you get an interview, your performance in the interview is really the only thing that matters.
https://www.ft.com/content/0f995d00-0540-11e5-8612-00144feabdc0
What are you selecting for? Projected SARs? Those have far more to do with your ability to build followership/sponsorship than it does with your ability to score in the right part of the critical thinking matrix. Not sure how you select for sponsorship except for letting partners put their fingers on the scale....
IMO at top10 bschool... no. Smartest rarely all went to consulting/had already done it, so some of the smartest in tech and IB. Some smart people got MBB, but plenty of meh/unimpressive/difficult personalities while other, smarter went to non-MBB (likely bc of interview missteps)
Yep, fair.
I’ve done both MBA and experience hire recruiting with MBB, here are the differences:
MBA: easier to get an interview, harder to get in. The number of people that meet the bar is higher so then it usually comes down to minor differences: clicking with interviewer, having a good day, being marginally faster/more concise than the others, familiarity with case material (I.e. industry or function) - and as everyone said luck! MBB has a barrel of golden apples to choose from and it just depends on the shade of gold they prefer in that moment
Experienced hire: harder to get interview, easier to get in (especially if you’ve already been competing at MBA Level interviewing) - to get into the system and get an interview, you really need to have the right skill set at a time when that skill set is in demand and know a partner who is aware that there is a vacancy. Once you have an interview, the level of preparedness and skill in doing “a case” is lower on average so if you’ve prepared like an MBA at a top 10 school, you have higher chances.
This said, everything in life is very much down to luck: right place, right time, knowing the right people. Remember that whatever success you have is usually at the failure of someone else