If we are purely looking at recruitment into the Management Consulting Game the two are much of a muchness with the LBS ranking as a top tier business school in the FT ranking (at 3) and the Judge School at Cambridge at 10 but with the added clout of the Cambridge name. Different firms will look at graduates slightly differently – if they are looking for a more entrepreneurial orientated person for an appointment they will tend to look at a graduate from Judge where as a more balanced general management and with an international orientation they will look to LBS graduates. In a nutshell there is very little difference between the management consulting firms recruiting from these. I believe that students should not be looking at which has the better perception in the eyes of management consultants but which school best suits their personality and their needs. Management consultants have preferred schools and LBS and Judge are in the top preferred but they are more interested in what the candidate is like from them. Interestingly Warwick is considered good as it produces people for management consulting that are more practically orientated.

There is some data in this article http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-careers/3725/mba-jobs-where-bain-bcg-mckinsey-will-hire-more that suggests that LBS has a higher % of MBA graduates going into Consulting but the figures could be misleading as more Cambridge MBAs tend to set their own businesses up.

Duncan,

Thanks for the reply, I am very pleased to have been given an explanation from someone with as much experience as yourself. I have been looking into the perfect MBA for myself for a couple of weeks now and have yet to make any significant headway, until of course your reply. I guess it comes down to the culture of the program/school and what it brings out in the individual. Although I don’t think it would be enough for anyone trying to get into MBB to just have a name brand MBA, I feel as though they would have to be in the top bracket of students to achieve such a sought after job. What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Tanzim

Hi Tanzim

Following up your comments and my last reply you need to ask yourself the question why are you doing an MBA and what do you want out of it. The experience you gain from an MBA, and how you perform is more important than the name of the School if you are looking at graduating from the Schools in the top 20 MBAs. That is where the MBB recruit from. They are looking at the person not the grades that people come out with and it is probably more what you do within the class and contribute to the class than the grades that get you the position. For example, involvement with case competitions; involvement in one of the class clubs; organising a study tour for members of the class somewhere. First thing, and the greatest hurdle is getting into the top School, and this is where Crimson and guide you and I would suggest talking with them. I am involved at present with 7 students wanting to get into top schools and they are going through rigorous preparation along with ensuring their submission is top notch. First if you decide on the top ten or twenty, look at which schools suit you best for your personality and what you want from the MBA program with a suitable mentor, then look at those you wish to apply for and work on getting the application in order, to be the best. Get an appraisal from Crimson of your current ‘standard’ for application and look at what is needed to get you into those top schools. I want to stress it is not your grades that count but what you gain from the degree, what you contribute to the class and how you develop during the course of the degree.

Cheers David