The Ranking Myth..

There are many rankings available and the applicants first look at BW rankings or US News rankings to decide on the schools that they want to apply than to speak to people at schools or alumni. This is the BIGGEST Flaw in the application process.

There were many cases when people went to great schools and suffered because they cant really get what they want. SO just dont depend on the rankings. Think it this way..Harvard, Wharton and Chicago churn out around more than 4000 students per year. If these guys are going to take up the juicy jobs every where there will not be anything left out for anybody else. SO, not that everyone going to those will land in a best job..OK..Let me come to the point here.

As far as I understood..There are two categories of schools

Category A: Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Chicago, Columbia, Tuck, MIT, Kellogg.

Category B: The rest..

Its not that Category A is the only thing we should go..But they can get you a chance to interview with the high-fly recruiters. At the category B schools its going to be same for most of the candidates. The High-fly recruiters take very less number of candidates from these schools and prefer people with relevant experience. So its very difficult.

Just a caution: Set your priorities before coming to school. And know what can you expect from school. Frankly, I am not expecting Kelley School to show me an opportunity to interview with McKinsey or for that matter any Big consulting firm. I will be very much satisfied if I can make a career switch to consulting in Corporate Finance, Operations and Strategy. Thats it..And I believe that Kelley will be able to show that path to me..

I remember an instruction from My teacher in +2. Go to one of the top engineering schools, take any branch of engineering and work hard over there. You will be on top. I forgot this when I was in Engineering and faced some problems. Now I dont want to do that..