This quote from the WSJ gift link from @BKSquared is both damning and praising of non-elite grads at the same time:
McKinsey doesn’t want large numbers of students from other schools to apply because most would be rejected, which wouldn’t benefit them or the firm, Ciesil said. Instead, recruiters will use AI to find students on noncore campuses who have similar profiles to McKinsey’s star hires, she said. That could mean the same major or similar extracurricular activities, for example.
Firm data show that hires from noncore campuses often perform better than those from core schools, she added. Last year McKinsey ultimately hired from about 80 schools.
“We know that this distinctive talent is not only centered at a handful of, I’ll call them, elite sources,” Ciesil said.
Essentially their position seems to be that there’s high-level talent everywhere, but not in sufficient proportions for McKinsey to do a high-touch application process beyond their “shortlist of about 20 core schools,” so they’ll call you, don’t call them.
But one of my takeaways from the article is that, in this climate, geography matters. Big names are still recruiting at non-elite colleges, but they’re the non-elite colleges that are near them. So GE & Yum Brands are at U. of Louisville, and Wells Fargo and Bank of America are at Johnson C. Smith, but it’s because they’re geographically near while meeting the companies’ expectations for student quality. So if there are particular industries a student is interested in they may want to be taking a more serious look at colleges near those industries.