<p>Pizzagirl - Can you not read or can you not reason? No wonder kids nowadays are failing reading. I said I believe from my experience and from what I’ve seen (limited to students at elite schools) have the surest shot, which is a statement that leaves room for other cases. Does that make me ignorant of everything else? No. Because I even added “I’m sure students (given that they are smart) who do something impressive on their own can make it as well.” If you are engineering major from UIUC who has worked for Google for two years, is your chance at a top business good? No doubt. For all engineering majors, are their chances as good as a traditional candidate? Probably not. If you have ever attended a top business school, you would know that the vast majority come from a finance, consulting, and engineering background. You have obviously never been in investment banking, hedge fund, or consulting, or else you would know that people who work at these places knows a great deal about everything. If you have worked in a pizzeria your whole life, they probably know more about your pizzeria and about how to run pizza business than you do.
Top business schools do care very little about undergrad. I never disputed that. However, your undergrad can have a significant impact on your work experience prior to business school. How else would you explain why so Stanford GSB’s incoming class is dominated by elite (and many of which are very small) schools? Where is Ohio State? Where is University of Iowa?
I seriously believe people like you don’t understand a simple fact: a typical student from large mediocre public schools are no where near as smart and capable as a typical one from an Ivy, but the smartest few at that mediocre public is probably as smart and capable as the top ones at an Ivy.</p>