If you think about where they recruit from, most don’t need to inflate their scores. And I’m sure if the scores aren’t in line with everything else, they can seek verification.
This is wrong. Consulting firms want smart, but friendly sociable people who they won’t mind working long hours with or present to a client. They mainly recruit at top schools and ask for SAT scores to exude prestige.
I’m fascinated that you apparently believe a meaningful proportion of students with tippy top GPAs from tippy top colleges would want (let alone need!) to lie about their SAT/ACT scores. Do you frequently experience people lying about factual matters on job applications?
Don’t know how many really would inflate their numbers on their job app but people do tend to behave how they are incented. I am sure you can google the research out there that estimates the proportion of people who are less than truthful on job applications/their resumes.
^^^^Come on, now, we know that a certain number of people at “tippy top colleges” got in with less than stellar scores.
The Admissions scandal is probably the tip of the iceberg.
Overall, yes, most kids at elite schools probably do have high scores. But certainly not all.
Younger son did an Internship with the Department of Justice during Junior year of college. He had to submit official copies of his ACT scores, HS transcripts and College transcripts, all part of a background check prior to starting the Internship.
" They mainly recruit at top schools and ask for SAT scores to exude prestige."
This is incorrect. Asking for SAT scores is a way to level the playing field- so that the kid at Albright or Hope or U Scranton with the sky high scores and GPA can compete with the kid from Stanford who might have been an athletic recruit or legacy.
The big firms are NOT sending teams to Albright, but there is a mechanism for sending resumes from schools which are not on the formal recruiting calendar.
SAT scores have nothing to do with prestige… and it’s only ONE component of a holistic review. High scores alone won’t get you an interview; low scores may or may not be a factor given what else is on the resume.
Once the offer is made, the HR department will verify every single line in the application at certain elite firms. If there is any disparity or failure to provide documentation, the applicant has 48 hours to correct it to the employer’s satisfaction. Yes, that includes scores, prior employment, certification, etc. One of my kids listed a summer lifeguard job in high school as June-Aug. They called to say it was May-Sept, which she corrected.
There is a racial disparity in SAT scores, so asking applicants for their scores could shelter a company from claims of racism in their hiring practices.
It’s possible the hiring practices have change since I was with one of the elite consulting firms. My experience was that they hired a mix of raw brainpower and “connected.” For those of us hired on the brainpower side it could be quite frustrating to work with the connected who again, weren’t dumb, but weren’t the ones generating the ideas or the spreadsheet models. We even sometimes played a game to guess why a certain new hire was hired since it wasn’t brainpower and although it was interesting working with the children of very famous and powerful people, the children obviously didn’t always inherit the genes of the parents.
@blossom I think we meant to say the same thing. Overall consulting companies want the smart guys (not necessarily the smartest). But even having the smart guys (whether from top schools or not) helps keep their brand prestigious.
If the above is still the case, then wouldn’t HYPetc. colleges have a motivation to continue giving admission preferences to ALDC (or mainly LD in this case) applicants, because that is what some of their traditional employers of graduates prefer?
Yes. The exact things people were aghast at when they read the Harvard lawsuit data - that only a small portion of the admissions were for brains and the big bulk of admissions were for the “connected” (ALDC) and for social signaling - are how the elite firms hire as well. Not surprising that the feeder schools use the same model.
And, just like the Harvards, elite firms know they need a mix. The model fails if it’s 100% kids of the famous or 100% athletes, etc, they need a few of each but they also need a few of the brains to do the actual work the connected sell.
“And, just like the Harvards, elite firms know they need a mix. The model fails if it’s 100% kids of the famous or 100% athletes, etc, they need a few of each but they also need a few of the brains to do the actual work the connected sell.”
This describes the top firms circa 1983. Anyone who thinks that 22 year olds are getting hired by Bain for their ability to “sell” to their connections likely read an article from Fortune magazine dated 1984.
I am pretty sure Bill Gates’ son can still land a job there.
Bill Gates son could likely land a job there- but given that Microsoft is likely already a client, (along with Bill seniors other 15 BFF’s companies) it wouldn’t be to “sell”. Bain doesn’t need a 22 year old “introducing” their senior partners to the “right people” at a Fortune 500 company.
Not quite that far back, but it’s good to hear things are changing. Even when I was there (and I wasn’t with Bain) the “connected” weren’t always making introductions, sometimes it appeared they were just helpful for name recognition. Along the lines of you mean “__? As in THE _ family?”
If this is really changing so much in the consulting firms, then that’s yet another argument for why this sort of selection should also change at the top colleges.
Microsoft, Merck, Johnson and Johnson, Siemens, Bank of America, Conagra, Fidelity, Disney- these corporate giants are deciding where to spend millions of dollars in consulting fees based on the fact that someone’s kid played lacrosse with someone’s nephew back at Harvard?
This model is dead and buried. And recruiters at these firms who put their fingers on the scale for the idiot nephews in lieu of the talented and qualified candidates (who often come from humble backgrounds) would last exactly one recruiting season before being pushed to the curb. Do the firms do “courtesy interviews”? Of course. Like any other commercial enterprise. But a courtesy interview is not a job offer.
The big firms represent billions of dollars in consulting revenue. And the decision of which firm to hire is based on the experience and competencies of the relevant industry or functional practice- not on who had dinner with whom.
Folks on CC like to believe that corporate life is a chapter out of an Edith Wharton novel. And yes- it was. But no longer.
Sounds very similar to the claims of Harvard (pre-lawsuit) about how admissions worked. That ALDC received the lightest of fingers on the scale, hardly worth mentioning, used only as a tie breaker, etc. The data that just came out in the Harvard lawsuit showed this is not the case. But perhaps it now is with the consulting firms, not that I’d expect them to be honest if it weren’t. If so, again, argues for change in the admissions model of the top colleges if they want to remain feeders for these types of firms.
Several of the investment banks still maintain special recruiting for varsity athletes. So skill in tennis, golf, etc can still land one a spot (And help out the GS team when it competes against JPM)