AnarchyBunny
One of the things I often wonder about folks in the Consortium is a point well-articulated above. One of the most disappointing things about the B-School interview process was that I was never asked to explain what motivated me.
TheSenator has a very interesting thread on his blog pointing out that by his perception many in the Consortium seem to want the bread & butter of going to a school w/o getting the scores. I guess I wonder - for those shooting for MBB in consulting whatever school you choose... why?
What are you hoping to achieve? What's your motivation for your chosen field? You look at method's analysis above and he points out that Booth has twice the placement rate of Ross. I guess if you're only goal is to make a lot of money consulting, that's an awesome stat. But if not, why not?
I guess I wonder, often, about 'the why' of my peers. Would just like some insight as to why that's important. Insights welcome.
I think we're getting a little deep here.
But going down this road a little further,...the implication of your post (maybe not the implication but atleast the tone) seems to be that choosing a school based on how it can meet your well thought out career objectives is better than selecting prestige in the hopes of landing a less well defined but "lucrative" career. I think thats a wrong assumption to make. Personally, because of my background I feel a strong urge to make as much money as possible because I do have extended family members that will partially rely on me, and the culture I was brought up in values the subordination of personal goals for the good of the group. So for me, thats the "right" thing to do. We know that in the aggregate "prestige" does have an impact on compensation. I think that when somebody chooses money as a key driver the assumptions almost reflexively go to material motives, which isn't always the case. On the flip side, other value systems stress personal fulfillment over monetary success. Neither side is wrong, they're just operating on different systems.
So, in conclusion, I think its pointless to read into anybody's motives regarding these very personal decisions. Usually our motives have many layers and they're rooted in our own values. Its not something that can be judged (not that you were judging it).
Where I think you're going with this is that we should all reflect on our motives before we choose which school to attend,...and I definitely agree with that.