Top gateway companies in MBA admissions process

Banking: Goldman or Morgan Stanley
Consulting: McKinsey, Bain, BCG
PE: KKR, Blackstone, Citadel
VC: Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia
Social: Teach for America
Tech: Google, Apple, Microsoft
Military: Special forces (Navy Seals, Green Beret, etc.) or undergrad at West Point, etc.
CPG: P&G, J&J, General Mills...
Government: State Department, White House
Other: Disney

Those are just the ones off the top of my head. As you can see, there are tons of "feeder" companies. Since b-schools are looking for an entire class, Disney or Google holds as much clout as McKinsey or Goldman.

What about energy?

I'm not sure. I'm not that in touch with the energy sector. Maybe the big guys like Exxon and BP or maybe some cleantech guys but it really depends on how much those companies recruit at top MBA programs and vice versa send people through those programs. I'm guessing at one point, Enron probably was a good feeder company for energy.

eskimoroll's list pretty much nails it for most BSchools. Maybe the peace corp in social. Even some internationals at most BSchools worked previously at local offices of this firms. See MBB, P&G Europe or Asia. Add some non US Blue Chips known to adcoms.

Apart from oil MNCs, energy utilities are mostly national champions.

how would companies like intel, ibm, or hp fair?

They'd be fine but they aren't "on trend" as far as popular post MBA destinations go. Feeder companies carry weight not only because they send lots of students each year but because they consistently hire MBAs each year. I'd consider those three companies second tier companies for MBA admissions these days although they obviously were extremely desirable companies only ten years or so ago. It won't hurt you to go there but it won't necessarily help you as well. It's sort of like Deloitte Consulting or Big 3 Accy. Great companies, but not elite feeders.

Banking: Goldman or Morgan Stanley
Consulting: McKinsey, Bain, BCG
PE: KKR, Blackstone, Citadel, TPG
VC: Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia

These are pretty much automatic admissions to any b-school. I doubt the AdCom even bother reading your essays. Given you are working in the appropriate role (i.e. working as a consultant for BCG, and not an accountant or a research analyst).

Not sure I'd go so far as to say they're "automatic admissions". More important than where you work is what you do while you're there. While the companies mentioned in this thread are definitely feeders, and adcom view the process of becoming employed there as sort of a pre-screen for bschool, there's still plenty of people who work for these companies that don't end up at a top 10 school. Just looking at numbers, given the size of these companies and the numbers of people who work there, and the sizes of classes at the top 10 bschools, not everyone is going to get in. If you're an average performer at McKinsey, for example, you may still find yourself getting dinged from top schools because there's nothing to differentiate you from the multitude of other consultants applying, while a superstar at, say, Deloitte gets admitted.

That's what many H/S/W applicants thought this year until HBS changed the % of intake from finance slightly and suddenly you hear the outcry. I think most employees at these firms are high achievers and it is H/S/W or bust. Some may have a BSchool outside top10 as back-up.

The upside for these applicants is the feeder status and adcoms are familiar with career development of analysts. The downside is how do you stand out from hundreds of consultants with stellar projects and good stats?

I stand corrected.

I love the enthusiasm this early on a Saturday morning.

if ur a client facing business analyst at Mck/Bain/BCG, unless you bombed the GMAT, you will get in at least 1 top 10 school. If you know of a person who didn't get into a single top 10 from MBB with 680+ GMAT, I'd like to hear it. I have never heard of it. There are so few of these jobs and they only hire from a select number of undergrad schools, and not only that, to get these jobs, you'd have to be relatively polished, with good ECs in college.

Ah, TPG. I'd forgotten that one. Definitely a great feeder company.

Well for many of these companies, they could fill an entire MBA admissions class at a top school just with their employees. McKinsey guys (for an example) apply from practically every one of their offices across the globe so you have to be one of the best to differentiate yourself at a top school. Here's a sobering thought... more of these high performing people at these feeder companies get dinged at the very top schools than get in each year. You have to be a rock star at a rock star company and even then, your personality needs to be good and you still need luck.

Just out of curiosity (its a bit random) anyone know how much the good folks at Goldman/MS in banking make pre-MBA (not post) including bonus as analysts in the first 2-3 years?

Would GE count?

Looking through the feeder company analyses on Poets and Quants, I didn't see GE anywhere. That surprises me, actually. I figured they'd be a big feeder company into top schools

However, many MBA applicants don't even come from the government or one of these top Fortune 500 companies. I'm one of them.

I don't think that working at a small company should hurt people in the application process either, and I don't think it has hurt me thus far.

Nope. Jack Welch historical did not value the MBA and felt that he could better educate young business people in-house at General Electric than business schools could. That reflected in GE's recruiting practices. It's sort of ironic given that he now has gone and started a for-profit MBA program and regularly speaks at top MBA programs. While Jeff Immelt is an HBS grad and GE does recruit now on campus, the reality is that its tough to make up for the decades GE spent ignoring business schools. On top of that, I consider GE part of the old guard of companies that were formerly desirable career destinations for business students but have since lost some luster (among others IBM, Xerox, HP, Phillip Morris, Microsoft etc.)