Back-up for consulting

Generally speaking, that book that you're referring to is talking out of its ass, at least as far a internships are concerned. Investment banking wraps up recruiting before most of the other sectors start. If by back-up you mean you'll something you can target if you find out you didn't get a consulting job, then banking wouldn't be an option.

I guess you could throw your name in for banking, knowing that it isn't your first choice, but banks generally aren't going to hold your offer open while you try to continue interviewing. At Darden, the policy is that students have 3 weeks to decide after receive offers, but they start putting the pressure on right away - I mean like the same night. Very few people are able to hold out for a week, let alone 4 or 6 weeks waiting for consulting firms to decide.

The other obvious flaw is that you need to devote serious time to both banking and consulting recruiting efforts in order to make it onto closed lists and ultimately recieve an offer. Throughout the fall, it felt like I was attending 1-3 events a day, including company briefings, lunches, dinners, cocktails, poker nights, golf, wine tastings, etc... I don't see how you could possibly navigate that for two industries like banking and consulting. No way.

The natural backup for consulting is general management or marketing, or some general MBA type job like a rotational program or something like that. BTW, general management is an option for almost anyone at a top MBA program, even if they have little experience. But whoever wrote that case interview bible you're talking about knows nothing about internship recruiting.