Consulting · figures from each school’s own report
Management and strategy consulting after an MBA
Consulting is the largest single destination of MBA graduates: 37.3% of the UVA Darden class went there, and the top schools report a $190,000 median base salary for it.
Best fit for consulting, on your salary
UVA Darden
37.3% of the class (about 135 graduates) · $190,000 · payback 3.5 years
Fit score: share of the class (40%), salary (30%) and ten-year NPV for you (30%), each as a percentile among the schools shown. Schools under 5% of the class are not ranked. Method.
| # | School | Share | About | Salary | Payback | 10-year NPV | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UVA DardenCharlottesville · 21 months | 37.3% | 135 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $365,502 | 86 |
| 2 | KelloggEvanston · 21 months | 37.5% | 200 | $190,000 | 3.7 years | $349,220 | 84 |
| 3 | Dartmouth TuckHanover · 21 months | 41% | 125 | $190,000 | 3.7 years | $343,094 | 84 |
| 4 | Chicago BoothChicago · 21 months | 36.7% | 233 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $368,625 | 83 |
| 5 | Duke FuquaDurham · 21 months | 34% | 122 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $375,543 | 82 |
| 6 | Michigan RossAnn Arbor · 21 months | 33.5% | 127 | $190,000 | 3.4 years | $380,749 | 82 |
| 7 | Yale SOMNew Haven · 21 months | 36.9% | 135 | $190,000 | 3.8 years | $342,309 | 76 |
| 8 | Texas McCombsAustin · 21 months | 28% | 66 | $190,000 | 3.0 years | $428,448 | 74 |
| 9 | MIT SloanCambridge · 21 months | 32.3% | 140 | $190,000 | 3.6 years | $353,870 | 72 |
| 10 | ColumbiaNew York · 20 months | 33.2% | 326 | $190,000 | 3.9 years | $333,666 | 69 |
| 11 | WhartonPhiladelphia · 21 months | 28.2% | 250 | $190,000 | 3.7 years | $348,278 | 69 |
| 12 | Berkeley HaasBerkeley · 21 months | 26.8% | 73 | $190,000 | 3.6 years | $360,456 | 68 |
| 13 | Emory GoizuetaAtlanta · 21 months | 40.8% | 52 | $175,000 | 3.9 years | $282,532 | 67 |
| 14 | Vanderbilt OwenNashville · 21 months | 29% | 46 | $175,000 | 3.6 years | $302,793 | 54 |
| 15 | HarvardBoston · 21 months | 21% | 198 | $190,000 | 3.8 years | $336,138 | 53 |
Share: % of the graduating class (or of those who accepted a job) the school reports for this goal. About: that share applied to the class size. * no salary published for this goal: school-wide figure. Salaries in US dollars at the ECB rate of the last update; “average” marks a mean where the school publishes no median.
Placing graduates here but not ranked: AGSM UNSW 10% (no salary published) · Alliance MBS 12% (no salary published) · CEIBS 9.7% (no living budget published) · EDHEC 10% (no salary published) · Fudan 13.7% (no salary published) · HKU 9% (no salary published) · IE 18.29% (no salary published) · IESE 41% (no salary published) · IIM Ahmedabad PGPX 17.9% (no living budget published) · IIM Bangalore EPGP 50% (no living budget published) · IIM Lucknow IPMX 35% (no living budget published) · Rice Jones 24.1% (no living budget published) · SKK GSB 21% (no salary published) · SMU 10% (no salary published) · WashU Olin 5.8% (no living budget published) · RSM 4% (under 5%).
Built by Radif Partners · figures checked · Method · Editorial policy
Management consulting is the business of advising companies for a fee, and strategy consulting is its branch that works on the questions a chief executive asks: where to grow, what to buy, what to stop. It is the first employer of MBA graduates. Of the 55 schools on this site that publish an industry breakdown with a consulting line, 19 sent 30% of their class or more into it, and the 38 schools of our consulting ranking placed about 3,486 graduates there in their last reported class. Pay is set by the large strategy firms and moves in step across schools: 14 of the 29 American schools that report a consulting median give exactly $190,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median management analyst at $101,860 in May 2025, which is the floor of the profession, not the MBA entry point. In our ranking, which weighs the share placed, the salary and the ten-year value of the degree, UVA Darden, Kellogg and Dartmouth Tuck come first.
What a consulting firm sells
A consulting firm sells time and judgment. A client, usually a large company, sometimes a government or a fund, hires a team for a fixed period to answer a question it cannot answer alone, either because it lacks the people, the data from other companies, or the neutrality to settle an internal argument. The team gathers facts, builds an analysis, tests it with the client's managers and ends with a recommendation and often a plan to carry it out. The fee pays for the team's weeks, which is why the job is organized around projects with a start and an end.
Management consulting is the broad trade: any paid advice on how an organization is run. Strategy consulting is the part of it that deals with the decisions at the top, such as which markets to enter, whether to buy a competitor, how to price a product line or how to cut costs by a fifth. Operations, technology, human resources and implementation work make up the rest, and they employ far more people than strategy does. The page what strategy consulting is draws the line between the two, and what consultants do follows a project week by week.
How firms are organized, from analyst to partner
Every large firm runs on the same pyramid, with titles that change from one firm to the next. At the base, analysts or associates hired from undergraduate programs build models and gather data. MBA graduates join one step higher, as consultants or associates, and own a piece of the problem from the first week: one workstream, one set of client managers, one part of the final document. After a few years the best become engagement managers or project leaders, who run the team day to day and write the story the client will hear. Above them, principals or associate partners sell and oversee several projects, and partners own the client relationships and the firm's results.
The pyramid explains two facts that surprise applicants. The firms hire many more people at the bottom than they promote, so leaving after a few years is the normal path rather than a failure; former consultants fill strategy, operations and general management jobs across industries. Pay also rises with the level faster than in most corporate careers, because each step up is paid for by the hours of the people below. The MBB page compares how McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Bain organize this ladder, and Big 4 consulting covers the consulting arms of the audit networks, which hire more people at lower pay.
What consultants are paid, and why every school shows the same number
Pay after an MBA is set by the large strategy firms and moves in one step each year. Among the American schools that publish a consulting median, 14 of 29 report $190,000 in their last report, to the dollar. That is not a coincidence of averages: the large firms tend to make the same base offer to all their MBA hires in a given country and year, and a school whose consulting hires are mostly at those firms reports that number as its median. Schools sending more graduates to specialist, Big 4 or internal consulting jobs report lower figures, which is why the median changes from school to school when the base offer does not.
The national figure is far lower. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 898,280 management analysts in the United States in May 2025, with a median of $101,860, a first quartile of $77,950 and a third of $133,370. The category includes junior staff in small firms and internal consultants in government, which pulls it down. The highest metro median in the BLS release is Boston-Cambridge-Newton at $135,640, the lowest of the seven we track Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim at $104,930. The consultant salary page sets the two series side by side, and the pages on McKinsey, BCG and Bain pay explain what can and cannot be known about each firm.
The BLS also projects the occupation forward: employment of management analysts is expected to grow 10% from 2025 to 2035, with about 94,100 openings a year on average over the decade, from 1,077,100 jobs in 2025 in its handbook, a wider count than the wage survey because it includes the self-employed. Most of those openings replace people who leave the field, which matches the pyramid described above.
Management analysts: where a salary sits in the U.S.
Position
below the median
| 25th percentile | $77,950 |
| Median | $101,860 |
| 75th percentile | $133,370 |
BLS, May 2025, all employers and levels.
Which MBA schools feed consulting
Our consulting ranking takes three figures from each school's employment report: the share of the class hired in consulting, the consulting salary the school reports and the ten-year value of the degree for a person earning $90,000 before it. UVA Darden comes first, with 37.3% of its class in consulting and a payback of 3.5 years for that person. Kellogg and Dartmouth Tuck follow with shares of 37.5% and 41%. The schools at the top are mostly mid-sized American programs, where consulting takes a larger share of a smaller class than at the largest schools.
| # | School | Share of class | Graduates, about | Salary | Payback | 10-year NPV | Fit score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UVA Darden | 37.3% | 135 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $365,502 | 86 |
| 2 | Kellogg | 37.5% | 200 | $190,000 | 3.7 years | $349,220 | 84 |
| 3 | Dartmouth Tuck | 41% | 125 | $190,000 | 3.7 years | $343,094 | 84 |
| 4 | Chicago Booth | 36.7% | 233 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $368,625 | 83 |
| 5 | Duke Fuqua | 34% | 122 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $375,543 | 82 |
| 6 | Michigan Ross | 33.5% | 127 | $190,000 | 3.4 years | $380,749 | 82 |
| 7 | Yale SOM | 36.9% | 135 | $190,000 | 3.8 years | $342,309 | 76 |
| 8 | Texas McCombs | 28% | 66 | $190,000 | 3.0 years | $428,448 | 74 |
| 9 | MIT Sloan | 32.3% | 140 | $190,000 | 3.6 years | $353,870 | 72 |
| 10 | Columbia | 33.2% | 326 | $190,000 | 3.9 years | $333,666 | 69 |
Outside the United States, the reports are often thinner. INSEAD sends 50% of its class into consulting at €106,100, and LBS 40% at £98,856, figures paid in euros and pounds at European levels. Some schools with a large consulting share, such as IESE at 41%, do not publish a salary and cannot be ranked on value. The full list, with the reason each unranked school is left out, is on the best MBA for consulting.
The recruiting calendar
Consulting recruiting in a two-year American program starts almost at the door. In the first autumn, firms hold presentations and coffee chats on campus, and students choose the offices they will apply to. Over the winter, case practice takes most evenings: the case interview is the core of selection, and the pages on case examples and market sizing give drills with stated numbers. First-round and final interviews for the summer internship follow early in the first year, and the internship itself, which our model counts as about 2.5 months, ends with a decision on a full-time offer. Students who miss the internship can apply again in the second autumn, with fewer places.
One-year programs in Europe and Asia compress the calendar. There is no summer internship to convert, so students apply for full-time roles within weeks of arriving, often to offices in their home region. That suits applicants who already know the firm and office they want, and it is harder for career changers who need time to learn the case format. For each school, the share of the class placed in consulting and the employers it names are on its school page.
UVA Darden: where the class went
Share of the class
37.3%
| Salary reported | $190,000 |
| Graduates, about | 135 |
| Payback with that salary | 3.5 years |
Reference person earning $90,000 before the MBA.
Where to read next in this rubric
The rubric follows the questions an applicant asks in order. Strategy consulting defines the work. A project week by week shows what the job looks like, with a fee calculator. Consultant salary compares national and post-MBA pay. MBB, Big 4 consulting and consulting firms cover who hires, the last with our count of how many schools name each firm. How to become a consultant compares the routes in and the cost of the MBA route. The three case pages give practice material written for this site, with every assumption stated.