Consulting · figures from each school’s own report
How to become a consultant: three routes, and what the MBA one costs
There are three doors into consulting: straight from a first degree, through an MBA, or as an experienced hire; the MBA door at UVA Darden leads 37.3% of its class into consulting.
Paid back after graduation in
6.4 years
Total cost $231,475 · 10-year NPV $47,903
| Tuition and fees, whole program | $122,911 |
| Living budget | $33,564 |
| Salary given up, 10 months | $75,000 |
| Total cost | $231,475 |
| Salary after: salary, consulting | $118,705 |
| 10-year net present value | $47,903 |
| Return on the cost (present values) | 21% |
US dollars at the ECB rate of the last update. Raises of 5% a year with the MBA and 3% without, discounted at 5%, before tax. How this is calculated.
Built by Radif Partners · figures checked · Method · Editorial policy
To become a management consultant you enter through one of three routes. Most firms hire graduates of a first degree as analysts; the BLS gives a bachelor's degree as the typical entry-level education for management analysts, whose median pay was $101,860 in May 2025. The second route is the MBA, which leads to the consultant or associate level after a summer internship: the ten schools at the top of our consulting ranking placed about 1,609 graduates in consulting in their last class, 37.3% of the class at UVA Darden. The third is the experienced hire, for people with deep expertise in an industry or function. The MBA route costs the most. For a person earning $90,000 today, the total cost with salary given up is $395,900 at UVA Darden, repaid in 3.5 years on its consulting salary, against $231,475 and 6.4 years at INSEAD, a one-year program. The higher your salary today, the longer the payback.
Three routes into consulting
From a first degree. The large firms hire most of their junior staff straight out of university, as business analysts or associates. They recruit on campus at a set of universities, test with online assessments and case interviews, and expect strong grades. For the occupation as a whole, the BLS handbook gives a bachelor's degree as the typical entry-level education and projects about 94,100 openings a year for management analysts over the decade, most of them outside the strategy firms.
Through an MBA. Graduates join one level up, as consultants or associates, after a summer internship in a two-year program or direct recruiting in a one-year one. It is the main route for people who did something else first: engineers, officers, teachers, people from countries where the firms recruit little at university level. It is also the most expensive route, which the rest of this page costs.
As an experienced hire. Firms hire specialists into expert tracks and, increasingly, into consultant roles: doctors for health practices, engineers for energy or industrials, data scientists for analytics. These hires skip the MBA, but they need expertise the firm sells, and they are interviewed on it.
A fourth path runs through the Big 4 consulting arms or a specialist firm, and later a move to a strategy firm. It works, but the move is easier at the MBA point than later.
The MBA route, year by year
Year before. Prepare the GMAT or GRE, choose schools by their consulting share, and apply. The share matters more than the name: a school placing a third of its class in consulting has firms on campus every week of the autumn.
First autumn. Firm presentations, coffee chats, networking with alumni of the offices you want. Case practice starts at once; the case examples and market sizing drills on this site are written for that stage.
First winter. Interviews for the summer internship, usually in more than one round.
Summer. The internship, which our model counts as about 2.5 months, works as a long interview and ends with a decision on a full-time offer.
Second year. With an offer in hand, the second year is study; without one, a second recruiting season in the autumn, with fewer places. One-year programs squeeze all of this into a few months and recruit directly for full-time roles.
The salary you give up while you study
Salary given up, net of the internship
$157,500
| Gross salary not earned | $157,500 |
| Per month away | $7,500 |
Pension contributions and raises you would have had are not counted here.
Which schools the route runs through
Our ranking for consulting weighs the share of the class hired in the industry, the consulting salary and the ten-year value of the degree. The ten schools at the top placed about 1,609 graduates in consulting in their last report.
| # | 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 |
The table favors mid-sized American programs, where consulting takes the largest share of the class. Outside the United States, INSEAD sends 50% of its class into consulting and LBS 40%, in one and two years of study. The full consulting ranking lists every school, with the reason some are not ranked.
What the MBA route costs, for three salaries
The cost of an MBA is tuition, fees and living costs plus the salary you stop earning, minus the internship. The payback below uses each school's consulting salary and our model's assumptions: raises of 5% a year after the MBA and 3% without, before tax.
| Salary today | UVA Darden: total cost | UVA Darden: payback | INSEAD: total cost | INSEAD: payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $60,000 | $343,400 | 2.4 years | $206,475 | 3.3 years |
| $90,000 | $395,900 | 3.5 years | $231,475 | 6.4 years |
| $150,000 | $500,900 | 8.8 years | $281,475 | 27.5 years |
Two patterns stand out. The one-year program costs less in salary given up, but INSEAD reports a lower consulting salary than the American schools, €106,100 against $190,000 at UVA Darden, so its payback is longer at each of the three salaries. And for both, the payback lengthens as your current salary rises, because you give up more and the consulting salary after the degree does not move. Someone already earning close to the post-MBA figure gains little in pay and should weigh the route on the change of career it buys.
The calculator at the top of the page is set on INSEAD for consulting; change the school or type your own salary to cost your route. The consulting rubric covers the job itself, and consultant salary what the profession pays outside the MBA route.