BY TARA LAW
A RÉSUMÉ PEPPERED WITH ELITE universities and big-name consulting firms doesn’t guarantee success. But the inverse, at least, appears to be true: many leaders at the top of U.S. society attended elite schools, and worked at big-name consulting firms.
This seems to be especially true in leadership. TIME and data firm Statista analyzed the résumés of 2,000 leaders in the U.S.—politicians, CEOs, union leaders, Nobel winners, and more across sectors—to determine which colleges and private-sector companies are most commonly steps on their journeys to the top. (The list excludes government, nonprofit, and educational job experience.) The list of schools, which is weighted for size, is led by so-called Ivy Plus schools, with Harvard University dominating the field. Many top schools training future leaders also have notable business and law programs or are large research universities. And many of the companies atop the list are firms in consulting, tech, and finance.
When it comes time to make it past a gatekeeper who doesn’t know you, such as a hiring manager, each additional famous name on a résumé adds a bit of weight on the scale, and can tip the balance toward getting hired—and, eventually, to earning a leadership role. An elite diploma signals at least two things to prospective employers: survival of a difficult admissions process, and a high likelihood of intelligence. Harvard and McKinsey & Co., for instance, have famously tough admissions processes: Harvard admitted 3.4% of applicants to the class of 2027, while McKinsey received over a million applications last year and reportedly hired less than 1% of applicants.
“I think that people who went to Harvard or schools like it are much more likely to be given a chance,” says David Deming, a professor of political economy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Indeed, the lists illustrate a systemic pipeline that compounds inequality in America, making it harder to break into leadership for students with more diverse backgrounds.
SOME BUSINESSESon the companies list go to great lengths to recruit students from those exclusive schools, like those on the colleges list. Consulting and finance companies aggressively recruit on campus, hosting flashy events to “hoover up all the students interested in working for them,” says Amy Binder, professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University,
