I want to get into Strategy consulting back in the UK and I thought getting an MiM at a target school there could increase my chance. My problems are that my undergrad GPA is relatively low and I have no real work experience. I am currently at a respected foreign university completing a master in economics with first class average and my GMAT score is 710 (I did not prepare for it at all due to circumstances beyond my control, I can prepare and retake it if a higher score will compensate for my problems). Now I have two options: continue onto the PhD and apply for consulting jobs after (I like what I am researching and wouldn't mind doing it in the short term) or do an MiM to increase my chance. (note that my current university is not well recognised in the UK and I can't apply for work here since I am not eligible to work in the country but then if I get a PhD it might be a different story) A PhD will take only 15 months longer than an Mim in my case. In terms of MiM/MS I am looking at LBS, Imperial, LSE, HEC, ESSEC and ESCP.

I was just wondering what everyone's opinion is regarding:
Phd vs MiM in my case
These MiM schools I am looking at
if they are reasonable given my profile
If doing an MiM to get into consulting is worthwhile

Many thanks for all your help

Most MiM dedgrees in the UK are one year, and a PhD is typically four years. the difference is three years of lost salary. In the UK, a PhD is not a good preparation for working ina consulting firm. PhD students work independently, at the edge of madness. They make great self-employed consultants, but they are almost feral in the workplace.

Your university may not be well known, but the admission steams at the schools you mention will know it. A 710 GMAT will get their attention.

It's not too late to get into Manchester for this year, and for next year don't limit yourself to two year programmes. You alread have one masters' degree...

Also, look at the Lemburg programme at Brandeis.

Thank you very much for your reply, it is good to know that a PhD is not viewed upon favourably in the UK. If I do an MiM I won't start till Sep 2013 which means that I won't finish until Sep 2014 (I am only looking at one year programmes), whereas my PhD programme ends in Nov 2015, so it is not that much a difference really time-wise. My PhD stipend is also incredibly generous whereas I would have to pay for the MiM, so in terms of lost salary I will probably lose less in the short term if I do a PhD.

At the end of the day, career matters a bit more to me and so I guess MiM is probably a good springboard. You have recommended Manchester and Brandeis, but do top tier consulting firms typically recruit students from those universities? Their programme websites do not seem to disclose much information (in Manchester's case, it's new). It looks like to me (from the top firms' recruitment websites) that, in the UK, they hire fairly exclusively from LSE, Imperial, LBS, Oxford, Cambridge (and Warwick) at the BA/MSc level. Thanks again for your insight.

Which consulting firms are you most interested in? At McKinsey, for example, entry-level analysts are typically from Oxbridge or Imperial. That's also the case when you look at little wider at Bain, PA Consulting, Deloitte, KMPG, Booz, BCG... you then start to see Warwick and LSE - and then UCL and Bath. Look wider still - all the big four, Towers Watson, Qedis - and then those schools and it's more 'posh' universities: Durham, Nottingham, Bristol and King's College London.

With a PhD I think you'd need to move diagonally into consulting through a first role in finance (Lloyds, RBS, HSBC, Standard Chartered) or public policy research (Oxford Economics, Ofgem, Capital Economics) or the intersection of the two (HM Treasury, Bank of England, EBRD, FSA). Contact those firms and see if you can interest them in your PhD research.

Thank you very much, this is a very good list of firms and I will keep them in mind. I have spoken to consulting firms (McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Booz, LEK and AT Kearney) and they seem to hire the most people at the analyst level, then considerably less at the Associate level (MBA/PhD), and experienced hire that's not through headhunting is rare. So if I do finance/policy research, I will probably have to make a big name out of it to get into consulting and I won't have the benefits of the doubt that I'd get at the analyst level. From what they say, it is a lot more common for consultants to move into top positions in finance or public policy research after a few years working at a top tier consulting firm rather than vice versa.

On the other hand, my PhD research won't interest most of these firms - most economists are either macro or empirical/econometrics (resource, agricultural, health, labour, etc). I do the hard (but useless) stuff - theory, such as strategy and decisions. While it is something that can be applied to any field of economics, it'd make me a generalist rather than a specialist, and most banks and firms are looking for specialised economist and specialised research.