The grass is always greener.
I spent 2.5 years at a top-tier boutique MC (partners broke off from McK). I left to start my own company, went to a hedge fund after that and am now considering starting post bacc. Maybe I'm insane; if so, tell me.
It's not as selective as you think
First off, some of these posts seriously overstate the level of credentials necessary to get a top consulting gig. What is true is that the undergrad credentials of consultants is more impressive (generally Ivy+) than those of the MBA candidates. Let me give you some numbers:
There were 700 students from Wharton's 2008 (let's use this year for now, because it feels fairly representative of good times, but not the best times for consulting) class looking for employment based on their employment report.
Of those:
50 went to McK
43 went to BCG
36 went to Bain
Total to JUST THE TOP 3 CONSULTING FIRMS:
129 students or 18.4% of the graduating class. THAT'S A LOT!
Keep in mind Wharton is a finance feeder school. So you have to figure that many people don't even want to work in consulting (choosing Finance instead -- 29 people went to Goldman).
Those don't seem like super-selective numbers to me. Sure, Wharton is hard to get into, but it's not THAT hard (avg. undergrad GPA ~3.5 -- less than that of Med School). And you've got a pretty good shot of getting a job at a top firm after that. Sure it may be harder to get into right out of med school (if you're not getting recruited, it's MUCH harder to get through the process), but don't think you have to be some genius. Which leads me to my next point:
People in consulting aren't as smart as they think they are
This is probably true in every profession. Except the hedge fund I work at -- those people are super smart. In my experience, consulting had a whole faux-intellectual air about it. Projects are called "studies," consultants use fancy frameworks developed at HBS, regressions were run, etc. It's overdone. Much of this is simply a way to justify the massive fees firms charge to clients. Now don't get me wrong, you will think -- a lot, but you won't necessarily find that the thinking gets you to some eureka moment. In my experience, the consultants that were most successful were the super-organized managers -- NOT the super bright students.
The work isn't really as interesting as you think
The ideal of consulting is that you are a superhuman called on by a helpless executive at a Fortune 500 company. "Help me! My sales are up, but my profits are down, and gosh darn it, despite my 30 years of experience, access to all the data on my company that I would want, and a team of executives who previously worked at your firm, I have no idea why this might be!" You sit down in your team room (btw, consultant team rooms -- offices that clients give consultants on site -- suck), crack open your Thinkpad, build a fancy model, realize that it's an issue of product mix, tell the executive to start selling more higher-margin projects, give him the bill and go home.
This is not what the projects are about. The industries and companies you want to serve are run by smart people with fantastic backgrounds. They're not *****s and they know more about their companies than you do. While you could be working on some really cool strategy projects, you could just as well be working on a massive layoff (consultants get hired for this all the time because then the executive is less accountable for the choices the consultants make). At the end of the day, 98% of the day-to-day is execution and the 2% is strategic thinking.
Plus, you don't get to stick around (usually) to see the work get implemented. You drop off a fancy binder and that's it.
I'm exaggerating, but it's really not as intellectually stimulating as I expected. Nowhere close. And as you get more senior, there is more an more emphasis on selling the work vs. doing the work.
It's not a piece of cake to get promoted
Up or out means up or out. VERY few people make it to Partner. Don't assume you will. You may be a great analyst, but a terrible salesman. You may not be able to get great connections, you may be a bad project manager -- there are many DIFFERENT reasons that you will not make it.
But even if you're a rockstar performer, why would you want to get promoted?
Here's where I think consulting really fails: the lifestyle. A previous poster mentioned that the salary really goes into the millions because of the wireless phone bills, hotel stays, etc. DON'T THINK THESE ARE GOOD THINGS. THEY ARE TERRIBLE!
Travel sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. It's exciting at first, but projects can be long and you do the same thing every week, week after week. You do not get to travel the world generally. Many Fortune 500 companies have their headquarters at surprisingly boring locations.
Staying at the top Sheraton is a joke. Sheratons suck. At their best, they are adequate -- not getting in the way of you getting rest. They are nice, but otherwise unbelievably boring corporate hotels.
The hours are better than banking, but expect to travel 75% of the time. That means 3/4 weeks a month, expect to be gone at least M-Th. You will leave at the crack of dawn on Monday and get back late on Thursday (midnight-ish).
It's a terrible lifestyle that doesn't get much better as you get older. As a partner, you're still traveling a lot. Instead of the same place every week, you'll have to make stops at all your clients. It's not easy, unless you find a niche in an industry that is around where you live.
It's not a terrible job, but it's not nearly as interesting as the literature makes it out to seem. There's a reason the VAST MAJORITY of consultants leave their firms after a couple of years, often for lower paying corporate jobs.
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