Yeah, that's usually how it works. The top dog moves and the rest follow. McK was the first to officially pursue APDs. they've been doing it for over 5 years by my count. Bain and BCG have followed suit, and recently making it an official track.My opinion is the others will follow, if they haven't done so already. Like I said previously, most don't mind hiring the non-MBAs. But getting on their radar is hard, and they may not have separate training programs.Also their base pay is close to Wall St new recruits. But their bonus plays are practically non existent, about 10-15% of base.Regardless, I think a career there has great potential, especially with Private equity.Good luck!

QuoteOriginally posted by: gtoutkastYeah, that's usually how it works. The top dog moves and the rest follow. McK was the first to officially pursue APDs. they've been doing it for over 5 years by my count. Bain and BCG have followed suit, and recently making it an official track.My opinion is the others will follow, if they haven't done so already. Like I said previously, most don't mind hiring the non-MBAs. But getting on their radar is hard, and they may not have separate training programs.Also their base pay is close to Wall St new recruits. But their bonus plays are practically non existent, about 10-15% of base.Regardless, I think a career there has great potential, especially with Private equity.Good luck!BUt the probability if getting into PE is about the same as becoming an MD, probably even lesser

reverse Q: any quant prop desks or hedge funds that hire consultants (say these consultants have bachelors or masters in hard science, not PhD)?

Well, I don't have first hand information about that but I could really imagine that this should be possible since the skills of quant consultants and quant traders should be rather comparable:1) Both have a good quantitative eduction2) Both have to learn quickly new material and develop new solutions3) Both have to work under pressure4) Both have to present and document their results5) Both have to present and sell ideas/models/methods/tools to senior management peoplePerhaps consultants have a bit less hands-on C++/Java experience and are less deeply involved in one specific topic but they have a wider background., E.g. a graduate starting his career in an IB might be after three years a top specialist for exotic option modelling while a consultant after three years might have been exposed to market risk / pricing topics, credit risk topics (portfolio models), some retail banking and to different IT-systems and thus has a good - but not very good - knowledge of these. So what is better depends on the specific job requirements. I could imagine that if you are a manager in a consulting firm you might be good in managing quant teams in a bank, too.

QuoteOriginally posted by: kevienKPMG, PWC?knew someone who used to work for one of the big accounting firms.Said his job was "pricing bond options", when I pressed further to find out which interest rate models etc they were using, found out his job was just figuring out the cheapest to deliver