MB,

I’d say that it wouldn’t hurt for you to drop your resume to the consulting firms along with reapplying to Bschool in the Fall because there’s really no downside to it. If you get the consuting gig, then you can forget about business school and, if you get into a top bschool, then you can put off going the consulting route until you start applying for the summer internship. The Master’s in Accounting position will help you look like a better consulting applicant, but the big issue would be whether you get brought in at an Analyst position or as an Associate. The latter is usually what you would get after getting an MBA/JD/Phd/MD or some other professional degree. There’s a chance that the M.Acc might not get you in as an Associate unless you’ve got several years of solid work experience to go along with it. I’d recommend that you talk to the recruiters at whatever firms you apply to about it to get more carity about where they’d slot you during the application process if you enter it without being a Bschool student.

In terms of whether top-5 versus top-15 has any detrimental effect on you getting into on of the top firms, my quick answer would be “no”, but I’m not a recruiter, so you should take that response with a grain of salt. At the simplest level, it all comes down to how well you solve problems and what you bring to the table as a candidate and, if you can demonstrate both of those in your interviews, I would think that a top firm would have no problem bringing you in, whether you’re ina top-5 or top-15 school. Where the difference comes in is when it comes to how easy it is to get your resume in front of the firms’ recruiters. If you go to a school where the firms don’t recruit, it can be a little harder. I wrote an entry about the kind of effort you might have to show depending on if the companies come to your school a couple of months back…look it up and you might find some good advice in it. Regarding your last question, business school does imply some base-level understanding of business, but the bigger difference is how you perform in the interview. I’ve known of plenty of people who performed well academically, which some would think implies a strong understanding of business, but didn’t get a consulting gig. And, as a converse, I was able to get into McK and I didn’t break any academic records at the GSB, which some would say is indicative of a so-so business acumen. It’s all about interview performance…if you can get that interview in the first place. If you don’t go to business school, I’d recommend making sure that your resume and coverletter do a super job of showing the firms’ recruiters that you’ve got the sort of business knowledge and experience that would prove useful in a team context.

I hope this clarifies things a little more. Take care.