Not rankings. Not salaries. The recruiters, geographies and networks each tier physically opens. Mapped across three tiers, scored on five dimensions, every number sourced.
These five dimensions reappear on every tier page and every school node on this site. Same axes, every time, so you are comparing like with like rather than reading three sales pitches.
01
Breadth and depth of employers running formal on-campus recruiting.
Inputs · MBB presence · bulge-bracket banks · megafund PE and VC · Big Tech · companies recruiting on campus · share placed on campus
02
Where a graduate can legally work afterwards, and how reliably.
Inputs · visa sponsorship rates · US OPT and STEM · UK Graduate Route · EU Blue Card · share placed internationally
03
The strength of established channels into specific industries.
Inputs · function and industry split of the class · consulting · finance · technology · product · private capital · concentration and diversity
04
How concentrated, senior and functionally useful the alumni base is.
Inputs · alumni count · concentration in New York, San Francisco, London, Mumbai, Bengaluru · seniority distribution · presence in target industries
05
Experiential and applied learning you can actually get into.
Inputs · live-deal courses · incubators and labs · global immersions · experiential credit hours · elective breadth
Tier scores are averages of the member schools. Open a tier for its exposure signature and its five bars. The school-by-school breakdown lives on the tier page.
Full MBB, bulge-bracket and megafund private capital recruit on campus. The strongest global work-visa rates, and the densest alumni network in every major finance and technology hub.
Two or three deep pipelines each rather than all of them at once. Choose the school for the function you want, and the outcome matches the M7 inside that function.
Domestic first by design, and unbeatable on cost. Consulting, general management and Indian financial services are the reliable routes; international roles arrive through a sponsoring employer rather than the school.
The gap between tiers is not uniform. On network density it is a canyon. On curriculum exposure it is close to a rounding error. That difference is the whole argument for choosing on axes rather than on rank.
P1 · M7
96/100
All three MBB firms, every bulge-bracket bank and the megafunds run formal on-campus processes in the same season.
P2 · T15
78/100
MBB and bulge bracket still recruit, with smaller allocations per school and more competition for each seat.
P3 · India
54/100
Deep domestic recruiting across consulting and industry, thinner formal access to global banking and private capital.
P1 · M7
91/100
STEM designation across most programmes, so three H-1B attempts instead of one, and the widest global placement.
P2 · T15
74/100
Strong regional placement. US sponsorship is thinner, but the UK Graduate Route and the EU Blue Card open Europe.
P3 · India
41/100
Domestic first by design. An international role arrives through a sponsoring employer, not through the school.
P1 · M7
94/100
Established channels into consulting, finance, technology and private capital, all inside one cohort.
P2 · T15
80/100
Two or three strong pipelines each rather than all of them. Pick the school for the function.
P3 · India
62/100
Consulting, general management and Indian financial services are reliable. Global product and private capital are not.
P1 · M7
97/100
Concentrated in every major hub and senior enough that the phone gets answered. The widest gap of the five.
P2 · T15
76/100
Regionally dense rather than globally dense. Excellent in the city the school sits in, thinner beyond it.
P3 · India
68/100
Extremely dense inside India, including at board level. Thin outside it, and that is the trade.
P1 · M7
88/100
Live-deal courses, funded incubators and global immersions as standard rather than as electives.
P2 · T15
82/100
Comparable experiential depth, often with a sharper single specialism. The narrowest gap of the five.
P3 · India
66/100
Strong core teaching and live consulting projects, fewer live-capital and international immersion options.
All five states are present in the page source and shown with CSS, so every score is crawlable
One view of which doors open widest, by career function and by tier. Ratings are grounded in the function split published in each school's employment report.
| Career function | P1 · M7 | P2 · T15 | P3 · India |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consulting, MBB | Very high25 to 35% of class | High20 to 30% | Medium15 to 25%, mostly domestic offices |
| Investment banking | Very high15 to 36% | High10 to 20% | LowDomestic desks only |
| Private equity and VC | Very high5 to 12%, pre-MBA deal work expected | Medium2 to 5% | LowRare, and relationship led |
| Big Tech and product | Very high15 to 22% | High15 to 25%, strongest on the US west coast | MediumIndia product roles, strong and growing |
| Startups and founding | HighFunded incubators, 4 to 8% found | HighComparable, often cheaper to try | HighDensest founder cohort per rupee spent |
Percentages are class-share ranges across member schools · official employment reports, 2025 and 2026 cycles
The part the brochures skip. Post-study work rights, honestly, by tier. Policy moves, so this section carries its own verification date.
P1 · M791
The strongest sponsorship rates in the set and the widest global placement. STEM designation on most programmes converts one H-1B lottery attempt into three, which is the single largest structural advantage available to an Indian graduate.
P2 · T1574
Strong regional placement. US sponsorship runs slightly thinner than the M7, but LBS and INSEAD open routes the American schools cannot: two years on the UK Graduate Route, and Blue Card mobility across the EU.
P3 · India41
Domestic first by design, and there is no shame in that arithmetic. An international posting comes through a sponsoring employer two or three years in, not through campus recruiting.
Policy verified 30.08.26 · USCIS, ICE SEVIS, UK Home Office, European Commission · rules change, check the date
Each dimension score is a normalised composite of the inputs listed in section 02, benchmarked against the strongest performer in the set, which anchors near 100. Where hard data exists, the score is data driven. Where it does not, the score is an informed editorial estimate and it is labelled as one.
Recruiter access, geographic mobility and industry pipelines come from published employment reports and government policy pages. Network density is the softest of the five: alumni association figures and platform aggregate counts are directional, not audited, so treat that bar as an estimate with a wide error bar.
We publish this because a score without a method is a ranking with better manners.
Tier-level scores on this page are placeholders pending the data-sourcing pass in the content spec, section 5
The M7 is seven schools with all five exposure dimensions high at once. The T15 is a wider set where two or three dimensions are just as strong and the rest are thinner. In practice the difference is breadth, not quality: a Haas graduate heading into technology and a Wharton graduate heading into technology land in the same rooms.
Choose the M7 when you do not yet know which function you want. Choose a T15 school when you do.
It depends on one variable, which is where you intend to work. ISB costs roughly a quarter of a US MBA, takes a year, and places into Indian roles at Indian pay. A US MBA returns its cost only if you work outside India for at least three years, or if you are targeting Indian private equity or a family business transition where the brand is already priced in.
If your career is going to be built in India, the domestic tier is usually the rational answer, and we will tell you so.
The M7, and the margin is real rather than reputational. STEM designation on most M7 programmes gives 36 months of OPT instead of 12, which means three H-1B lottery attempts instead of one. LBS and INSEAD in the T15 offer a different advantage: the UK Graduate Route and EU mobility, without the lottery.
For consulting, no. MBB recruits across the T15 and hires from the Indian institutes into domestic offices. For megafund private equity, effectively yes, and even then pre-MBA deal experience matters more than the school. Without that background the realistic route is banking or consulting first, then a lateral move around year three.
Each dimension is a normalised composite benchmarked against the strongest performer, which anchors near 100. Recruiter access, mobility and pipelines come from published employment reports and government policy pages. Network density is an informed estimate. Section 07 sets out which is which, and the tier pages carry the source table per school.
Each tier links to school pages with class profiles, deadlines, the honest cost arithmetic and a fit checker. Or skip the browsing and get an expert read on where you actually land.
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