McKinsey & Company comes to our university yearly to solicit applications from PhD candidates, particularly in the sciences. The firms also offers small three-day summer programs for PhD students called "Insight: Healthcare", "Insight: Engineering & Sciences", and "Insight: Asia". I applied to "Insight: Asia", but instead of being asked to come to the workshop, I was asked to interview for an early round of the fall season. The first round of interviews was exactly as described by the company. About 50 candidates per interview session were invited to the Palo Alto, CA office where we were encouraged to mingle and network for a bit before taking an hour-long daunting test developed by "American Psychological Testing"--as was labeled on the test booklet. The test was very similar to the practice test available online; it was essentially three detailed business case questions in written format. There is not enough time to finish the test, but it is likely that this is the point of the whole endeavor. Namely, they might want to see how you respond to time pressure. After the test, candidates are assigned to consultants in groups of 4 or 5. Groups are led to a small room where they go over a case interview with their assigned consultant. The consultant leading the group takes notes on the candidates as they interact and give their responses--sometimes in an overt manner. Two days later, I was informed by email that I had passed the first round and would need to clarify my office preferences for a second round interview. My second round interview was in San Francisco. As described by the firm, there were two back-to-back one-on-one interviews with consultants. Both consultants seemed friendly and happy about their jobs. They both seemed mainly concerned with evaluating my ability to do the job and my fit with the company. Neither of them cared much about my background or asked anything about my resume. In fact, they had a six month old version of my resume. I did send a new version of my resume to the recruiting team after passing round one, but it did not make it into my file. A day later, most of the folks I interviewed with got told they were not moving on. About eight days later I received the same news. No one from my cohort who listed only west coast offices in their preferences moved ahead. Both consultants I interviewed with and the recruiting team reached out to me with feedback. All of them told me I should definitely re-apply next year and that it was a very tough decision for them. I can't help but think my office preference choices had something to do with the decision. The McKinsey & Company employees were very positive and supportive throughout the whole experience. They used a special online system to help candidates book their plane flights. Reimbursements were processed in a timely manner as well. The process was largely transparent, and I was impressed with the candor of every person I met at the firm. I will likely not apply again however.