It likely will allow her to steer clear of more shallow employers
Consulting firms value degrees from the most prestigious schools. This may be in part due to shallowness or snobbery of the people working their who make hiring decisions. Another factor is that firms like McKinsey charge their clients a lot of money per consultant hour, even for consultants who just graduated and have no business experience. It may be easier for corporate clients to believe they are getting their money's worth when the 20-something consultants are from a "name" school. The shallowness of clients results in shallowness of consulting firm hiring practices.
Yes, I am well aware of this -- having seen it at my grad school (which was visited by McKinsey, et al). I know (have just checked their site, to make sure memory wasn't fooling me) that they also recruit at some state schools that are considered a little more top-tier. However, I'm guessing (again, from memory of peer's experiences post-undergrad) that other firms, like Deloitte, hire from a broader range of schools. So a reasonable path for a very smart person who wanted to be a BCG/McKinsey/Bain consultant might be to go debt-free to a school that had good companies recruiting at it, have great experiences, get into a prestigious MBA program and then pursue those firms.
To sum it up, I've seen people get into those types of firms by paths other than attending a "prestige" undergraduate institution. I'm thinking of several right now.
