I was ready to rant about my own experience with MBA students put in pseudo management situations who can't iron their own shirt or couldn't schedule people's hours at a Wendy's... but then I realized this article is about Elite programs.
So I wonder are the Elite programs significantly different than other programs?
One of my biggest problems encountering MBA students released into the wild is that so many have limited life experience. It's really hard to explain to a fresh MBA guy that you can't schedule people only when it is convenient for him / how to cultivate personal / professional relationships / how to just theorize customer's responses to various changes (like thinking beyond saving 1%) and etc. It's just so hard to teach folks who haven't the experience these things that being a good manager isn't just pulling the mechanical leavers of management because "i'm the boss" and how to really understand what leadership is when they haven't experienced it much from the other side.
I haven't encountered many from the best programs and I always wonder if they require some REAL work experience where they had real responsibility first / etc.