Calling all Kellogg Fall 2009 Applicants!

What margin did you use for the bottom? For one of my essays, if I add page numbering to the bottom, it pushes one of my sentences onto the third page. I'm considering 1" on top and putting page numbers on top since they don't specify where the page numbers need to be.

I used 1" all around. I think if you go below that at the top or bottom it looks bad...You can probably go to 3/4" on the sides and it wont be a huge issue. Kellogg is already very generous with the amount of material they let you cover. I would say I was in the 3250 or so total words which is far more than any other school I looked at. If you make it look odd or so tight that its hard to read it definitely wont help your chances.

Also you have 2 months, there is plenty of time to edit them. You may think they are done but you could probably improve them (seems like you always can).

Thanks for your comments on this. I was working with .65 margins all around and 10.5 times new roman. I think I'll take care of these issues now...

I have been debating whether or not to apply to Kellogg for a while now. Unfortunately, I didn't include Evanston as one of my stops when I did my college tour back in April. I ended up visiting Tuck, which I quickly realized wasn't a place I could live for two years. But, I suppose that's what the campus visits are for, right? Anyway, I really want to get an application into Kellogg, but with my focus on the HBS, Wharton and Chicago applications, I'm not sure whether I would have sufficient time to get one in before the Round 1 deadline.

Has anybody ever added a school later in the game? It seems like a tough thing to do, since you would have to organize a campus visit, have your recommenders write an additional rec, put together another set of solid essays. Then again, maybe Kellogg isn't the best fit for me anyhow. I'm planning to go into IB after my MBA and make an attempted transition to PE a few years later. Then again, I may decide to try my hand at MC after I get to school, who knows. Seems like Kellogg has an awesome reputation in Marketing and General Mgmt, and the Finance curriculum is earning more respect by the day. I can't decide what to do.

so you visited Univ of Chicago and not Northwestern?

If you're truly done with HBS and Chicago essays already, I think you have enough time to squeeze in Kellogg, Wharton, and possibly even 1 more for Round 1 deadlines. If you're considering a banking track - have you thought about looking at Columbia?

Are you already in IB or switching into it? I have met a bunch of bankers, some HF/PE/VC folks here already. Interestingly, I would say half are planning on leaving banking (too many hours and sucky lifestyle), the other half seem to be going for things like PE/HF, wealth management...not many talking about big bank IB. Consulting seems a much more popular path here but looking at the recruiting schedule there is no shortage of banks coming to recruit here. Seems the competition for career switchers will be a lot less at Kellogg than the traditional finance power houses (wharton, columbia, and chicago).

Kellogg does have a lot in common with Tuck in terms of the tight knit community but definitely not remote at all...its about the same commute into Chicago as GSB is. If you are going to be bringing a significant other along I dont think there is any school that is better towards couples and what they offer.

I think he's in Big 4 accounting (which is highly valued by the big banks).

Hey guys, sorry for the delay in my response. I am in Big 4, but not really in an audit/accounting role. I work in Structured Finance, where we (used to) work alongside investment banks to get structured products to the market on our clients' behalf. We were essentially independently checking the models, collateral, and transaction document language for accuracy before it was sent out to potential investors and the SEC. Since the market has all but dried up, I'm back to working in more of a consulting role again, helping our clients streamline some of their securitization (albeit on the back-end) processes.

To address previous posts, I wanted to visit Kellogg, but we just didn't have enough time. When I put the trip together, we were visiting four schools in four days. So we flew into Philly and checked out Wharton, drove to Boston that night to visit HBS, drove up to Hanover the next night for Tuck, and then flew out to Chicago that evening. As soon as I realized I wasn't interested in Tuck, I attempted to change our travel plans to get into Chicago a day early, but it wasn't possible. I should be finished with my Wharton apps this month, and then would spend September making any last minute tweaks, and filling out the online applications.

I'm getting married the first weekend in October, so I need to get my apps in before 10/1. Being gone in Detroit five days a week (and travelling Sundays) for client work isn't helping things either.

You can easily add it to your R2 application, I think if you are doing HBS, Wharton, and Chicago in R1 thats a good amount of schools. Have another 3 schools ready for R2 with a few "safer" schools and you should be good to go. If you are worried about Kellogg's finance placement check out their employment report but remember while lots of people go into it far fewer want to than at a lot of other schools...Its about equal with marketing in terms of people going into it but far fewer than MC.

Sure its just me after a long week,where in the app does it mention about pages to be numbered?

I remember seeing it somewhere. I can't access individual instructions because I already submitted everything, but I think it was in part 2 somewhere.

Guys, when it comes to short essays (Q4) how short should they be? 1 page? Kellogg says that they should have 'two to three double spaced paragraphs for each question', but doesn't mention how long these paragraphs should be. I assume that 1 page (b/c long essays are 2 pages), but maybe...? What's your view/experience?

I think this has been discussed in this thread before, but I stuck with at most 1 page, 500 or so words (2-3 paragraphs of course).

thanks

Does anyone have any resources that show good examples of Essays 2 & 3 from Kellogg?
Essay #1 is basically done now, and I just worked out a first rough draft of the background and values essay, and am curious to see how others have successfully demonstrated that their values and experiences are "sharable".

I think my theme is good, but I need some guidance on how to make it even more Kellogg specific. I feel like I've said "I will share this perspective..." about 5 times.

Montauk's book has some Kellogg essays but there is nothing like the HBS essay books anywhere. You can find essays on places like Vault but they arent very good from what I have seen.

You arent trying to share anything really, they are asking how you will enhance classmates experiences. So you dont have to really say you will share things...you just have to show how you are unique and how that will benefit the Kellogg community and improve the experience of your classmates. Pretty much show what in your life is going to be different than your classmates and then relate that to how that will enable you to bring to the classroom and outside it. Make sure it doesnt come across as a list of things that are unusual about you but a story.

The key to every essay you are going to write is SHOW DON'T TELL. The only time you can get away with flat out telling something is when you summerize your essay in the final few sentences.