Calling all 2011 Kelley Applicants!

Welcome aboard to the Class of 2013

hey guys, congrats to all who were admitted! i have been hearing awesome things about this program.

i was wondering if someone could answer a few questions about the admissions process in Kelley. I applied with a 3.1 GPA in Electrical Engineering from Penn State with a GMAT of 610 and approx 18 months of full time professional engineering experience. I have an interview on the 25th of April and am nervous about what is about to go down. Does anyone know some of the more common interview questions and could you give some advice as to what sort of answers i should give?

Also, i do not know how to take an interview invitation (in terms of how close i may be to getting admitted) since this is my first interview for a MBA program (started applications a bit late). Is this interview a GOOD thing or is it just part of the common application process?

Any advice is incredibly appreciated! I hope to be part of the 2013 class with you guys!

Scroll back a few pages pages to see what people were asked. Nothing out of the ordinary for the most part.
Why do you want an MBA?
Why now?
What Kelley?

Indiana interviews a lot of people, its not make or break by any means, but of course you dont wanna blow it.
Dont feel scared, but be prepared for the standard questions, more of which are located throughout this thread. There are some great tid bits about Kelley so I suggest you go through all of it!

My interviewer was amazing, he put me at ease right away and I still talk to him via email!

As far as what to say, only speak the truth. People get caught up with what they think a school wants to hear, dont do that. Unless you are a great actor they will spot it a mile away, its what they do. Tell them the truth, reread your essays (think about it they like what you said enough to interview you, now bring it on home)

Also dont tell them you are a philly fan, then they know you arent to be trusted and you'll get rejected on the spot.

Ok that last bit was a jab from a Giants Fan. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

I'm almost certain I mentioned my love for Cliff Lee somewhere in my interview and I managed to squeek through

P.S. For those either still in the application process or planning to apply for next year, the full time placement stats for the class of 2011 are looking rock solid so far.

Tom

Hi Tom,
Can you share the employment numbers?
By any chance do you have the numbers for internationals??

At this point it isn't broken down by domestic vs. international I am afraid.

Phil Powell, the lively and animated Kelley MBA faculty chair, posts updates on his twitter account at: https://twitter.com/PhilipTPowell

His last update was this morning:
"As of Sunday night: 2nd year job offer rate = 77% (up from 68% this time last year); 1st year internship offer rate = 82% (up from 76%)."

Not surprisingly, the impression that I got was that that not having a job yet is often related to inflexibility or geographic restrictions. That is, if you need to find a marketing research position in Memphis (say, because your wife lives in memphis and you just would die if you didn't do market research), it just requires a lot more work to find employment than say if you just wanted to be an assistant brand manager at a CPG company but were open to any geographic locale. I think that pretty much applies to any profession.

In the wake of the economic downturn a couple of years ago the Kelley administration and student body made a concerted effort to try to boost employment, and I think if you ask anyone who was at KEW they will tell you how blown away they were about the supportive culture of the "Team Kelley" atmosphere. For instance, students who already had internships/full-time jobs lined up played a pretty active role in helping in their fellow classmates secure jobs.

It is very nice that the school is open about its placement stats.

According to businessweek last year's placement rate within 3 months of graduation was 85%. Hopefully they are looking at low 90s this year?

Any JD/MBA's here?

Or, for anyone just interested in the goings on in the other big IU professional school, here is the IU (Maurer) law application thread for this cycle and it is a pretty crazy read.

https://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... start=1425

The law school got a huge (I mean HUGE) endowment a couple of years ago, and it is allowed to only be used for scholarship funding. Well, as a result, the law school has been handing out full rides as often as often as Snookie gets a tan trying to get the LSAT and GPA numbers up. Well, it looks like it worked too well, and they are trying to offer deferments to many now to control over enrollment.

It looks like Maurer is trying to compete with Kelley for who has the best USNews ranking and with what the stats are looking like, I think it will be a pretty fierce battle when next year's rankings come out.

A couple things to note:
Offers dont mean they are getting the jobs they want most. I got an offer from a saftey school (not Kelley), not counting that as a win.

Kelley's 100% internship rate needs to be taken with a grain of salt, they hire several students who cant get internships themselves. Its on the career services website.

I wish schools didnt care so much about their rankings, Kelley seems to honestly look at the applicant in a holistic manner. If they become rankings obsessed then that will, by nature, suffer as more emphasis will be placed on hard gmat/gpa stats.

I dont think a school like kelley can afford to do that. Yale can and it has moved up accordingly (722 gmat? get out of here)

Now onto my predictions: I think Kelley will drop in the rankings for a couple reasons, other schools GMAT scores keep shooting up, Kelley's wont IMO. Kelley can attract the most ambitious students who want Goldman for IB and Mckinsey for MC. Dont tell me Goldman hired 3 Kelley students last year....that wasnt for IB.

Kelley's acceptance rate will be at an all time high this year, its already 42.5% and apps are down across the board outside of the the top 10. if Kelley wants to fill its class up at around ~220 they better start letting some more kids in, that of course equals lower gpa/gmat numbers and a soft r3.

If IU law is getting commitments from students who got into better schools without money then they will dominate Kelley next year. Assuming the weightings of the pretty much useless usnews rankings dont change.

At the end of the day who cares about rankings once you decide on a program? You know what companies come to campus, thats not gonna change due to some jump in the rankings. We all know what Kelley is good for. Rankings wont change the schools personal fit for you either. For the next ten years nothing is gonna change, especially not due to some year to year ranking where 25% is a deans assessment...what the hell does that even mean?

Kelley is what it is. A great mid level school. Full disclosure: I am going to Kelley.

Good to hear! It seems like KEW did a pretty good job of closing the deal with lots of people who were undecided with offers from other great schools.

You are correct on the offer front. Of course, even at HBS, only so many people get offers to their dream jobs. Kelley likely will never be the dream school for those who only want to work at Goldman or McKinsey, but, as you said, for a lot of us, it is a pretty good fit.


Cheers,
Tom

Yup, screw the rankings go for fit, which as you pointed out centers on what ones career goals are and where you feel the most at home!
I got into higher ranked schools but am going with my gut, that Kelley is where I belong.

Actually, and really I just wanted to butt in...I do know someone from kelley who is going to Goldman for IB.
I'm also going to kelley after getting into higher ranked schools but for me and my future career Kelley is the best fit.

Posted from my mobile device

Team Kelley FTW

I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer (womp womp), Thats what some Corp Fin people told me at KEW for the few that got goldman last year....

I'm not a finance guy (right now, lol) so whatevs

Team Kelley! woohoo!

Started this thread for Kelley admits:
admitted-to-indiana-university-kelley-class-of-112801.html

I was at the KEW also and attended the IB Academy sessions. In that session they gave a breakdown of the current full time offers and internship offers, no one was going to GS for IB. Most were going to BB banks though. I also went to the IM academy and I believe a few were going into PWM with GS though.

I will say that the IB academy had a 100% placement rate for all that were serious about getting into IB. I believe is was only around 8 full-time (could be wrong about exact number). But only one IB, BoA, comes to campus to recruit.

Bottom line IB/MC is possible but anyone who wants those jobs in top firms has a lot of work to do. I'm in the DC area and have a few friends at Georgetown who are getting IB and even big 3 MC jobs (tough out of gtown thus far) they go to NYC to network 2-3 times a month. Megabus FTW

Kelley opens the door, perhaps not as wide as Booth or Duke etc, the onus is on the student to smash it down with a battering ram.

At KEW I was talking to a first year there who got into a mid level hedge fund, thats tough out of any school. His story was inspiring, he reached out to Kelley alums all over and planned a week where he flew over there and met all of them. After two more trip like that he got his dream internship.

Another thing I've noticed is when people blast a school for not getting the job they wanted you have to question their level of motivation during the search, no job is going to fall in your lap, get out there and make it happen!

A buddy of mine who I love to death but clash with all the time is going to law school. He got into a lower ranked school with a full ride and higher ranked school without anything (sound familiar?) He doesn't want to go to the lower ranked school because he'd have to be in the top 5-10% of the class while at the other school maybe 50%. If thats the attitude someone has when they tell me Kelley cant open doors then their opinion on the matter goes into the "circular file" for me.