Kellogg Hub

My interview was during the polar vortex (-20F) on campus in Chicago, so that created an interesting dynamic and conversation starter! I was interviewed by a senior admissions member for 30 minutes. The interview was very warm and casual. She let me know as soon as we started that the interview was blind, in that she has not seen anything in my application. It started off with the "Tell me about yourself" prompt but quickly became more natural after that. The questions flowed very well with our dialogue. They weren't direct questions since they were leading off from my answers, so I'll try my best to summarize the questions she was asking. Tell me about yourself (I used this to not talk about my resume and more about myself personally). Walk me through your resume (Next four questions were lumped into one answer for me since it was more conversational but I could tell this was what she was interested in). Why MBA now? Why Kellogg? Short-term/Long-term goals with MBA. **What role do you play in a group setting/group project? (I really enjoyed this question since it was different) **Tell me about a time you lead a team. How would your friends describe you? What clubs would you like to join? Any questions for her? **I highly recommend focusing on having strong examples of teamwork and leadership since I could tell this was a huge component of their questions and answers they were looking. Also what sets them apart from other schools. During our banter, I asked several questions naturally between these "questions" and provided information in that direction as well. Such as, what classes I would like to take. I asked her what clubs Kellogg offered that are geared towards the start-up industry, since majority of my background is that, while we were on the "Why Kellogg?" part. She was very interested in the companies I had worked for along with the stories I had so we chatted about that heavily. I was able to naturally add stories in that were able to answer a lot of her questions organically with true enthusiasm due to her natural interest. I definitely recommend emphasizing why you want Kellogg specifically and knowing what makes them stand apart from the others, and coming prepared with questions that show a specific genuine interest deeper than just information you can find online about the program. Find a club or professor/class that interests you! Also knowing what you can contribute and provide to their program as well. I specifically spoke with several Kellogg alumni and attended several events to find the answers to these questions, and to create a better picture of what student life would truly be like if I were to attend. Overall, I was genuinely interested since she was very warm and easy to speak to, so the conversation flowed very well and it was highly enjoyable. One of my more enjoyable interviews from the schools I interviewed at! Good luck, everyone!

Kellogg Evening MBA Interview was pretty relaxed, though I thought mine could have been a lot better. It was with a member of the admissions team and also an alumni. It was a blind interview so she never saw my application. Lasted 25 minutes. Questions asked were pretty normal to what others have said on the board. Tell me about yourself. Walk me through your resume. Why MBA. Why Kellogg. What is your leadership style. How will you contribute to Kellogg. What clubs will you participate in. Where I felt I was weak and where I felt I was strong. Most meaningful leadership experience. She asked more than I thought she would based off what my friends told me about their experiences. The one that threw me off was "is there anything i haven't asked but you would like to add input?" I was trying to think of what questions I had prepped but wasn't asked. There were so many to choose from that there ended up being an awkward silence for a bit.

Interviewed with a Kellogg alumni at a local coffee shop after work on a weekday. The interview was not very conversational and felt stressful and maybe a little frustrating. The interviewer did not introduce herself at the beginning, so I have no idea about the industry she is in and her stories besides some info I found on Linkedin beforehand. In the interview, she asked many questions about goals, why Kellogg and some behavior questions (teamwork, leadership style and so on), which I thought were normal. What tripped me off is that during the course of the interview, the interviewer almost fell asleep at some point. The whole interview felt like probing (or maybe more like register for an car insurance), with interviewer asking a question, then I talked for 2-5 minutes and then the interview would respond with a quick "ok" and then wrote something down before moving to the next question. Anyway, my advice is to work hard to prepare for the interview and try to schedule the interview over weekends.

My alumni interview was very informal. I didn't have to do the "walk me through your resume" but instead my interviewer asked about points on my resume which he was interested in (undergrad majors, my first grad degree, my current company). The only "standard questions" I got were "Why an MBA" and "Why Kellogg." Beyond that, it really felt like a comfortable conversation.

I had my interview recently on campus. It was mostly focused on the following: - Initial explanation of my positions. Since I am a nonstandard applicant they wanted details and explanation of selectivity for each position. - Why an MBA - Short and long term goals - How co-workers describe you, good and bad - Extra cirriculars They then switched to ask more leadership questions - How leadership style has changed throughout career - Explain a time where you were resilent as a leader - Anything else we should know. Be prepared for questions on your leadership and have some solid examples of each. Should be easy since you have your whole application to pull from so reinforcing those examples probably would help as it strengthens them with a fresh perspective. The interviewer will not be reviewing your application before or after so keep that in mind as you prepare. Of course who is interviewing you matters too. As long as you practice the questions available from the debriefs from various sites and the ones above you should do great. Best of luck to everyone going for the interview!

I visited Kellogg during Diversity Preview Day (I'm not considered a diversity candidate, but it was the only time I could go). Overall, the programming was great and inspirational. Dean Blount is really something else. I was moved to tears! Hence, I did ask my interviewer what the goals are for Kellogg going forward, what's next and what kind of dean they will be looking for to replace Sally. A lot of this seems to be up in the air, since the search committee was just formed and of course they probably don't have enough information to disclose yet (given that people may post about it online, like I am now). I talked to over 2 dozen students while there and everyone was very good at representing Kellogg and showing me what it's all about. Having spoken to many other students at other schools, I honestly feel like Kellogg is the most cohesively represented school. Not sure how or why, but I was almost a little suspicious because it was starting to sound rehearsed (though I'm sure it's not). As everyone has probably read about, it's very social, fun and student-self-governed. What also really struck me, was the inclusiveness of families and significant others (or JVs they called them). The new global hub is also AMAZING. Interview was very standard behavioral questions that you can certainly prepare for in advance and everyone is very nice throughout it. If you do on campus interviews, you will be interviewed by a student or an admissions person who has not read your application. We're told that once your interviewer submits a report, the committee meets to review your file. By this point, your file will have been read by a student reviewer and a member of the admissions committee. After the interview, everyone (excluding your interviewer if he/she is a student or member of the admissions team - they still never see your files even after the interview) deliberates and comes to a decision.

Had my interview on campus. Prepared for an ad com interview but it turned out to be a first year student which threw me off a bit. It was conversational but I got a lot of questions I had never gotten before and I didn’t hit all the points I wanted to on the “why Kellogg” question. I think this is because she combined “why now, short term goal, and why Kellogg” as one question so I lost my focus a bit as I was talking for 5+ minutes. Why Kellogg was covered in the video essay so hopefully I’m good there.

Kellogg MMM Program Interview I applied R1, interviewed on campus on 10/3 by adcom. For what it’s worth, I felt like the interview went really well. Below are the questions I got... First one was a request to walk them through my resume. I have some tips for this one. (1) Don't read from your resume and don't repeat bullet points. Try to focus on what you learned at each stage, or what you took away from it. (2) Be intimately familiar with your resume so you don't have to look at it, but hit all the major milestones: college, first job, promotions, etc. They then asked why now? Your resume should be the arrow for this question so I would reference your experience and the next steps and why an MBA gets you into that next part of your path. Why Kellogg? I applied for MMM, but she didn't ask why MMM directly so I ended up adding in my why MMM to the tail end of why Kellogg. She seemed pretty happy with the specificity of my answers here. This is a gimme question for nearly every school so it's OK to sound practiced/rehearsed. Short term goals and backup plans. Lots of people want to work for Google, but obviously only a select few get in. I heard some stories from Kellogg students about applicants that said MBB or bust and that was looked upon unfavorably because it doesn't show a realistic, thought out plan. It doesn't make schools look good if their graduates don't accept positions because they're not the big named firms. Long term goals. Pretty straight forward. Biggest professional achievement. I think a person should approach this in a couple of ways. Definitely explain the impact of your achievement to the overall company. Definitely talk about what you learned about yourself and about your goals with this achievement. Try and loop nearly all your questions back to why this program and an MBA are the RIGHT fits for you. Greatest strength and weakness. I would have 3 top of each practiced for Kellogg. Students that have done interviews told me that sometimes they ask for greatest strength and then top 3 weaknesses or vice versa because everyone only practices one. For your weakness, be genuine. It helps show them you have self awareness. Describe a difficult team/leadership situation and how you handled it and what the outcome was. This will vary person to person. Again, try to show good leadership and collaborative spirit in your story and be genuine. If it got worse or didn't go well, explain why and what you learned. Describe when you faced an obstacle professionally. Again, straightforward. And finally, what do you feel you bring, uniquely, to Kellogg? I had actually practiced version of all of these which is why I felt pretty good about it, but your mileage may vary. I've also heard of applicants that had interviewers that were very friendly and chatty but didn't have much meat in their questions: this is not a good interview. If this happens to you, try to ask a question to bring the convo back around to Kellogg and you. Strangely, I didn't hear anything like this from any other school's I talked to so it might be a side-effect of Kellogg interviewing so many students. Hope that helps shed some light!

Hey guys! Just had my interview, I really liked the style, but unfortunately we started a bit late (they had technical problems) and I didn't have an opportunity to ask questions about Kellogg that I had. It was a Skype interview with the adcom, very nice lady. Duration: 45 minutes. Questions: Why that major? Why that undergrad school? Why Kellogg? Why MBA? Why now? Your best achievement at work? Why you changed your job? Edited: "Is there anything else about yourself you want to tell me?" I felt like I spoke a bit too much, but this was very unusual format to me

I've just had an interview with a lady from admissions team via Skype. It lasted roughly 40 minutes and was quite relaxed. First, she asked me to walk her through my resume and my experience at college. Then we talked about my career progression at the current employer, and discussed my strengths and weaknesses. I also got several standard questions on "Why MBA? Why now? Why Kellogg" and also talked about my extracurricular activities. In the end, I was asked if there is anything else I would like to add, and got to ask questions myself. Overall, it was much less scarier experience that I anticipated, with no unexpected questions :wink:

The Interview lasted about 40 minutes and asked pretty much all the questions you would expect: 1) We moved though the progression of my resume starting with my undergrad school 2) That led into why an MBA 3) Led into why now 4) Why Kellogg 5) Tell me about your leadership styles ---> Tell me about your greatest career accomplishment to date 6) Talk to me about some of your strength and weaknesses 7) What would you be involved in at Kellogg 8) What would you offer to the Kellogg community? 9) What do you feel are some of the strengths and weaknesses of your application? 10) Is there anything else you would like to know? 11) Do you have any questions? What I did was, I got to Chicago Thursday, went to the school Friday and had lunch with some students (this was great, asked a lot of questions and got awesome material for the interview), then I sat in a marketing strategy lecture, and finally did a building tour. Did some practice Saturday and rehearsed a lot Sunday by videotaping myself over and over until I had answers I was satisfied with for each question. I didn't memorize answers, but I had certain points I wanted to hit for each one. Woke up early Monday, rehearsed everything once more, took an Uber to the school and made small-talk with the driver to prepare my vocal cords a bit, and got there about 30 minutes before my interview. I checked in, they asked for a copy of my resume and told me to have a seat. I watched the video I recorded of my answers until it was time to interview. They ended up calling me in about 5 minutes before the scheduled time. I felt like the interview went really well. I was sort of stumped by "What would I offer Kellogg?" but I feel like everything else was pretty much great, and I touched on that question in my follow-up email.

I had my interview scheduled via email from the Kellogg's interview coordinator with details of 1 alumnus in my area, a week after the R1 application deadline. I sent my interviewer an email the very same day to schedule my interview and we found a time slot a week later at 10 AM at his office. I reached the interview location that was located in the downtown, so spent 15 minutes to find a parking spot. I reached exactly on time for my interview and dressing in formals did not help in the slightly humid weather. After the initial greetings, the alumnus introduced himself and provided details about the interview process. We started the actual interview 15 minutes later starting with the resume (the entire interview) revolved around my resume. So make sure you know what you have written in your resume with proper examples to substantiate those 'claims'. After the resume based questions, it was the turn of the usual interview questions: 1. Why MBA 2. Post MBA short term and long term goals 3. Why Kellogg 4. Definition of a leader, example of yourself as a leader and lessons learnt. 5. Failure as a leader and lessons learnt. 6. Extracurricular activities, the reason for those particular activities and how do you plan to continue involving yourself in the community during MBA at Kellogg. 7. Questions for the alumnus. The entire process took 75 minutes with the final 15-20 minutes taken by the interviewer to talk about his experiences at Kellogg and how Kellogg's experience has helped him both personally and professionally. In summary, the interview was very conversational with the interviewer didnt turn it into an interrogation. Alum's experiences were also useful in assessing the fit to the school. So do make sure to listen to what the the interviewer has to say and make sure to have 2-3 intelligent and relevant questions for the interviewer. This will show 2 things: 1. That you have done your homework about the school 2. You are interested in knowing more about the school from an alumnus' standpoint. Final Decision: Admit to the class of 2018. Materials Used: Clearadmit interview archives, Stacy blackman Kellogg interview guide, Clearadmit Kellogg interview guide (you can go for one of the 2 Stacy or Clearadmit guides). Decision to go for an off-campus interview: Good experience. Make sure to show that you are interested in the school and that you are trying to connect with the interviewer.