Over the past few days, I’ve been struggling to come to a decision on my choice of business school and I am only lost 😑. After some back and forth and eliminating other options, I have near final offers from three school I’m choosing from. I need some help/advice/perspective to lean towards one of the following three:

1. Kellogg : with a 60% tuition scholarship

+I’m a Kellogg fan through and through
+Amazing brand caché in India given that I hope to return after a couple of years
+Consulting and Marketing recruiting opportunities
-(and this is a big one) about 100k USD of debt

2. Duke : close to full tuition named scholarship

+weather (I just don’t do well in snowy winters)
+strong presence in the South (Texas is my first choice to move to post-MBA)
-less(er) brand caché in India (speculation from what I’ve heard)

3. Ross: full ride named fellowship

+I have come to love the Ross community, there’s just so much warmth
+MAP Projects
+strong Tech recruiting which is my Plan B (although I did see Duke do quite well in the 2020 report too)
+will graduate without debt

I want to do consulting post-MBA and while I definitely want to keep debt to a minimum, I’m unsure if the investment in Kellogg will be worth it.

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Congrats on your admits!!!

Consulting is tough for an international applicant to break into. I am sure you saw my H1B report:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/top-mba-h1b- ... 43153.html

So while it is a great goal, many recruirt for both consulting and tech. Some do really well in both, so it is really chance and skill.
If you were gung ho on MBB, I think Kellogg would be a big plus and driver.


Maybe time to bring out the big guns! souvik101990 and ENGRTOMBA2018 may have a good perspective about consultling Ross and Kellogg.
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Thanks for the reply bb, I do want to recruit in tech as my plan B. I’m unable to quantify exactly what would be the incremental effort to network/recruit in consulting at Ross vs. Kellogg. I also know that if I don’t get into MBB or consulting, I would be equally happy in Tech - I just had to pick a plan A and it happens to be consulting.

I am in love with the Ross community perhaps because I have had more time to interact with them and will perhaps feel the same at Kellogg. The financial trade-off chart by Regenerate, has been an amazing resource but with that too, The scholarship situation at Ross vs. Kellogg appears to make a trade-off logical. Before I flip a coin 😅 on this, I just want to be sure that I’m not overlooking anything. Somewhere the 120K debt does feel intimidating in a pandemic ridden world.

Also, on another note, what impact does brand caché of a school have beyond the immediate post-MBA job?



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Kellogg will be my decision here for the following reasons:

1. Its by far the biggest brand in India considering the 3 schools you are looking at.
2. If you go into consulting or tech, 100k in debt should be able to be paid off relatively quickly
3. Kellogg has a very strong tech recruiting scene as well with a big presence on the West Coast.
4. Don’t know how you came to your conclusion about Duke’s presence in the South, I lived in Dallas as a consultant and Ross/Duke don’t even come close to Kellogg wrt alumni base or reputation there.
5. I agree with bb above that if you are going for MBB, Kellogg has all the connections for you to not only get into these companies but also a good support structure for you to become Partner later down the line. Not many think about this but having a strong support network is absolutely crucial for becoming a Partner.

Hope this helps in making your decision. I don’t think Duke should come in this picture anymore and that leaves you between Kellogg and to a lesser extent Ross. Good luck!

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Kellogg > Fuqua > Ross

Seems people forget that Fuqua is one of the handful of schools that MBB targets. If you are serious about consulting then you should eliminate Ross and consider Kellogg and Fuqua, in which case I would choose Kellogg if I were you just due to the shear power they have in the consulting world.

Also, in regards to tech, let’s not forget where Tim Cook did his Executive MBA. Fuqua is not as known for tech but if I remember correctly, they send several that route each year. 🤙🏻

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I am not entirely sure how "brand cliche in India" fits into your short term goal. If you want to go back soon then maybe(all because I'm not Indian to have a strong opinion). Through my days at Duke Fuqua, we have had prominent Indian and India-based alumni speaking to us. As related to your interest in Tech, I think the Fuqua 2020 employment report speaks for itself. Staggering numbers in Tech and the highest salaries(you can compare it across your options).There is not much to worry about if you want to do Tech because the Tech Club is the best club in terms of resources they provide and this is someone going into IB. It shows in the improvement in tech recruiting. Think also of the broader Duke, its prominence in engineering and tech and you will know that it adds to the brand equity. My 2 cents but follow your heart

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You’re spot on, I hope to return to India in the short term and given home market situation, the brand caché was something I chose to look into. Also the input on tech recruiting is so valid, it ties with what I researched too

I took a few days to go over all the inputs and weigh them into my decision and I put down my deposit at Kellogg a few days back. I still haven’t figured out how to tag on GC 😄😴 so I’ll just say bb, FinanceMan, hypryst, ENGRTOMBA2018 I am incredibly thankful for all your perspectives and it really did help me work my way out of indecision.

So that this post perhaps helps other in similar situations now or in future, I decided on Kellogg because of its strong consulting recruitment and as advised by bb and others, Tech will be my Plan B. About branch caché in India: I’ve found that HSW is one league and then there are other schools but overall Kellogg is well known here too. I connected well with communities from all schools but eventually I felt Kellogg vibes synced stronger with me - I don’t know how gut works but it does 🙂. I did have debt jitters but running numbers, I discovered that that the debt is really manageable (in my case) even if I choose to return to India immediately- in this case it would be a low return situation but I won’t land up in any soup. With debt worries out of the way, Kellogg was really a simpler decision.

To make a choice I categorised the parameters mentioned in replies to my post and added them to my own. I then researched into each and make a decision in a way more structured manner (and they say MBA teaches you to work with ambiguity)

Thanks again GMAT Club, this was incredibly helpful!

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That’s awesome! Congrats! DM me as I’m originally from India and can answer all your questions about MBA, consulting, going back to India, Kellogg etc.


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Thank you for coming back and posting your decision and the reasons behind it!

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