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FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: How Kellogg applicants are assessed – Part 1 |
When Kellogg admissions officers review an application, they evaluate potential students based on six categories. Here, Melissa Rapp, director of admissions for Kellogg’s full-time MBA programs, demystifies what happens once you submit your materials and helps you think about how to formulate the story that will help the admissions team learn more about you. TODAY’S TOPIC: INTELLECTUAL ABILITY ADDITIONAL TOPICS: Work experience, Professional goals, Leadership, Impact, Interpersonal skills Our goal is to be sure you can handle the rigor in the Kellogg classroom. Your undergraduate GPA, course selection and GMAT score help us assess your readiness. But we’re also invested in finding creative thinkers who can solve problems. Qualitative evidence of intellectual ability is going to come out in your essays, your interview and your recommendations. We truly take a holistic look at our applicants rather than relying only on a number. Hard numbers like GPA and GMAT scores may seem like make-or-break factors, but one great test score doesn’t tell us nearly as much as seeing that you’ve taken challenging classes or broadened your knowledge base. And because each applicant is an individual, we recognize that someone with a liberal arts background may have different results than someone from an engineering background, but both could be competitive candidates. We look for applicants who are well-rounded, who have demonstrated academic success, and have strong leadership potential. If your scores or grades cause concern in the evaluation process, we look at other components of your application for evidence you’ve taken steps to develop those skills. That tells us if you’ve taken charge of balancing your skill set. If you feel any of your grades or scores require further explanation you can use the optional essay to provide context. Standardized test scores are valid for five years, and we accept both the GMAT and the GRE for the One-Year, Two-Year, and MMM Programs. (JDMBA applicants can only submit a GMAT score.) Melissa Rapp is the Director of Admissions for the Full Time MBA and MS in Management Studies Programs. Melissa joined the Evanston admissions team in January and was previously the Director of Admissions for the Evening and Weekend Program located on Kellogg’s Chicago campus. She has over 15 years of Higher Education and Admissions experience. Filed under: Admissions, admisssions, Uncategorized Tagged: 1Y, 2Y, admissions, admissions officers, admissions tips, application, full-time mba, full-time MBA programs, JD-MBA, JDMBA, JDMBA Program, Kellogg admissions officers, MMM, MMM program, One-year, One-Year MBA Program, prospective students, Two-Year, Two-Year MBA Program |
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Tips for applying to Kellogg – Part 1 |
At Kellogg we recognize applying to business school is a time and labor-intensive process requiring a lot of care and consideration, as well as hours of test prep, interviewing and essay writing. We get lots of questions about how applicants can make their application stand out, so this week we are offering a few suggestions on how you can help us best understand who you are and why you want Kellogg to become a part of your future. Today’s topic: Test scores Additional topics: Essays, letters of recommendation, video essays and the interview Kellogg accepts both the GMAT and the GRE & if you are worried about your score, know that multiple attempts are not discouraged. Taking the tests several times demonstrates your commitment to submitting the best possible application. We like to seepeople work hard for a goal and achieve it. Applicants have asked in the past whether we favor one test versus the other. The answer is no. Ultimately what we are looking for is a balanced score set. We place just as much weight on the GRE as the GMAT. We want you to take whichever test is best for you. The one exception to that is for our JD-MBA applicants. If you are applying to our dual-degree program with the Northwestern School of Law, you are required to take the GMAT. We have also been asked whether we recommend a certain type of test prep class. We do not have any recommendations, but applicants may find a test prep course or personal tutor an effective way to prepare. People have different comfort levels when it comes to test taking, so do what makes you feel most comfortable. Learn more about how Kellogg applicants are assessed. For more information about Kellogg’s applications components, visit our website. Melissa Rapp is the Director of Admissions for the Full Time MBA and MS in Management Studies Programs. Melissa joined the Evanston admissions team in January and was previously the Director of Admissions for the Evening and Weekend Program located on Kellogg’s Chicago campus. She has over 15 years of Higher Education and Admissions experience. Filed under: Admissions, admisssions, Uncategorized Tagged: 1Y, 2Y, admissions, admissions officers, admissions tips, application, application tips, applications, JD-MBA, JDMBA, JDMBA Program, Kellogg admissions officers, MMM, MMM program, One-year, One-Year MBA Program, Two-Year, Two-Year MBA Program |
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: How I’m using my Kellogg MBA to lead a fish farming nonprofit |
By Linnette Lam I first visited Haiti in 2014. At the time, I was a management consultant based out of Los Angeles, California working with Fortune 100 executives from some of the most well-known companies in the world. While I really enjoyed the novelty of my work, I believed that my business knowledge could serve an even higher purpose beyond entertainment, high-tech and consumer goods. When I traveled to Haiti — a land of beautiful, grassy vistas that is home to some of the most welcoming people I have ever met — I witnessed extreme poverty. Haiti was one of the most gorgeous places I’d ever seen, but it was also the most destitute place I have ever been. While many charities supplied food and clothing to help the poor in Haiti, I wondered if there was a way that I could help the poor in a realm that I had more expertise in: business, change management and people management. Changing views of my career and purpose It was hard for me to grasp why there was such a huge difference between the life I knew in the United States and the life I could see while standing in the slums of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. I came to acknowledge that if I was born under different circumstances, I could have been born in Haiti. By taking on this perspective, I felt an even stronger connection to the people of Haiti. They could have been me, a person from the “first world”, and I could have very well been them. Instead of feeling sad or helpless about the situation and doing nothing about it, I felt a renewed purpose in my career; I wanted to take my business acumen and apply it to the problems that I saw in Haiti. After all, problem solving was part of my job as a consultant — I diagnosed issues and then designed strategies to resolve them. My strength in identifying and solving problems led to my involvement with Fish4Hope. A brief background of Fish4Hope My brother and fiancé started Fish4Hope, and the organization is the reason why I visited Haiti in the first place. In one year, the organization raised over $140,000 to build 15 homes, four fish ponds and a fishing trade training system. After I visited the first completed Fish4Hope village in 2014, I was inspired to join the team. Like my brother and fiancé, I wanted to become an entrepreneur who brought business-based solutions to the poor, helping them gain valuable, lifelong skills that allow for self-sustainment. Shortly after joining the Fish4Hope team, I accepted Kellogg’s offer of admission with a clear purpose for how I wanted to use my MBA; For the sake of Fish4Hope’s current and future beneficiaries, I wanted to become a better businesswoman. Studying through a social impact lens Being a part of Fish4Hope while earning a full-time MBA enriched my view of Kellogg’s coursework and extracurricular opportunities. The social enterprise course offerings and robust Net Impact Club programming developed my understanding of the intersection of for-profit business, non-profit business and social impact. I viewed my entrepreneurship, marketing, operations and management & organizations (MORS) coursework through a social impact lens; I constantly asked myself, my professors and my classmates how these concepts could move markets and make the world a more endurable, dignified and peaceful place to live. Doing what you already love, where you already are, to make a significant impact Thanks to my Fish4Hope experiences, I learned that making a difference to those in need doesn’t mean giving up what we really love. My fiancé owns and operates a chain of martial arts schools — a job he absolutely loves — while redirecting his profits to fund much of Fish4Hope’s operating costs. My brother is passionate about process re-engineering, and he does this for a living as a change management strategist. Because of his day job, he’s able to bring his analytical mindset to the way we roll out processes in our Haitian villages. Another leadership team member owns a photography studio, which has been extremely instrumental in bringing powerful images of Haiti to our donors and supporters. As for me, I leverage my consulting and MBA background in order to improve Fish4Hope’s operations. Through the collective efforts of our leadership team, volunteers, supporters and partners on the ground in Haiti, we’re able to invest 100 percent of public donations into building fish farming villages for those who need it. Today, Fish4Hope continues its work transforming communities into lively marketplaces that are made possible by the sale and profit of fish. We welcome all volunteers who want to take part in our projects by way of donating their skillsets, time or finances. We also offer supporters the opportunity to join us when we travel to Fish4Hope villages to meet beneficiaries. Through Fish4Hope, we aim to do what we love, with people we love, to tangibly and transparently make a difference for those in need. If you’d like to learn more about Fish4Hope, visitwww.Fish4Hope.org, find us on Facebook or email us at team@fish4hope.org. You’re also invited to take a trip to Haiti with us! To donate to Fish4Hope, consider doing your online shopping via Amazon Smile – just select Fish4Hope Foundation as your charity of choice. Amazon will donate a portion of the proceeds from your purchases to our projects. Every little bit can have a huge impact. Linnette Lam is a June 2016 graduate of Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year Program. During her time at Kellogg, she served as Vice President of Alumni Relations of Kellogg’s Net Impact Club. She also volunteered as an MBA intern with Piece & Co., a social impact fashion startup. Prior to Kellogg, she worked as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting LLP and received her B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. Filed under: Student Life, Uncategorized Tagged: entrepreneurship, full-time mba, non-profit, nonprofit, social enterprise, social entrepreneurs, social impact |
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Pride@Kellogg: An inside look |
At Kellogg, we have a steadfast commitment to diversity and inclusion. One of the many ways we showcase this commitment is through student organizations such as Pride@Kellogg (P@K). The mission of P@K is to enhance current LBGTQ students’ social and academic experiences while facilitating an understanding and acceptance of LGBTQ individuals in the b-school setting and beyond. Throughout the year, P@K and the Kellogg-wide community celebrate diversity through events such as LGBT Ally Week, LGBT Preview Day and the Coming Out Panel. All of these events contribute to an atmosphere of respect and inclusivity that is uniquely Kellogg. Interested in learning more about Kellogg’s vibrant and diverse community? Watch the video above for an inside look at P@K and how the organization is building community to ignite innovation, develop brave leaders and build a diverse and collaborative community. Filed under: Student Life, Uncategorized Tagged: Ally Week, culture, diversity, Kellogg culture, LGBT, LGBT Ally Week, LGBT Preview Day, Pride at Kellogg |
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: 5 questions with Professor Blake McShane |
Blake McShane is an associate professor of marketing at Kellogg, where he teaches courses in customer analytics, marketing research and data analysis. As a statistical methodologist, McShane has developed statistical models for a variety of fields, including online advertising, neuroscience, paleoclimatology, law and even baseball. His research primarily focuses on developing new methodologies that accommodate the rich and varied data structures found in business problems. Read on as Professor McShane discusses his marketing research course, his research on p-values and what he loves most about teaching at Kellogg. What courses do you teach at Kellogg? Starting this fall, I will be teaching Customer Analytics (MKTG-953), but for the past six years I have taught Marketing Research and Analytics (MKTG-450). MKTG-450 is a broad survey course that covers all aspects of marketing research and its different methods: qualitative research, causal research, descriptive research, questionnaire design and more. The focus of the class is an experiential learning project, where a group of five students is paired with a client. Our clients really run the gamut, including the Chicago Bulls, several consumer packaged goods brands, an insurance company and U.S. Bank. (The students are helping U.S. Bank with its mobile application.) All of these companies come to Kellogg with a marketing research problem, and we have our student groups work on these problems. The course is structured so that students start the quarter figuring out what the objective is and fine-tuning it. They then look at secondary data — what data is already out there that speaks to the problem. Next, students conduct basic exploratory research and create a quantitative survey to obtain data from a paid panel of respondents. The composition of the panel is tailored to the specific marketing research problem that the students and their client are facing so that they get good, high-quality data. We aim to get 200-300 respondents per group so that our students have a relatively large data set to analyze, one that allows them to offer rigorous recommendations to their clients. The ultimate goal at the end of the course is to produce an actionable recommendation. What do you hope students take away from your course? First of all, I hope that students get a satisfied client out of it. I also hope that my students have become sophisticated consumers of research who can understand and critique it; after all, the vast majority of them are never going to be marketing researchers themselves. Some of being able to critique and consume market research in an intelligent manner involves learning by doing. That’s why we have the experiential aspect of the course; getting your hands dirty and conducting research yourself allows you to understand the choices that are involved and some of the more subjective factors at play. I view market research as something that’s not only useful for traditional marketing brand manager roles, but also for consultants who also are consumers of marketing research. Thus, I believe this class is useful for a variety of careers, even though it’s a very traditional marketing research class. In the era of big data, what are your thoughts on balancing quantitative and qualitative data? The traditional marketing research view of the world (and this probably encapsulates a large fraction of research out there) is that you start with secondary data and qualitative techniques at the beginning of your research to figure out what it is that you don’t know. Then, when you know what it is you don’t know, you use quantitative methods to figure it out. I think that is the approach still used in a lot of marketing research, but sometimes you can use qualitative techniques at the end instead. Or sometimes they can be helpful in the middle. There’s no one right way to do it; it’s very problem-dependent. Also, I’d be careful when looking at historical data, whether it be internal customer records, third-party data, census data or data you get from a vendor. It’s important to be sure that you’re not just looking at correlational patterns. We want to make sure that if we’re contemplating business interventions, like a new promotion, that the promotion was really what caused the outcome of interest (e.g., product trial). Oftentimes when we just throw big data into the grinder, we end up with correlations that might be meaningless. A lot of MKTG-450 is about thinking quite critically about these kinds of issues. What can students learn from your p-value research? I would say there are two related parts. Very often, the way people think about a problem is: I have a data set, I run a statistical procedure and then I get a p-value. If that p-value is less than .05, I’m good to go! There are at least two shortcomings to this way of thinking. One is that, as a recent Kellogg Insight article explains, there’s nothing sacrosanct about .05. You shouldn’t really be making decisions based off of .05. You want to take a broader view and, for example, think about, What was the size of the effect that I measured? Do I think it will be reliable and generalizable to different contexts? Is this intervention cost effective? There are a whole host of considerations you want to consider beyond p-values. That’s one aspect. The other aspect is that we rarely have only one data set, for example one study or one view into the phenomenon. Typically we have multiple data sets that speak to the same question, maybe from different aspects or in slightly different contexts. Another part of my research involves what to do in this context when we have multiple views of the same problem that are all sort of similar but also somewhat different? Statistically, how do we knit them together in a rigorous and holistic way? What do you like most about teaching at Kellogg? In every class that I’ve taught at Kellogg, there’s been a handful of students who teach me something. There’s a collaborative aspect, where students can bring experiences that they’ve had and enrich the whole class with those experiences. Students can add some nuance and texture, especially the Evening & Weekend students who often bring fresh experiences from that day or week at work. Overall, what I really like about teaching at Kellogg is the quality of the students and the variety of their experiences prior to Kellogg — what they bring to the classroom is tremendously enriching and helps create a collaborative learning environment. Want to learn more about Kellogg’s data science offerings? Check out our Program on Data Analytics at Kellogg (PDAK) Filed under: Academics, Uncategorized Tagged: academics, analytics, big data, Blake McShane, customer analytics, data, data analytics, data science, marketing, marketing analytics, Marketing Management, PDAK, Program on Data Analytics at Kellogg, research |
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Selena’s story is a testament to how an MBA can change lives. She went from being a regular tech professional to working at one of the world’s top brands – all within a few short years after earning her MBA. In the first episode of GMAT Club Career Talks, Selena opens up about her incredible transformation, the challenges she faced, and the opportunities that came her way. Her journey is a powerful reminder that an MBA at the right time and from right business school can open doors you never imagined. Don’t miss out on Selena’s heartfelt story of growth, perseverance, and success. Stay tuned for a dose of inspiration!
Tuck at Dartmouth
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