Calling all Kellogg Fall 2009 Applicants!

I described a situation where a former manager screwed up, and I had to step in and assume his position and motivate the team because his lack of strategy in the beginning part of the project made the team become stagnant.
It's not really convincing people to do their job, but showing and motivating people how to enjoy their job and help them strive to do more and be better employees/people overall.

Do u work as a motivational speaker? If u dont, then u r doing something above and beyond wht is required of u. Just explain that and u ll be fine.

Does Kellogg have anything similar to a learning team type setup wharton has?

also, is any current kellogg student in the SEEK program? I am looking for some insight into this program.

I didn't answer this specific question, but I think it's important to focus a lot on how you convinced the relucant person/group to go along with your idea. During my interview, one of the questions they asked was how I dealt with someone who disagreed with me or wasn't pulling their weight on a team. I think this essay question is getting at that same idea - to see how you interact with others on a team when things aren't going as well as they could.

There is no group the size of 6 that is setup like the learning team at Wharton or your core team at Sloan.

Nearly every single class you take at Kellogg will have a team component. In the core classes your teams are assigned (usually 4-5 people). In elective classes, you choose your teams.

I like this model myself - it gives you the opportunity to work closely with several different groups. This quarter I was able to really bond with my M-Lab team, in addition to my core class teams, my Marketing Competition team, and the other members of DAK Exec.

As for more formalized groups - Kellogg bonding revolves around two units: you KWEST trip and your section. The bonds with your KWEST trip are the first you form and often last the longest (surveys of alumni have shown that this is the group of people you are closest with 5 years out of school). CIM (i.e. orientation) really gets the sections to bond very closely as well. The combination of KWEST and CIM as a full 3 week orientation before classes start (including the pre-term leadership class) is a real differentiator for Kellogg - enabling the uniquely tight culture that exists at Kellogg.

If you have any questions more specifically, feel free to PM me.

great discussion on question 2. i'm hoping we can have a similar one with #3 - Describe your key leadership experiences and evaluate what leadership areas you hope to develop through your MBA experience.

how did you approach #1 (career progress and why mba) versus #3? did you stay away from talking about leadership as part of the career progress, or was it brief mentions but elaborated on #3? or maybe they don't overlap at all? i've just started on kellogg, so all 3 questions seem to overlap. if anyone has guidance on how to think about them differently, that would be awesome.

thanks!

Yup I did that one. I spoke about a time when I had a lousy analyst, helped her grow/become better. I think the key there is to really speak about how you motivated someone, the successful end result is a given. So did you have a plan? Seek advice? Try different things? Describe it.

The way I differentiated #1 and #3: For the "assess your career progress" part of #1, I focused on why I've chosen the jobs I've had, what I've learned from those positions and how the skills and knowledge I developed will help me in my future career plans. For #3 I focused specifically on a leadership example, why I think I was successful as a leader in that example, and what I learned about myself as a leader. Then I talked about how Kellogg would help me to develop further as a leader, mentioning specific classes/programs I thought would be most beneficial.

I used this essay to discuss 2 specific examples of leadership, so that I could highlight 2 different leadership styles. Actually in my interview they asked for leadership example and i answered with a thought leadership answer and she probed me for another where it was a more classic example. I think they want to see that you can lead in different ways and can think about different types of leaders. For career goals I wrote it almost conversational, brief description of my background and what lead to my decisions for each position then I focused on what i want to do, and how and MBA (particularly Kellogg) would get me there. Didn't really discuss leadership. I used the Unique essay (what do you bring to Kellogg) to talk about my teamwork abilities. I tied in unique attributes of EC and volunteer work and how they made me a team player. A good outline I was told, and seemed to work for me is Career Goals, stick with what it is. Leadership address in leadership essay and Teamwork address in Unique essay. I also talked about teamwork in the essay what others admire about you, and leadership in the motivational essay. As long as you address your teamwork and leadership abilities at some point I think your good.

Essay one, I briefly touched upon leadership roles but focused on the why MBA, current functional skills, what I want to acquire and why now. Essay three I went more in-depth on my leadership roles, focusing on three specific examples of leadership and what leadership skills I hope to acquire at kellogg - including how I would acquire them at kellogg.

I am approaching essay 4a as a mistake essay, basically i had failed to convince someone to undertake an initiative i was pushing, i learned some valuable lessons from this and have successfully applied those to new endavours..

kind of took my "what have you learned from a mistake" essay..

Hi everyone,

I am relatively new to the forum, and have been a quiet observer up until now, but wanted to join the convo on Kellogg. I am one of the R1 applicants still holding out for an admit call in these last few weeks. Good luck to the rest of you in the same boat! Here's hoping for some good news tomorrow ...

Count me in for round 2 (one-year program). I'm pretty far along in completing all of my essays! Good luck everyone and congrats to all those who got in!

You could count me in for Round 2, if Embark hadn't just erased all of my Part 1! What the heck? I made it to the Inspector, it said everything was good, so I decided to double check for typos, and it was all gone! What the heck?

Officially in for Round 2! Good luck everyone!

Good luck!

Man, I love it when the status check page goes down