Booth vs Kellogg

Booth vs Kellogg

Booth and Kellogg offer world's best MBA programs. These are two of the best business schools in the world. Booth is often termed as a quant school whereas Kellogg has a reputation that seems to be more social and collaborative overall. It is also well known for its strong marketing brand. So how do you decide which program is best for you? To help prospective applicants as well as those who have already been admitted and deciding which one to choose, we decided to compare these MBA programs side-by-side and analyze the differences between them

We compared class profiles, curriculum, strengths and weaknesses, rankings, placements of these two schools. Below is the detailed comparison of these schools taking all factors one by one. Article ends with main conclusion and winner of this competition.

Class Profile

• Both Kellogg and Booth received roughly equal number of applications last year; however, Kellogg's acceptance rate is lower due to its relatively smaller class size.
  
• Booth's yield rate is slightly greater than Kellogg's. It's very valuable input to measure the percentage of admitted students who actually go to a school rather than turn it down.
  
• GMAT, GPA, WE, and proportion of female and international applicants are roughly the same at both schools.
  
• Economics/Business is the most dominant undergrad background of students at both schools; Booth has 55% business/economics undergrads whereas Kellogg has 45%.

Booth vs Kellogg: Class Profile
	Booth	Kellogg
# of Applicants	4284	4300
Admitted	1047	887
Enrolled	585	474
Yield	56%	53%
Avg GMAT	726 (Range: 570 - 780)	728 (Middle 80%: 690 - 760)
Avg GPA	3.6	3.6
Avg Age	28	28
Avg WE (Months)	60	62
Female Students	42%	41%
International Students	34%	35%
Countries Represented	54	N/A

Booth vs Kellogg: Feeder Industries
	Booth	Kellogg
Consulting	23%	19%
Banking and Finance	37%	22%
Retail and Consumer Products		7%
Edu, Govt, Military, & Non Profit	11%	9%
Technology/Communications/E-Commerce/Internet	8%	14%
Media, Entertainment, and Sports	2%
Real Estate	3%
Energy & Utilities	3%	3%
Healthcare & Biotech	4%	5%
Manufacturing	4%	4%
Other	5%	17%

Academics

Booth

Booth offers a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of business. With only one required course, you can design a program to meet your career goals. Four major components make up the curriculum.

• Foundation courses to develop analytical tools and knowledge that supports the rest of the curriculum. There are three 3 categories in foundation courses - Accounting, Microeconomics, and Statistics - and you have to choose 1 course for each category. There are several basic and advanced alternatives available in each category to choose from.
  
• Function, Management, and Business Environment: In this component, you have to choose 6 courses from 7 categories: Finance, Marketing, Operations, Decisions, People, Strategy, Business Environment. There are several basic and advanced alternatives available in each category to choose from. Click here for detailed course listing https://www.chicagobooth.edu/programs/f ... curriculum
  
• Electives: 11Courses
  
• LEAD: All students take Leadership Effectiveness and Development (LEAD) to initiate their leadership development journey at Booth. More info on LEAD can be found here.. https://www.chicagobooth.edu/programs/f ... mics/lead/
  
• Joint Degrees:
  MBA/MPP https://harris.uchicago.edu/degrees/joi ... f-business
  MBA/JD https://www.law.uchicago.edu/joint-degrees
  MBA/MD https://pritzker.uchicago.edu/page/md-mba
  MBA/MA https://www.ssa.uchicago.edu/joint-ammba
  MBA/MPCS https://csmasters.uchicago.edu/page/mba-mpcs
  MBA/MA in International Relations https://www.chicagobooth.edu/programs/f ... -relations
  Area Studies https://www.chicagobooth.edu/programs/f ... ea-studies
  Certificate in Health Administration and Policy https://www.chicagobooth.edu/programs/f ... ion-policy
  
• Booth’s The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation runs an accelerator program, New Venture Challenge, for current students and alumni to boost creation of new ventures and technology commercialisation within the UChicago and surrounding community. This program has helped launch more than 160 companies worldwide.

Kellogg

• Program Length: 2 years
• Core curriculum (2 year MBA) consists of nine courses in fundamental areas, including accounting; management and organizations; marketing; finance; managerial economics; decision sciences; operations; and management and strategy. In addition, during the Pre-Term orientation sequence of their second year, students are required to complete a half-credit course, Leadership and Crisis Management (KPPI-440-A), that encompasses much of the knowledge from the first-year core. You can opt out of select core courses, provided you have previous relevant coursework or work experience, and increase the number of electives.
• Majors: 7 majors are available. You may opt to choose from seven majors or none at all. A major requires that a student complete the core course for the major and a minimum of four electives. More info can be found here.. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/pr ... ogram.aspx
• Dual Degree Programs:
  MMM (MBA from Kellogg and an M.S. in Design Innovation from the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.) https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Pr ... ogram.aspx
  JD/MBA in collaboration with Northwestern School of Law. You can apply with one integrated application through Kellogg Admissions and an eligible GMAT score. You do not need to submit an LSAT score or a separate law school application.

Key Strengths and Areas of Improvements

(According to Current Students/Alumni Reviews)

• Here we studied reviews of 22 Booth students/alumni and 19 Kellogg students/alumni submitted in Business School Reviews section of our forum to understand what they feel are core strengths of their schools and what needs to be improved.
  
• 82% of students say Booth's curriculum and professors are its core strengths whereas 64% students say brand Booth and student culture are its major strengths. This is on the expected lines; We often hear from applicants in forum discussions that they apply to Booth primarily because of its flexible curriculum, brand, diversity, student culture, and career opportunities. 32% students think Alum network of Booth needs to be improved.
  
• It's well known that Kellogg's collaborative environment and diverse student body are its core strength and 63% of students who we surveyed have endorsed this notion. 47% students also felt that Kellogg's brand and ranking are its major strength; however, an alarming fact is that 58% students think facilities at Kellogg need major improvement.
  
• To conclude this comparison we can say Curriculum, Faculty, Brand, and robust student culture are Booth's major strengths whereas Wharton primarily relies on its brand, diversity, robust campus culture, and career opportunities.

Rankings

• If we analyse last 10 years of US News rankings, Booth did get kicked up in recent years. It has beaten Kellogg every year since 2014.
  
• In current scenario, Booth has surpassed Kellogg in US News, Economist, BW, and FT rankings where as Kellogg is ahead of Booth only in Forbes ranking.
  
• Consider current as well as historical rankings, Booth is clear winner in this area of comparison.

Booth vs Kellogg: Current Rankings
	Booth	Kellogg
US News 17	2	5
Economist 16	1	2
BusinessWeek 16	4	9
Forbes 15	6	3
Financial Times 17	9	12

Booth and Kellogg: Historical US News Rankings

Placements

• No doubt Booth and Kellogg both have one of the best career management facilities.
  
• In 2016, 98% of Booth graduates found employment within three months, while the equivalent figure for Kellogg is 96%.
  
• Avg salary offered to Booth graduates ($125,000) is smaller than that of Kellogg graduates ($136,000)
  
• Considering its slightly higher placement rate and broader placement reach, we can say Booth has slight advantage over Kellogg in placements.

Booth vs Kellogg: Placements
	Booth	Kellogg
Placement Rate	98.4%	96.4%
Median Base Salary	$125,000 (Range $60,000 - $215,000)	$136,000
Placements by Industry
Consulting	28%	33%
Banking and Finance	36%	13%
Technology	17%	22%
Retail and Consumer Products	8%	16%
Media/Entertainment/Sports	1%	1%
Healcare/Pharma/Biotech	3%	7%
Manufacturing	2%	3%
Edu/Non-Profit/Govt	2%
Energy and Utilities	1%	2%
Other	2%	3%

Top Recruiters

Decisions by previous GMATClub members

Here we are presenting select cases of previous GMATClub members who had been admitted to Booth and Kellogg and had to make a choice.

arthi9487

• Admitted to Booth (with partial scholarship) and Kellogg
• Profile and Stats: 720 GMAT; 3.65 GPA
• Post MBA Goal: Consulting MBB
• Decision: Booth

nautikal

• Admitted to Booth and Kellogg (with $70K Scholarship)
• Profile and Stats: Management consultant; 770 GMAT; 3.94 GPA;
• Post MBA Goal: Consulting
• Decision: Booth

pu2003

• Admitted to Booth (with $$) and Kellogg
• Profile and Stats: Finance attorney
• Post MBA Goal: To build up a family enterprise (chain of dental specialty centers) and dabble into other entrepreneurial interests.
• Decision: Booth

atxap

• Admitted to Booth ($40K Scholarship) and Kellogg ($100K Scholarship)
• Profile and Stats: 740 GMAT; 3.57 GPA; Currently in asset management firm)
• Post MBA Goal: Management Consulting.
• Decision: Kellogg

So who is the winner??

It's really difficult to choose from Booth and Kellogg. In terms of prestige, they both have strong reputation; however, as we saw above Booth's ranking is continuously improving since last few years.

In academics, Booth has slight edge over Kellogg because its more flexible curriculum, which 82% of Booth students identifies at its major strength; Kellogg is generally identified as a general management school with a strong reputation for marketing.

In terms of placements, both schools will provide you world of opportunities. Booth's placement rate is slightly greater and it places more than half of its graduates in finance and consulting jobs; whereas placements at Kellogg are more diverse. Last year Kellogg placed 33% of its students in Consulting, 22% in Tech sector, 13% in Finance, and 16% in retail/CPG industry.

So all in all these are peer schools and the differences are truly at the margin.





Booth: 5 Kellogg: 4.5
The Winner is: Chicago Booth



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