Attending Kellogg was the best decision of my life, ask me anything.

Question

I'm currently a 1st year student. I know many of you are deciding where to apply R2, and will eventually need to decide which school to attend. Feel free to ask me any questions.

phlaym39 · Answer

Thanks for offering to field questions. I have 2.

1. How was your Kellogg interview? Was there anything you think that you did well and anything you would have done differently?

2. How is the culture and social life? Is there any social "divide" between 2yr, 1yr, MMM, etc. students?

mgg234 · Answer

1. My Kellogg interview was pretty casual, but it's important to keep in mind that outside a handful of exceptions (e.g. Harvard), the difficulty of the interview is going to be based more on the interviewer than the school. For Kellogg, they are rating applications on a handful of dimensions (e.g. experience, composure, would they be a good classmate), but the interviewer can ask any questions they want to get there. For example, Duke was my hardest interviewer and Booth my easiest, but many people have the exact opposite experience due to having different interviewers.

2. I love the culture and social life. I went to undergrad at a big city school, and this is way better...every weekend you hang out with Kellogg students, which builds much deeper bonds and friendships than is possible at a school like Columbia or Booth. Between KWEST and sections, you will have 80-100 people you consider friends, and atleast 10-20 people you consider good friends, within a month or two in. The school really knows how to build deep friendships. Plus, since Kellogg has less finance people and weighs interpersonal skills more than it's peers, most of your classmates are really cool..outgoing, friendly, non-competitive (and due to this, even shy people are reached out to and will make friends). Furthermore, all the group projects further enhance friendships and relationships. My friends who are going to other M7 schools are having mixed feelings about their schools, but I can't really find anyone who is having a bad experience at Kellogg...everyone, including me, seems to love it here.

Social divide...between 2y/MMM not really. I'm 2Y and a lot of my close friends are MMM. 1y is a bit of a unique beast, since you don't share orientation nor 1st year classes with them. You will meet a few through KWEST, but they are a bit more insular. Kellogg definitely integrates them, and they'll be in clubs and leadership than you, but they are functionally 2nd year students and are going through FT recruiting before you even start internship recruiting. I have quite a few 1Y friends personally, but they are friends I met through my KWEST buddies.

phlaym39 · Answer

Thanks for sharing insights. This is very helpful since I'm international and can't visit campus to see for myself.

mgg234 · Answer

You're welcome. I didn't attend campus until I was already admitted anyways.

Cubsfan87 · Answer

Any idea what % of MBB hires don't come from either MBB in their previous work experience or as MBB sponsored students?

mgg234 · Answer

Ballpark, I'd say around 2/3 are not sponsored. Internship figures are a good way to compare schools (although people without a MBB summer internship do get into MBB during FT hiring, no sponsored students intern at their company during the summer, so it makes it easier to compare schools)

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Posted from my mobile device

Cubsfan87 · Answer

That's a good point. So that would explain why the internships seem so scare. I have seen some firms on some reports have an internship and fulltime offer number being basically the same. Wonder what's happening there. How is the recruiting going? Anything major you've learned along the way that you didn't realize going in?

mgg234 · Answer

Consulting recruiting is going well, what I learned is:

1) Pick a location early. I was deciding between two locations (chicago and non-chicago)...Firms where I quickly picked a place had a much higher conversion into close list events.
2) Focus on the recruiting manager for your school, they have WAY more sway than random associates or even partners. 
3) Recruiters are people and want to work with people they like - don't ruin a good conversation by asking some stupid question you already know the answer to (e.g. whats the difference between regional and national staffing)
4) It takes up so much time, started to get really burned out towards the end. 
5) There's a lot of people who are recruiting for consulting who really shouldn't - people who blatantly don't have the social skills or the case skills. A lot of people also don't even know why they want to do consulting. This is bad, you should have a good understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, and what you want to do, or you're going to have a bad time.

dtse86 · Answer

Awesome advice  mgg234  !

Any advice for getting onto closed lists besides location selection? Was there anything that you did during the company presentations that helped you stand out? Did you do any pre-MBA networking or internships?

mgg234 · Answer

Company presentation don't matter much at all for close-list selections. Beyond that, it's tough to tell. From the best I can tell, different places seem to have different criteria. Some base it off coffee chat performance, some base it off resume, some base it off who the main campus recruiter knows, etc. It's really a black box to me. Some super stars are invited to everything, but some people with poor social skills are invited to everything too (making me think resume is part of it).

That said, from what I've heard from second years, it's not worth stressing about. Unlike banking, people who don't get invited to dinners with get on closed lists, and people who get invited to dinners won't get on closed lists. Hell, even if you need to bid for an interview, plenty of people get in through this.

dtse86 · Answer

Thanks again mgg234! Great thread!

dtse86 · Answer

Hey mgg234 ! I just got waitlisted at Kellogg. Any tips or advice on how to turn that into an admit? :-D

mgg234 · Answer

Stay in contact, but in general the waitlist is used to help create the class profile they want...For example, if they let in too many finance people and you're on the waitlist, you're not getting off the waitlist. This is the same at all the top 10-15 schools.

dtse86 · Answer

Thanks again. I guess I'll wait to hear a follow-up and get in touch with my WL manager. For now it feels like I'm in this weird limbo, like purgatory... :shock:

Attending Kellogg was the best decision of my life, ask me anything.

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