I attend Kellogg, feel free to ask me any questions.

Question

Figure I can be of some help while you weigh school offers.

AverageGuy123 · Answer

Congrats on your admit.

1. Could you share a highlight of your profile?
2. I am currently evaluating several colleges for my essays. What would be speciality of kellogg?
3. How is placement scenario for international students at kellogg?

Thanks,

AverageGuy123 · Answer

Congrats on your admit.

I hope you can help me with couple of questions

1. Could you please share your profile with us ? (GPA,GMAT ,Work exp)
2. I am currently evaluating colleges for my essays. Any pointers (tips that must be covered, anything from your experience) in this regard for kellogg?
3. What would be speciality of kellogg?
4. How is the placement scenario at kellogg for international students?

mgg234 · Answer

1. 750 GMAT, 3.4 GPA, finance
2. Don't stress them too much, I don't think they're as big a part of an application as people think. Just write about stuff that shows leadership, personal growth, and make sure its stuff not already covered in your resume.
3. Not sure what you mean by this? What's special about Kellogg or what career areas it focuses on? I'll answer both:
a) I LOVE Kellogg. I went to a big city school for undergrad, and the difference is enormous. Very close knit culture, always events happening, and everyone is friends with each other in a non-clichy way. Everyone is super smart with great social skills. My undergrad on the other hand had no school spirit, and was finance based with a lot of sociopath type of kids. Kellogg is the complete opposite of this. 
b) Kellogg strength is definitely consulting and marketing. That said, 88% of people who recruited for investment banking last year got an offer, so you can get any job you want here. We even had twice the PE/VC people as Columbia. 
4. Internationals get jobs as much as Americans, but it depends what you want (many internationals go back to their home country). If you want to stay in America, or do marketing, it's much harder. Quite a few international friends who wanted to stay in America switched from consulting to finance because they wanted to maximize their chance of staying in America.

AverageGuy123 · Answer

Thanks for the reply,I t was really helpful.

Well, You pretty summed everything up ,But could you please help with couple of follow up questions?

1. What is your work exp? 
2.Does not having background in finance pose a bit of hindrance?
3.
a) I am kind of attached with Kellogg and Tuck for close knit culture. So thats good.
b)For someone who is thinking of a career in finance,given emphasis on consulting ;will it be a problem?

4. I do intend to work in America. How difficult for international candidate would be to pursue a career in finance post mba from Kellogg?Could you share some experiences of your class or alumini? Does career development club/cell help in this regard?

mgg234 · Answer

1. 5 years in finance. Without going into specifics, I'd say it "silver platted" not "gold platted" experience.
2. No. But lack of any business background could be. People who haven't had much corporate experience have been struggling in practice cases, not sure how things will turn out for them. If you did consulting, finance, corp 500, tech, etc you should be fine. If you've only did TFA or non-profits, the learning curve can be rougher.
3. 88% of people who applied for IB last year got an offer, and a vast majority of them had no finance experience. Banking is one of the easier industries to get into nowadays.
4. The trend at Kellogg is, the internationals who really want to stay in the USA, but didn't have super strong social skills, is they quickly changed from consulting to investment banking during recruiting season. The general belief (and I think it'll be accurate) is its much easier for an international to get into US based banking than US based consulting.
4a. I can only speak to consulting recruiting, but both the career management center and consulting clubs have been extremely helpful. I've used mostly club resources and 2nd year students since I was pretty far ahead knowledge wise, but the career management center has been very useful for my international friends and my friends not sure what they want to do.

Overall, for finance, I think Kellogg is a great school to attend. You have less competition, and all banks want a diverse class, so almost everyone finds an offer (with what seems like slightly less work than at schools like Booth). Last year, we even sent twice as many people to VC/PE than Columbia, a traditional finance school. Plus, you'll have a lot more fun and have a better experience at Kellogg than the traditional finance oriented schools (I went to a finance based undergrad business school, and it was filled with a lot of borderline sociopaths and backstabbers, Kellogg is the exact opposite and a very supportive environment).

AverageGuy123 · Answer

Thanks a lot for reply.It was really helpful.

Looking forward to Kellogg.

Regards
Arun

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I attend Kellogg, feel free to ask me any questions.

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