2nd Year Kellogg Student - Ask me Anything

Second Year student here. Successfully made the transition from Finance to Consulting. Love the culture here. Chicago is cold as balls. Saw how recruiting worked out for people- internship and then full-time wise, so I finally feel that I'm in a position to give my overall opinion here. Done with finals, and ski trip is 5 days away, so I have some free time...

...Ask Me Anything!

 

Applying to kellogg and hoping I get in.

1) why did you leave finance?

2) Ive heard that because kellogg is not as finance focused its easier to get jobs in finance there because everyone is focused on Consulting. True or not true?

3) How does kellogg do for the buyside?

4) Do most people live in the city together?

5) Have you heard anything about the real estate concentration?

6) Hows the social scene ?

7) Would you pick kellogg again?

All I can think of for now. Thanks

 
Best Response
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Applying to kellogg and hoping I get in.

1) why did you leave finance?

2) Ive heard that because kellogg is not as finance focused its easier to get jobs in finance there because everyone is focused on Consulting. True or not true?

3) How does kellogg do for the buyside?

4) Do most people live in the city together?

5) Have you heard anything about the real estate concentration?

6) Hows the social scene ?

7) Would you pick kellogg again?

All I can think of for now. Thanks

1) 4 reasons: I didn't like the culture; I don't mind hard work but I wanted weekends free, I didn't want to live in NYC anymore, society hating you because you're a banker wore me down.

2) True. Last year I think 88-90% of people who recruited for banking got offers, and I think domestic students had 100% success rate. We also had people from non-finance/non-MBB backgrounds pull off MM PE. That said, not many at all get into megafund PE. Banking's salary increase, attempt at work-life balanace, and Kellogg's previous years' successes has made banking more popular at Kellogg, so I'd expect odds to go down a little bit though.

3) See answer number 2. We have a PE lab to help people get in, but it's mostly MM PE, not the KKR's of the world. The exception being people who did PE before business school, but it's their network getting them the megafund jobs.

4) Kellogg is 20-30 minutes from the City in a town called Evanston. 98% of students live within 10-15 minutes walking distance of each other. Definitely a major plus. Builds tight-knit culture...but Chicago is close if you get bored.

5) We have one, but I know nothing about it.

6) Social scene is great! I went to undergrad in a major city, and this is way better. Everyone is friends with each other. Kellogg screens on social skills, so you have very few "duds" than other schools. Everyone has been friendly and helpful. We also party a lot, which I enjoy. A point of comparison to Booth - we have a bunch of friendly competitions throughout the year. Last year we had a Battle of the Bands, and 3-4x more Kellogg Students were there than students from Booth - despite the commute being quite longer for us. People from Booth will argue it's because they have better things to do, which is also true....The scene there seems to be to go out and explore the city with a small group of friends. Whereas at Kellogg, it's to go to massive school wide events frequently.

7) It was my top choice. Well, I guess Stanford would've been my top choice, but I had no shot at getting in. I also got into Booth and Columbia, and I'm happy I picked Kellogg.

 

I can touch on your question regarding the buy-side. Kellogg has great PE prospects (even better than Booth's). OP mentioned PE lab but they also have curriculum geared towards PE, you should check it out. I'd also point out that Kellogg won the Wharton PE Buyout Competition for the past 2 yrs.

I'd caution you though: although Kellogg does place well into the buyside, it's not easy to get offers w/out pre-MBA PE exp and you still have to find those opportunities. OP mentioned MM funds (there are quite a few in Chicago). But I highly doubt a firm like Madison Dearborn, HIG, GTCR, Cressey, Windpoint, etc. will offer a job to a Kellogg MBA w/ no prior PE exp...special circumstances obviously apply.

 
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I can touch on your question regarding the buy-side. Kellogg has great PE prospects (even better than Booth's). OP mentioned PE lab but they also have curriculum geared towards PE, you should check it out. I'd also point out that Kellogg won the Wharton PE Buyout Competition for the past 2 yrs.

I'd caution you though: although Kellogg does place well into the buyside, it's not easy to get offers w/out pre-MBA PE exp and you still have to find those opportunities. OP mentioned MM funds (there are quite a few in Chicago). But I highly doubt a firm like Madison Dearborn, HIG, GTCR, Cressey, Windpoint, etc. will offer a job to a Kellogg MBA w/ no prior PE exp...special circumstances obviously apply.

Just to expand on this, we've sent a higher portion of our class to PE/VC than Booth the last few years, based on the employment reports. I didn't recruit for finance roles, so I can't speak the specifics above, but they sound correct.

 
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Your profile?

High GMAT, slightly below average GPA, Non-URM, Male. Don't want to give more specific information than that, but I was someone who could get into Booth/Columbia/Tuck/MIT/Kellogg but not Harvard/Stanford. I was probably borderline for Wharton, but didn't apply.

 
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Can you discuss some placement numbers, and how you feel they compare to other similar schools? (All of the m7)

Also, are the IB jobs generally in NYC? 50%? 90%?

Based on people I know, I'd guess 75% are NYC, 10% west coast (e.g. GS LA), 5% Chicago, and 10% international. The firms are in the employment report which you can access on the site. The top ones are: FT 2015: GS (7) Citi (7) JPM (6) BAML (5) Intern 2016: GS (9) BAML (7) JPM (5) Goldman seems to really like us for some reason.
 

1) Do a majority of Kellogg students see Consulting as MBB-or-bust?

2) Is it easy transitioning from Finance into Consulting (specifically, do Consulting recruiters find pre-MBA finance experience/backgrounds impressive?)

3) Did you go into bschool knowing you want to switch from Finance into Consulting? If not, what turned your mind towards Consulting?

4) What firm did you do your Consulting internship with? How would you rate your experience? What was the best part of it and what was the worst part?

 
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1) Do a majority of Kellogg students see Consulting as MBB or-bust?

2) Is it easy transitioning from Finance into Consulting (specifically, do Consulting recruiters find pre-MBA finance experience/backgrounds impressive?)

3) Did you go into bschool knowing you want to switch from Finance into Consulting? If not, what turned your mind towards Consulting?

4) What firm did you do your Consulting internship with? How would you rate your experience? What was the best part of it and what was the worst part?

1) The big drop off seems to be after Strategy&. I'd say 200 recruit for MBB, 140-150 for Deloitte, 125 for Strategy&, and then 80 or so for ATK. I'm going off the amount of people I saw at recruiting events and the amount of interview slots, so it's not an exact science. I've also heard from 1st years that Strategy& had less interest this year, but haven't really been involved in recruiting so I'm not sure. Just going off the employment report, here's were interns went in my class:

2016 interns: Accenture 5 A.T. Kearney 4 Bain & Company 17 The Boston Consulting Group 18 Deloitte LLP 21 EY LLP 4 McKinsey & Company 21 PwC Strategy& 5 Treacy & Company 3 ZS Associates, Inc. 3

2) As easy as it can be. I think engineers do the best in consulting recruiting, but I'd say former finance people are a close second.

3) I was leaning towards consulting, but came in with an open mind. That said, I left a pretty decent salary and I didn't want to take a huge paycut, so I really only looked at more lucrative options.

4) Don't want to give more personal information, since it becomes very easy to identify me - in which case I can no longer give truly honest feedback. I had a great summer and signed.

 
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Did you interview on campus? I'm finishing up my application and after I'll set up my interview. I think booth and Kellogg are a longshot because of my abysmal gpa but we'll see what happens. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Kellogg sounds awesome.

I interviewed remotely. I don't think coming on campus to interview helps your application.

 

Not sure if you have any info on this, but how many pre-MBA consultants do you see that are sponsored and returning to their firms? On the flip side, about how many coming from consulting transition to another opportunity?

 
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Not sure if you have any info on this, but how many pre-MBA consultants do you see that are sponsored and returning to their firms? On the flip side, about how many coming from consulting transition to another opportunity?

95 people are employed sponsored out of a class of 635. There's a higher percentage of sponsored in the 1Y program than the 2Y program.

Majority of people sponsored go back to their firms. Sponsored people tend to go for a home-run opportunities (e.g. product manager at Google, or hot start-up), but if that fails, they go back. The one's that don't go back, almost always do it for a non-consulting opportunity. I don't see many people trying to trade up consulting firms.

 
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I read that a lot of the Elite Boutiques and some of the BBs stopped recruiting on campus at Kellogg because of the lack of interest. Have you seen this to be true?

All the BB's recruited on campus. A few EB's went "off-campus" but still took students. Only difference is that the first round interview is at their office or over the phone, as opposed to in the on-campus interview room. You can get any banking job you want from Kellogg, although the smaller firms might have less on-campus presence, but if you apply, you have same odds as other M7 schools. You can see on the employment report we sent people to Moelis, Evercore, Greenhill, and Lazard.

 

How does sponsorship work in regard to people trying for better offers then returning to their original company? If they're able to get a better job, are they only required to pay back whatever sponsorship they received? How is this viewed?

 
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How does sponsorship work in regard to people trying for better offers then returning to their original company? If they're able to get a better job, are they only required to pay back whatever sponsorship they received? How is this viewed?

All the consulting firms do it differently - some directly pay the university, some give the student a low/no interest loan, and some the students take out private loans and the firms pay the student once they start working again the cost of tuition. Not sure which firms do which. It's usually a two-year commitment.

You need to pay back the amount of sponsorship you received, but how you pay it back will vary based on the method they paid for sponsorship. There's not a fine, although it's possible you need to pay interest.

It doesn't burn bridges. The only thing that's a no-no is interning at another consulting firm.

 
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Hey, thanks for doing this. How badly will having a low undergrad GPA (3.4+) from a non-target affect a person's odds of getting MBB opportunities at a place like Kellogg assuming they had consulting experience (non-strategy management consulting) prior to b-school and a decent GMAT. Thank you.

I had below a 3.5 and I don't feel that it hurt me, but I went to a top-25 undergrad with a stricter curve. Honestly, it's a bit of a black box. Casing is usually believed to be the most important thing to get an offer. But people with gold-platted resumes (e.g. HYPSM undergrad to GS types) tended to almost always get offers, even if they weren't the best at cases in my opinion. Likewise, people in our school with full scholarships tended to do better. That said, there's a bit of omitted-variable bias....people with amazing resumes are probably harder workers than the average student - so its tough to know the magnitude of the effect (if any).

If you rock the cases and are personable you can get an offer (which might not be the case in lower ranked schools, where they are more selective in who they interview). Some people with shittier backgrounds who were borderline entrants to Kellogg definitely pulled off MBB.

My personal opinion - and I don't think this is a majority opinion - is that prior work experience/quality of resume matters more than people realize and cases are a bit less important than realized. I have no data to back this up, just based on what I saw when giving people practice cases and who got offers.

I've talked about this with second years, and everyone has widely different opinion of resume vs behavioral vs casing ability and what exactly matters in what portions to getting an offer.

 

Hey OP, thanks for the response. I was also wondering whether you could provide us with some insight on how people standout at a place like Kellogg to network and et interviews for consulting/IB/PE. I understand that b-school can be really competitive and you'll probably even find people who are cutthroat and have sharp elbows, so how do people navigate the recruiting/networking process and impress recruiters at a place where everyone is equally impressive? Thanks again!

 
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Do you know people with FLDP experience that got into Kellogg? If so, how many years of experience do they usually have?

There's plenty people with industry experience (e.g. Pepsi, Target, Cargills, Cummins, etc)....not sure if they were in a FLDP, but those are usually the most exclusive, so you should be fine. Industry is usually ~5 years experience minimum. Consulting and bankers are usually ~3 years experience minimum.

 
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Thank you for the AMA. Do you know how different are the students/programs for Evanston's 1Y-2Y versus the Chicago - Wieboldt Hall's PTMBA crowd?

Thanks for your help!

You can take classes at either location, and the school pushes "One Kellogg" but I view them as very different. The averag GMAT of a PT student is ~70 points lower than FT students. PT students always try to sneak into FT events they aren't allowed into. I'm involved in several professional clubs, and several of the top recruiters have complained about PT students being at events because they don't view them as qualified and they usually don't understand the nuances of recruiting (e.g. cutting people off, waiting their turn).

I view the PT program as a cash-cow of Kellogg, and I wish Kellogg got rid of it. It dilutes the brand. During Full-time recruiting, they all try to get into consulting, but have a very low success rate (Which makes sense, since their credentials are closer to students at a school ranked ~20). That said, there certainly are diamonds in the rough (I think BCG took 2 part-time people this year, and Accenture usually takes quite a few), but it's not the majority.

There's also very little interactions with Part-time students, I only know 2 personally: 1 who took most of his classes at the Evanston campus, and one who transferred from part-time to full-time to get full access to consulting recruiting.

 
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Thank you for the AMA. Do you know how different are the students/programs for Evanston's 1Y-2Y versus the Chicago - Wieboldt Hall's PTMBA crowd?Thanks for your help!

You can take classes at either location, and the school pushes "One Kellogg" but I view them as very different. The averag GMAT of a PT student is ~70 points lower than FT students. PT students always try to sneak into FT events they aren't allowed into. I'm involved in several professional clubs, and several of the top recruiters have complained about PT students being at events because they don't view them as qualified and they usually don't understand the nuances of recruiting (e.g. cutting people off, waiting their turn).

I view the PT program as a cash-cow of Kellogg, and I wish Kellogg got rid of it. It dilutes the brand. During Full-time recruiting, they all try to get into consulting, but have a very low success rate (Which makes sense, since their credentials are closer to students at a school ranked ~20). That said, there certainly are diamonds in the rough (I think BCG took 2 part-time people this year, and Accenture usually takes quite a few), but it's not the majority.

There's also very little interactions with Part-time students, I only know 2 personally: 1 who took most of his classes at the Evanston campus, and one who transferred from part-time to full-time to get full access to consulting recruiting.

Please oh please master, teach me and the other unwashed part-timers your recruiting ways, not like we've ever landed a job or 2 on our own. Does it bother you we have something to talk about besides getting drunk trying to re-live undergrad for the last 2 years?.. //eye roll

Is the part time program less selective? Absolutely. It is still filled with bright, sociable, motivated, accomplished young professionals? Absolutely. To each their own.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."
 

Thanks for doing this. I am a college senior at an ivy with a job lined up at a BB. What suggestions would you give regarding application, extra curriculars, etc over the next several years before applying to M7 b-school? Also, what timeline of events would you give??

thanks again

 
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Thanks for doing this. I am a college senior at an ivy with a job lined up at a BB . What suggestions would you give regarding application, extra curriculars, etc over the next several years before applying to M7 b-school? Also, what timeline of events would you give??

thanks again

Quick promotions and improvement in job responsibilities if you change jobs...and high GMAT. BB IB almost always gets into a top 10 if you get a high GMAT.

You'll get into a better school if after the associate promotion (or after two years as analyst) you jump into PE or some other cool job (tech, start-up, etc).

 
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How long did you study for the GMAT ? As a college graduate with a consulting job lined up, I plan on taking the GMAT next year and only studying this winter break. Is that enough for a 720-740 score?

I studied 2 months, daily. I got to 700-720 range rather quickly, but those extra 30-40 points took a lot of work.

 

I'm going to caveat and say that neither option of staying at MS or going MS to Apple is necessarily the better option. In my opinion, from what I've seen through this application cycle, having an extremely good cogent story and post MBA goal is as important as anything else in your profile. So if you are jumping to Apple or a start up but aren't able to show how that takes you too your next phase in your career, you are actually worse off. But if you can coherently tell a story about your career and personal growth then you are fine either way.

On top of that, I think it's school dependent. Harvard takes more finance guys then any other industry. Stanford takes more Tech guys then any other industry. And you see similar differences in Booth vs Kellogg, Columbia vs MIT, etc. It's not a one size fits all calculation.

 

Can you speak to why you choose Kellogg over Booth? I was recently admitted to Booth and am hoping to hear back good news from Kellogg next week.

In terms of my profile, I worked at Deloitte S&O for 2 years and now am at a F500 retailer doing Corp. strategy. In b-school, I hope to take a shot at launching a company around a specific business idea that I have and my plan B is to continue on in retail, but in the e-commerce/omni-channel space (e.g., Amazon, Warby Parker), or go back into consulting but with a focus on retail.

Specifically, I haven't heard much about entrepreneurship at Kellogg (but have heard a lot from Booth). What is the entrepreneurship ecosystem like at Kellogg and what are the success stories?

 
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Can you speak to why you choose Kellogg over Booth? I was recently admitted to Booth and am hoping to hear back good news from Kellogg next week.Deloitte S&O for 2 years and now am at a F500 retailer doing Corp. strategy. In b-school, I hope to take a shot at launching a company around a specific business idea that I have and my plan B is to continue on in retail, but in the e-commerce/omni-channel space (e.g., Amazon, Warby Parker), or go back into consulting but with a focus on retail.

Specifically, I haven't heard much about entrepreneurship at Kellogg (but have heard a lot from Booth). What is the entrepreneurship ecosystem like at Kellogg and what are the success stories?

Spoke about why I chose Kellogg above. You can definitely get into Amazon from Kellogg - I think ~35 students got offers during Full-time this year. We have many entrepreneural classes, and "venture discovery" is one of the more popular classes here. The guy who started the Jacket company that raised $9 million on kickstater is in my class for example. The school helps seed ventures too, a bunch of friends got money through it.

 

Not an MBA/Kellogg question but any comments on the city of Evanston? I know you mentioned Chicago is a short L ride away but I'll be spending a decent amount of time in Evanston for next 6-9 months so I'd like to hear about it from your perspective. I used to stay in Evanston with friends in college when we had conferences in Chicago, so I'm fairly comfortable with the city but those were only for long weekends.

Its technically the suburbs but it seems like it has a fairly nice downtown area (nice for a suburb), wondering if there was much of a nightlife or things that people

 
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Not an MBA/Kellogg question but any comments on the city of Evanston? I know you mentioned Chicago is a short L ride away but I'll be spending a decent amount of time in Evanston for next 6-9 months so I'd like to hear about it from your perspective. I used to stay in Evanston with friends in college when we had conferences in Chicago, so I'm fairly comfortable with the city but those were only for long weekends.

Its technically the suburbs but it seems like it has a fairly nice downtown area (nice for a suburb), wondering if there was much of a nightlife or things that people <30 yrs old would like to do.

Thanks! Looking to get my MBA in a few years and this thread has been helpful to read.

Evanston is a nice, walkable town. You can buy (almost) anything within a 10 minute walk. The bar scene isn't great though.

 

I'm not the topic starter, but my $0.02 - I know people from '15 who got MBB offers in London, so there are definitely some options available. I was also told that it's also easier, because you will have less competition, as most students are looking for local (US wide) jobs.

 

Hey! Thanks for doing this!

  1. What is the real cost of the program for an average student? Not including opportunity costs, I just want to know how much money I will need (except for tuition) to at least have normal B-school experience (so, rent, nights out, etc. including 1-2 trips)

  2. How people recruit to Bay area? In terms of process and success rate.

  3. Can you elaborate on your choice vs. Booth (you have touched this topic, but maybe you can give us more insights into your thought process).

  4. Is there a need for a car? How do students spend their spare time? And do you have a lot of spare time? I know in Booth you can pretty much study 3 days a week 2year and use the rest for other goals.

  5. Kellogg is considered a laid-back party school, but at the same time it has grade disclosure policy, I mean it would seem that it's either one or the other. So how do these two co-exist?

Thank you very much!

 

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