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CATEGORY - SCHOOL: NORTHWESTERN / KELLOGG

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Wiki Wednesdays: Northwestern Kellogg, Michigan Ross and Columbia Business School Interview Reports

Welcome to this admissions season’s first edition of Wiki Wednesdays, where we highlight new and informative reports in the Clear Admit Wiki, an online repository of information learned by applicants throughout the admissions process. With several schools now conducting Round 1 interviews and HBS having just distributed a large number of Round 1 interview invitations, the roller coaster ride of questions and answers has begun. Several applicants have recently shared their interview experiences in the Wiki for such schools as Northwestern / Kellogg, Michigan / Ross and Columbia Business School. Let’s take a look at some of the queries these applicants faced!

One Kellogg applicant shared a “conversational” interview with a local alumnus:

1. [Describe your] leadership experiences.
2. [Explain] conflicts at the work place.
3. [Describe] tough decisions at work place.
4. [Explain a] situation during work when, you could see a solution that others could not.
5. What clubs will you get involved at Kellogg and why?
6. What unique traits will you bring to Kellogg?

Another Round 1 Kellogg candidate noted the following questions from his/her interview:

1. How do you find it beneficial working in a team?
2. [What do you] like about working in a team?
3. [What do you] dislike about working in a team?
4. [Identify] one situation where you made a difference as a leader.
5. [Explain] one decision that you are proud of.

Moving on to Michigan, a recent Ross applicant faced the following queries from an alumnus:

1. Tell me about your most significant leadership experience.
2. Tell me about a time you worked in a tough group setting.
3. What will you add to the Ross student body?
4. What extra-curricular activities would you join at Ross?

An admitted Early Decision candidate at Columbia summarized the alumna’s series of inquiries, “The questions were broadly why this [undergrad] school, why this company, why this switch, why MBA, why Columbia and a lot of discussion of my goals…I was also asked the standard ‘ethical dilemma’ question which I was prepared for.”

That just about wraps up this week’s edition of Wiki Wednesdays! Be sure to tune in next week for a glimpse at the latest posts to the Clear Admit Wiki. In the meantime, check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which provide school-specific insight and strategic advice to help applicants with their admissions interviews. Also, if you would like to add your interview experience to the Clear Admit Wiki, simply create an account or send your reports to wiki@clearadmit.com.

Thanks to all the applicants who have submitted their interview reports! Best of luck to those in the midst of interview season!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Trivia Tuesday: Teamwork at Wharton, Harvard and Kellogg

It’s Tuesday once again and it’s time to check in on the important details and differences of the leading MBA programs. This week’s focus is teamwork, now a hot topic in business education. For the last decade or so, business schools have moved towards greater use of teams in coursework. This trend has been prompted by the reality that much of modern business depends on the work of functional, productive teams. In response, many business schools have integrated mandatory teamwork into the MBA curriculum, especially into the first year. Today we’ll look at a few of the models used by the leading MBA programs.

Wharton was among the first of the leading business schools to incorporate small learning teams into the first year. Wharton’s teams are assigned in August, at the end of Pre-Term, and students work with their assigned team members throughout the first year. The teams go on a 2-3 day Learning Team Retreat before classes start, during which they get to know one another and start laying the foundation for their work together during the school year. In addition to working together on class projects and studying together for core courses, Wharton’s learning teams also serve as the focus for the half-credit core course Foundations of Leadership and Teamwork. The course, which meets for the first and last six weeks of the first year, focuses on self-awareness, working in teams, and leading others, key concepts for any effective manager or teammate.

Harvard Business School divides its student body into 10 smaller groups called sections, who take all of their first-year classes together. While learning team members at most schools belong to the same larger cohort or cluster, Harvard’s learning teams - only recently introduced to the program - are cross-sectional. This is necessary because of the importance of contributing original ideas to case method classes with one’s sectionmates, and beneficial because it gives students the opportunity to meet and work with classmates outside of their section.

Kellogg, a school known for its focus on teamwork, is one of the only leading MBA programs not to assign first-year study groups. Like other b-schools, Kellogg does split its entering class into smaller sections, usually consisting of approximately 65 students each, and students in each section take all of their core courses together. (Fun fact: Kellogg’s section names are among the most unusual of any b-school’s, with the eight sections called Big Dogs, Bucketheads, Bull Frogs, Cash Cows, Highlanders, Jive Turkeys, Moose and Poets.)

Despite not breaking down the sections into smaller study groups, Kellogg students do work in teams throughout the curriculum. Students report that most of their class assignments require small group work, with the group assignments usually made by individual professors. Because Kellogg students may be in different study or project groups for each course, they miss out on the experience of sustained interaction with a single group of peers, but instead gain experience in working with a broad range of personalities. This system also hones students’ time management skills, since scheduling a group meeting for 5-6 people who are in 4-5 other small groups (while also working around classes, clubs, and recruiting activities) requires a sophisticated ability to juggle schedules!

Overall, most Kellogg students praise the school’s choice to use a dynamic team structure, feeling that this organization mimics teamwork situations in the professional world. However, since students at Wharton, Tuck, Columbia, and other schools often believe that their long-term group assignments best prepare them for teamwork in the business world, applicants should think carefully about the type of teamwork experience they are looking for, as well as the kind of group work they expect to encounter after graduating from business school.

In the end, regardless of how the learning teams or study groups are organized, they all share a common goal: providing students with hands-on practice in working effectively with a group of diverse people with divergent strengths, personalities and work styles. To find out more about the team-based learning at the leading MBA programs, be sure to check out the schools’ websites or the Clear Admit School Guides!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman Kicks Off Kellogg Lecture Series

On Monday, Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman addressed a full house at the Kellogg School of Management, discussing the current economic crisis and the factors that contributed to it. The event, which launched the Kellogg Distinguished Lecture Series, also marked Krugman’s first public appearance since winning the Nobel Prize on October 13th.

Krugman, an international trade expert, offered a gloomy economic forecast to the more than 1,000 people who gathered to listen to him, noting the spread of the U.S. currency crisis to the rest of the world. The $700 billion rescue plan recently passed by Congress, Krugman said, “still looks weak, and it looks small.”

Calling the current situation “one hell of a mess,” Krugman rattled off a lengthy list of what he considers to have been the chief contributing factors.

The first was the unraveling of a theory espoused by many economists, himself included, that developing countries were “decoupled” from economies like the U.S. and Europe and therefore immune to implosions there. That “turns out to be entirely wrong,” Krugman said, noting the rapid-fire worldwide spread of the crisis.

He also blamed former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s decision to reduce interest rates and keep them low following the dotcom crash earlier this decade for setting the stage for the market bubble in the housing sector.

Calling the housing market bubble “pretty predictable,” he cited its rupture as a key part of the present crisis and predicted that house values, which have already plummeted 25 percent, likely still face an additional 15 percent drop.

Krugman participated in a question-and-answer period with Kellogg students after his address, during which time he offered up his view on how the United States might begin to get itself out of the current mess.

Public work projects, including infrastructure repairs on bridges, roads and railways, could be beneficial, he said. Calling himself a “big New Deal romantic,” he said he also sees a role for commissioned artists.

An agenda like the one he describes would be more probable under a Democratic president, he said, pointing out that the financial crisis has made it more likely that voters will choose Barack Obama over John McCain. But no matter who wins next week, he said, “This is no time for a lame-duck administration and a lack of authority.”

Krugman has written more than 20 books, including a recent examination of the rise and fall of the middle class entitled The Conscience of a Liberal. Through his work, he helped establish “new trade theory,” which provides rationale for why only a few countries, similar to one another, dominate international trade. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences earlier this month for his research in this field.

Krugman’s appearance, which was open to the entire Kellogg community and telecast to alternate locations to meet high demand, was the first in the newly launched Kellogg Distinguished Lecture Series, an initiative by the school to bring real-world insights into academic discourse. Future speakers in this series will include preeminent thinkers from the worlds of academia, journalism and business.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Admissions Director Q&A: Beth Flye of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management

Beth Flye, assistant dean and director of admissions for the full-time MBA program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, is the latest contributor to our ongoing Admissions Director Q&A series. Flye, who has almost 20 years of experience in higher education, has served as admissions director at Kellogg since January 2003. She is well known in the admissions circle for encouraging applicants to know themselves and be themselves when applying to Kellogg.

In the interview that follows, you’ll learn more about Kellogg’s unique accelerated one-year program and get Flye’s tips for writing stand-out application essays.

Clear Admit: What is the one area of your program that you wish applicants knew more about?

Beth Flye: The Kellogg School’s One-Year (1Y) Program.  The 1Y program is designed for a person with consistent and specific career goals who wants to gain more business education and return to the workforce quickly. For this type of candidate – a person seeking career enhancement who meets certain prerequisites – the One-Year Program is an excellent educational opportunity and return on investment. More information about the Kellogg School’s One-Year Program can be found here.

CA: Walk us through the life of an application in your office from an operational standpoint. What happens between the time an applicant clicks ’submit’ and the time the committee offers a final decision (e.g. how many “reads” does it get, how long is each “read,” who reads it, does the committee convene to discuss it as a group, etc.). 

BF: After an applicant submits the application, our processing team downloads that information and collects all of the other necessary information to make the file “complete.” After that, the application file goes into the evaluation pool.

For a portion of the applications, the first review will be conducted by a member of our student Admissions Committee. Following that evaluation, one of the admissions officers will review the file, and then the application will come to me for a final review.

For some cases, the file will be read by a fourth reader to help the admissions office reach the most informed decision. As you can surmise, we have a very thorough review process, given that a significant amount of attention is given to each application.

CA: How does your team approach the essay portion of the application specifically? What are you looking for as you read the essays? Are there common mistakes that applicants should try to avoid? One key thing they should keep in mind as they sit down to write them?

BF: Essays serve as another means for an applicant to tell us more about him/herself. We are looking for clarity from our applicants on not only what they have been doing but why various elements of their professional and personal experiences are significant. 

Regarding potential mistakes, I always advise applicants not to fall into the trap of writing what they think the Kellogg School’s admissions team wants to read; what we are looking for is their authentic/genuine thoughts.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Business Schools Brace for Record Round One Application Volumes

As round one application deadlines approach, business schools both here and abroad are bracing for a surge in application volume. Recent reports in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Asia Inc reveal what we’ve long known to be true: When business goes south, business school looks like a better and better idea.

“It’s a very predictable and reliable pattern,” Stacey Kole, deputy dean for the full-time MBA program at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, told the Times. “When there’s a go-go economy, fewer people decide to go back to school. When things go south, the opportunity cost of leaving work is lower.” And for workers who find themselves laid off, the decision is made easier still.

Official application tallies aren’t yet available since deadlines for the first round of admissions still loom at many schools. But early reports indicate that final numbers will be high.

According to the Journal report, New York University’s Stern School of Business has seen a 20 percent increase in attendance at off-site information sessions this year, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management is reporting a 22 percent increase in applications so far, and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business has seen campus visits by prospective students double.

As always, registration volume for the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) provides an early indicator of application volume as well. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the test, registrations for the test through the end of September were 11.6 percent higher than in the comparable period of 2007.

In Europe, the same trends are playing out. “Actually, applications to MBA programmes at IE Business school this year have grown over 15 percent and diversity – the number of countries represented – has also increased,” Santiago Iniguez, dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School in Madrid, told Asia Inc last month. “In fact, the number of U.S. students expected for IE’s MBA programme starting this fall will increase over 20 percent,” he continued.

Still, not everyone sees a direct correlation between a sagging economy and a surge in application volume. Others rightly point out that uncertainty about what the job market will look like upon graduation could deter some from applying. And for some students, the credit crisis may make getting loans to cover the cost of business school more difficult.

Derrick Bolton, director of MBA admissions at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, told the Times that he sees very little correlation between a Wall Street bust and an application boom. According to Bolton, application numbers at his school remained “pretty standard” even after some of Wall Street’s greatest declines, such as the market crash of 1987.

For those in good jobs now, meanwhile, the risk of leaving to go to school may seem too great, according to Peter Johnson, executive director of admissions for the full-time MBA program at the University of California Berkeley’s Hass School of Business. “If you are in a good position and you are not confident of how the picture is going to look two years from now, you may stay in that position,” he told the Journal.

And then there’s the issue of student loans, which have become harder to get due to the widespread credit crunch. According to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, 144 education lenders have suspended private and federal loans. But Kantrowitz says business school students should not be impacted as greatly.
“Graduate student loans are the most profitable [for lenders] because the loan balances are the highest,” he told the Journal.

Stefan Szymanski, associate dean of MBA programs at London’s Cass Business School said much the same thing in an article on topmba.com. “Banks are consistently willing to lend to MBAs because they know they’ll get their money back,” he writes. “And yes, even though the banks have stopped lending to almost everybody else, they seem happy to maintain their loan schemes right now – and they wouldn’t be doing that unless they saw an MBA as a sure-fire economic proposition.”

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Kellogg School of Management Kicks Off Centennial Celebration

Harvard’s is not the only business school celebrating its 100th birthday this year. In an evening gala event last Friday at Chicago’s Museum of Modern Art, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management last Friday launched a centennial celebration of its own to commemorate 100 years of innovation in management education.

“Kellogg is a different kind of business school, dedicated to the ideal that graduates can be a force for positive social change in the world,” said Dean Dipak Jain in a statement announcing the centennial kick-off. “In times of economic uncertainty such as this, it is imperative that the next generation of business leaders not only has the greater good in mind, but also can work in teams to effectively address new challenges,” he continued.

Kellogg’s centennial celebrations will look not only at ways in which Kellogg has changed the face of management education – but also at ways it will continue to evolve the MBA degree, Jain said. 

In the year ahead, Kellogg has planned a series of events both academic and social around the globe to mark the school’s 100th birthday while engaging current students, alumni, faculty and others in an examination of what makes Kellogg Kellogg.

Centennial celebrations – including an arts festival, a roundtable on building a global brand, an innovation summit and more – have been planned in London, San Francisco, and Mexico City as well as on Kellogg’s Evanston and Chicago campuses.

A centennial conference series, meanwhile, will explore topics ranging from customer-centric innovation to corporate sustainability to the future of capital markets. These events, too, will span the globe, with events planned for Miami, Shanghai, New York and Zurich.

Further commemorating Kellogg’s centennial is a new book chronicling the school’s first century. Written by Matt Golosinski, Kellogg editorial director, Wide Awake in the Windy City combines archival material, first-person narrative and more than 100 photographs to trace Kellogg’s rise from its 1908 start as a part-time evening program in Chicago’s loop to its current standing as one of the foremost business schools in the world.

Finally, Kellogg has launched a centennial website, where complete details about all related news and events can be found. Click here to visit: http://centennial.kellogg.northwestern.edu/

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Wall Street Journal Releases First EMBA Ranking

Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management snagged the top spot, followed by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania as number two in the Wall Street Journal’s first survey of executive MBA programs, released yesterday.

Partnering with the Management Research Group of Portland, Maine, and tapping the expertise of Journal editor Jennifer Merritt, who formerly headed up BusinessWeek’s business school rankings, the Journal has officially entered the EMBA ranking game.

The result of extensive surveys with current students, recent grads, and human-resources and executive-development managers at companies across 23 industries, the ranking reveals the top 25 schools around the globe that provide “the rigor needed to build tomorrow’s corporate leaders and C-suite executives,” according to the Journal.

Rounding out the top five programs were the Thunderbird School of Global Management at number three, the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business at number four; and the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School at number five.

To reach its conclusions, the Journal took into account survey scores from students and corporations of 73 EMBA programs at 53 business schools across nine countries. In addition to the student and corporate scores, the rankings also measured what employers wanted out of programs and how well students felt their programs developed those skills.

To compile the final rankings, student and corporate ratings were weighted 40 percent each, and the skills ratings were weighted 20 percent. 

Kellogg and Wharton have among the largest EMBA programs, with 843 candidates currently enrolled in the seven Kellogg programs and with 406 students currently enrolled in Wharton’s two programs. Both schools’ programs got high marks from companies – nearly double their closest competitors – which put them squarely in the lead despite lower scores from students.

That’s because corporate scores varied the most – the two leaders far outpaced those in the middle of the pack. In contrast, student scores were closer in range. So even though Wharton came in at number 15 in terms of student ratings, it was still within striking distance of the leading schools’ scores.

That said, for the number one school in the student ranking, the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, a particularly strong student score is what guaranteed it a place in the top five.

In addition to determining how the various schools measured up to one another, the Journal rankings also revealed interesting information about what students are looking for in EMBA programs overall. Among the key findings:

• School reputation is the top consideration for students choosing which program to attend, as noted by 51 percent of student respondents.
• Quality faculty is a key factor, with 78 percent of students reporting that they considered their school because of its distinguished faculty.
• Students are drawn to EMBA programs because they offer a way to develop leadership skills without losing more than a few days a month in the office and because what they learn in school can be immediately applied on the job. “Learn on Friday and Saturday, apply on Monday,” is how one respondent put it.
• Cost was relatively unimportant whether or not companies helped pay the bill. Program tuition ranged from $65,000 to $160,000; nearly 34 percent of students said they paid their own way, 30 percent said their employers paid the entire bill, and 13 percent said their companies paid at least half. (Average out-of-pocket expense among respondents was $45,000.)
• Distance is not a deterrent for the right program. While the majority of students (64 percent) traveled less than 50 miles one way, 7 percent commuted up to 200 miles and nearly 9 percent schlepped a whopping 1,000 miles or more one way.
• With an EMBA comes a bonus or promotion or both. Of those surveyed, 24 percent report having been given both a raise and promotion since they started classes and another 30 percent expect both in the next year.

Companies, meanwhile, have their own set of expectations. Quick return on investment topped the list, with 26 percent of companies saying they expect to see management and leadership skills put to use immediately, and an equal percentage expect them to be put to use within a year of graduation. Human-resource-development managers – 64 percent of them – view EMBA programs as a means of holding onto talent. And 55 percent of company respondents called the EMBA a critical business investment.

Despite the high marks for many programs, the rankings suggest that there’s still room for improvement. Companies sometimes complain that students return from EMBA programs seeking to solve business problems like academic exercises – without practical sense. Students complained about programs that rely too heavily on distance technology that doesn’t always work well or enhance the learning process.

Finally, more flexibility was called for by many students, for whom program scheduling can prove too difficult work into an existing work routine or for whom the 15 hours or more of study per week is too much to carry.

To view the complete rankings, click here. To read more about the methodology the Journal employed to compile its rankings, click here.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Wharton School, Law School at University of Pennsylvania Launch Joint Three-Year JD/MBA Program

The Wharton School and Law School at the University of Pennsylvania yesterday announced the launch of an accelerated three-year joint JD/MBA degree program. The program, which will begin in September 2009, will target potential applicants with around two years of experience in either law or business-related fields.

“Business today operates in a complex legal and regulatory environment,” Thomas Robertson, dean of the Wharton School, said in a statement announcing the new program. “Success requires the ability to navigate through this landscape,” he continued.

Among elite schools, the University of Pennsylvania joins several others offering a combined JD/MBA program, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Yale. But far fewer schools allow students to complete both degrees in a mere three years, as the new U. Penn program does. Northwestern transitioned from a four-year to a three-year JD/MBA degree program several years ago, and the Kelley School of Business and the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington together offer a three-year joint program as well. 

The structure of the new Penn program will be as follows: Students will spend their first year taking classes in the Law School, followed by a summer of four Law and Wharton courses designed specifically for the JD/MBA program. The second and third years will include both Law and Wharton courses, and in the summer between the two students will be expected to gain work experience in law, business, finance or the public sector.

To enroll in the three-year combined program, applicants must be admitted by both schools. Students in the joint program also must perform 70 hours of supervised pro-bono legal work as a requirement for graduation. The program is expected to enroll approximately 20 students each year.

To learn more about Penn’s new three-year JD/MBA program, click here. For a discussion of the pros and cons of an accelerated joint JD/MBA, click here.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Trivia Tuesday: School-Wide Socializing

Welcome to another edition of Trivia Tuesday, our ongoing series exploring the programs, resources and opportunities available at the leading business schools.

Although most of our columns have focused on the academic options schools offer, this week we turn our attention to students’ opportunities for socializing with classmates. Since creating a strong network of friends and future colleagues is one of the lasting benefits of business school, prospective students may want to examine the ways in which schools help classmates get to know each other and build relationships. One popular method schools use to bring students together is program-wide happy hours. These events are usually held at the end of the academic week and tend to be organized by the MBA student government.

For instance, a staple of Wharton’s social life is Pub, held Thursday evenings throughout the academic year. MBA students pay a membership fee at the beginning of the year for access to all club events as well as all the rotating wines and beer, pizza and non-alcoholic drinks they desire. Other Wharton clubs take turns sponsoring the weekly pubs; previous themes included Japan Night, Pink Pub: Wharton Women in Business, and Europa Oktoberfest. With over 85% of Wharton students typically joining the Pub, it is one of the best ways to meet Wharton classmates.

MIT Sloan’s Consumption Function happy hours (C-Functions) are also a popular part of student social life. Held most Thursday evenings during the academic year, the C-Functions are a great way to get together with classmates and other members of the Sloan community in a relaxed, non-academic setting. The events are organized by the Sloan Activities Board, but are usually sponsored by other clubs on campus and have weekly themes. Past themes include the 1970s, Brazil, Meet the Faculty, Oktoberfest and the Canadian C-Function.

In a similar vein, the Chicago GSB hosts weekly Liquidity Preference Functions each Friday afternoon, Columbia Business School hosts Thursday Happy Hours in the Uris Hall deli (with rotating post-Happy Hour destinations), and Kellogg students gather each Friday in the Atrium for the Kellogg TG (reputedly short for “Thank God it’s Friday”).

Most schools invite prospective students visiting campus to drop by the happy hour, and attending one of these events can be a great way to talk with current students and learn about the campus culture.

For more information on the social side of the leading MBA programs, be sure to talk with current students or to check out the Clear Admit School Guides!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Kellogg 2008-2009 Essay Spacing Clarification

Earlier this summer Clear Admit posted Kellogg’s 2008-2009 essay topics and provided our own analysis of each prompt. At the time Kellogg’s website made no mention of spacing requirements for their essays (although the school has historically required double spacing). After contacting the school’s admissions office to clarify this point, we posted our findings: that essays were no longer required to be double spaced.

More recently, it has come to our attention that there was a bit of miscommunication from the admissions office in this regard. If you have had conflicting information from the school’s office and website, Clear Admit would like to help straighten this out. Kellogg does, in fact, require its essays to be double spaced.

If, in the future, you find yourself unsure of the requirements for any school it is always helpful to call or email their admissions office. That being said, it is usually a good idea to double space all your essays to increase the ease one’s eyes feel when reading.

Monday, August 11, 2008

MIT Sloan to Launch New MBA Ethics Program

The Sloan School of Management will present a new MBA ethics program to all incoming students as part of orientation this fall, according to a recent report in the Financial Times. The launch of the new program is designed to shift the focus away from the case study approach to teaching ethics toward one that voices values.

The Sloan program is based on Giving Voice to Values, a program developed by former Harvard Business School academic Mary Gentile with support from the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program and the Yale University School of Management. The program begins by helping participants identify ways they can voice their values in the workplace and goes on to give them opportunities to build the arguments, communications skills and commitment to do so.

“This is a big deal, because a leading business school is committing to using this programme during the initial, framing foundational discussion of ethics in the MBA programme,” Gentile told the FT. “They want to do it early on because it is a ‘positive’ frame, empowering, asking what you can do rather than focusing on ‘thou shalt not.’”

Gentile developed Giving Voice to Values as an alternative to the case study approach to teaching business ethics, which she believes falls short because it leaves students without the tools to tackle issues that conflict with their values in the “real world.”

According to the FT report, Gentile’s program is currently being adopted or adapted at 36 schools, including Columbia Business School and the Kellogg School of Management.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Trivia Tuesday: Scheduling the Academic Year at Chicago, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, Stanford, Tuck, and Wharton

It’s time again for Trivia Tuesday, our weekly examination of the policies and programs that influence the student experience at the leading business schools. This week we turn our attention to an important yet often overlooked feature of MBA programs: the academic calendar. Though not a factor most applicants take into account, a school’s academic calendar can impact the number of classes students take, the timing of the recruiting season, and when students need to begin and end their summer internships – not to mention how much down-time students have during the school year.

Most schools use a version of either the semester or quarter system to organize the academic year. For instance, Wharton’s academic calendar is based on the traditional semester system, with fall semester classes running from early September to mid-December and spring semester classes taking place from mid- January through mid-May. In addition to the extended break between the fall and spring semesters, students also have off for several days in October and in March.

MIT Sloan’s academic calendar is also organized around a semester system, but the school makes several distinctive adjustments. For instance, MIT Sloan breaks up each thirteen-week semester in the following manner: six weeks of classes, a one week “innovation period” and then the remaining six weeks of classes. Moreover, an optional four-week January term between the fall and spring semesters provides an opportunity for students to participate in a variety of credit and non-credit activities.

Although the semester system is the norm at the majority of colleges and universities in the United States, many leading business schools have opted to use the quarter system instead. The quarter system is said to have been invented by William Rainey Harper, the first President of the University of Chicago, as a means of exposing students to more material than the traditional semester system allows. The quarter-based calendar is used by all schools at the University of Chicago, as well as business schools such as Kellogg, Stanford and Tuck.

Under a quarter system, the standard academic year takes place across the autumn, winter and spring terms; since most MBA students participate in an internship between their first and second years, enrollment in summer quarter courses is not typical.

As a result of the quarter system, the academic calendar at Chicago, Kellogg, Stanford, and Tuck differs from those of other leading business schools. Students in the quarter system tend to start classes later, often in mid-September, have more short breaks, and finish the academic year later than their peers in semester systems. Spring quarter exams typically conclude in early- or late-June under the quarter system, which is 2-4 weeks after the end of classes at schools such as Wharton or Harvard. The late end of the spring quarter can impact summer planning for first-year students, since many internships begin in mid-June.

Overall, the semester system allows for a slightly longer winter break and an earlier start to summer, while maximizing the length of time students spend in each course. On the other hand, the quarter system generally allows for a later start to the school year and, by increasing the number of terms in the year, increases the number of courses a student can take. Although most students will be successful under either calendar system, some applicants may find one of the designs a better fit for their personality, goals or work habits. For more information on the organization of the academic year and its impact on students, be sure to check out the Clear Admit School Guides!

Monday, August 04, 2008

Northwestern/Kellogg Deadlines 2008-2009

Kellogg has published its deadlines for the 2008-2009 application cycle.

Round 1
Application Deadline: October 17, 2008
Decision Notification: January 7, 2009

Round 2
Application Deadline: January 12, 2009
Decision Notification: March 30, 2009

Round 3
Application Deadline: March 9, 2009
Decision Notification: May 18, 2009

All application materials are due by 11:59 CDT.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Kellogg School of Management Pre-Term: All Students Invited (i.e. Attendance Mandatory)

In a post last week, we pointed out that though summer may still be in full swing, students at some schools are already hitting the books. Specifically, we blogged about the start of Fuqua’s optional pre-term programs in language and math, which are now underway.

Fuqua is certainly not the only MBA program to offer pre-term classes for incoming students. Some schools, in fact, feature a mandatory pre-term that all students are required to attend.

One such school is Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, which offers a required orientation for all first-year students entering each year. Called “Pre-Term,” this program features three key components that together are designed to get students off to a strong academic start, build camaraderie from day one and help foster strong leadership skills.

Kellogg’s three-pronged Pre-Term begins with Complete Immersion in Management (CIM), an orientation program launched in 1969 as part of an effort to introduce first-year students to each other and to Kellogg’s collaborative culture. Organized for first years by the second-year class, CIM features speakers, diversity workshops and team-building activities, as well as social events and a community service project.

“CIM Week set the tone for my Kellogg experience — incredible, intense and inspirational,” said recent Kellogg graduate Andrea Jackson, from Salt Lake City, Utah. In her own second year, Jackson served on the CIM Executive Committee and led a community service day in Chicago for incoming students. “Introducing the new students to the Kellogg experience and values was as rewarding to me as my own CIM Week,” Jackson added.

CIM is the first portion of Kellogg’s two-week Pre-Term program for students in the school’s two-year MBA and Master of Management and Manufacturing (MBA) programs. The other two key components are Technology Education@Kellogg and Leadership in Organizations, one of Kellogg’s core classes.

Technology Education@Kellogg, or TEKcamp, is designed to help new students get plugged in and up and running in Kellogg’s networked environment. In addition to introducing students to the technology environment at Kellogg, TEKcamp also includes a range of sessions designed to help students review and or build their quantitative skill sets.

Leadership in Organizations, meanwhile, serves as students’ first real foray into academics at Kellogg. Beginning in the second week of orientation, this intensive core class consists of 10 three-hour class sessions, complete with a final exam.

The course is designed to help students zero in on issues related to leadership, teamwork, ethics and the competitive advantage that can be gained through people and how they are organized. A full-credit core course, Leadership in Organizations serves as students’ re-introduction into the classroom while also knocking out a core requirement before the first semester even begins.

Students in Kellogg’s one-year accelerated MBA program participate in a Pre-Term that, like the rest of their curriculum, is a condensed version of the two-year program. Pre-Term for one-year MBA students begins in June. Pre-Term for two-year MBA and MMM students begins two weeks prior to fall quarter, starting this year on September 2nd.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Trivia Tuesday: Health Care Majors at Wharton, Duke/Fuqua, Columbia, Harvard and Kellogg

Welcome back to Trivia Tuesday, our regular examination of the offerings and opportunities at the leading business schools.

Today we turn our attention to options for studying health care in business school, with a particular emphasis on Wharton’s Health Care Systems Major and Duke’s Health Sector Management Program, the two oldest and best known health care programs among U.S. business schools.

Wharton’s major draws its faculty from the business, medical and nursing schools, as well as from practicing health care professionals, ensuring an interdisciplinary approach to the issues in the field. The Health Care Systems major differs from other majors at Wharton in that students must choose the major in their initial application to the school instead of in their second year. Health Care Systems further differs in that it aggressively integrates professional development and field work into the major.

For instance, all Health Care majors are required to complete a Field Application Project (FAP). In the FAP, teams of students spend a semester working with an industry partner to solve real world problems in the health care field. Given the amount of time these projects can take, students must work carefully to balance classes around the demands of their projects.

At Fuqua, students enter the HSM program from a variety of backgrounds; though the program does not require prior health sector experience, it does look for a strong commitment to the healthcare field among all participants. As with Wharton’s Health Care Systems major, application to Fuqua’s HSM program is through the MBA admissions process, with HSM applicants asked to indicate their interest in pursuing the HSM Certificate in a special section of the application.

Once enrolled, Duke HSM students spend the first year completing the standard core curriculum before beginning the coursework that leads to the HSM Certificate. To earn the Certificate, HSM students take three HSM core courses and three healthcare electives (see Figure “Health Sector Management Courses”). All six HSM courses count as elective credits towards the MBA degree requirements. This is a slightly heavier courseload than required by Wharton’s healthcare program, which asks students to complete two foundations courses and three healthcare electives.

Despite the prominence of the Wharton and Duke programs, they are far from the only option for MBA applicants seeking a career in health care. For instance, Columbia now offers the Health Care and Pharmaceutical Management major, Kellogg offers a major in Health Industry Management, and HBS hosts the Healthcare Initiative. Those business schools that do not offer formal health care concentrations tend to have a student club and/or a student-organized conference dedicated to supporting interest in the field, so regardless of the program, health care minded applicants should find plenty of resources.

For more on health care options, majors, student clubs or conferences, be sure to check out business schools’ websites and the Clear Admit School Guides!

Monday, July 07, 2008

Northwestern / Kellogg Deadlines 2008-2009

The Kellogg MBA application essays were released a few weeks ago, and now the Kellogg deadlines for the 2008-2009 admissions season have also been announced. Part I of the application includes the data form, an interview request (either on- or off-campus) and the application fee. Part II of Kellogg’s application are the remaining materials of a release of contact information, transcripts, essays, resume, the school’s honor code and two recommendations.

As interviews are a required part of Kellogg’s admissions process, the adcom has broken up the deadlines for Part I of the ap