“There are times in history when transformational change becomes imperative for an organization — because the world in which that organization has thrived fundamentally changes,” Blount said on a website launched yesterday to communicate the new strategy. “Now is one of those times for Kellogg. The nature of business and how it operates in the 21st century requires that we rethink who we are and how we do what we do.”

Through Envision Kellogg, the school hopes to “shape business education and thought leadership for the 21st century,” the website proclaims. The 18-month, 360-degree assessment that informed the new strategy involved more than 1,000 alumni, faculty, administrators, students, corporate partners and others and was completed with the assistance of consulting firms Booz & Co., Boston Consulting Group and Deloitte.

Among other things, this comprehensive review revealed increasing demand for the school’s 12-month MBA program for students who already have an undergraduate degree. Application volume and class size for this program have both been on the rise since 2007, while applications to Kellogg’s full-time two-year MBA program have fallen in the last year. 

“It’s very clear that growth in demand for the two-year MBA is going to be slowing and that growth for one-year programs will be growing,” Blount said in an interview with PoetsandQuants. “We have to be realistic about the market in which we find ourselves. We think the market for two-year MBAs is going to get very elite.”

For this reason, Kellogg plans to market its one-year program more aggressively. Blount told PoetsandQuants that she thinks enrollment in Kellogg’s one-year MBA program could grow from its current 85 students to perhaps 250 over the next five years, while enrollment in the school’s two-year program could fall to about 850 students from 1,115.

“The two-year MBA is a stunning product that we are very proud of,” Blount told PoetsandQuants. “We are definitely staying in that market, but we are preparing for a world where the best students may not want that and they have options. We don’t think 20-something people from China are going to come to the U.S. for a two-year degree. The opportunity cost is just perceived to be too high.”

The strategic plan also calls for the creation of four “impact areas” that will reorganize how the school conducts research and what makes up its curriculum. These four areas – coined “Markets, customers and growth;” “Innovation and entrepreneurship;” “Architectures of collaboration,” and “Private enterprise and public policy” – are intended to provide a framework for study within Kellogg’s traditional core academic areas of finance, accounting, marketing, strategy, organizational behavior, and managerial economics and decision sciences.

For more details . . . → Continue Reading]]> The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University yesterday announced a new comprehensive strategy that includes shrinking its two-year MBA program, enlarging its one-year MBA program, expanding its global footprint and sharpening its brand. The plan, coined Envision Kellogg, follows from an in-depth strategic review led by Dean Sally Blount, who assumed leadership of Kellogg in July 2010.

“There are times in history when transformational change becomes imperative for an organization — because the world in which that organization has thrived fundamentally changes,” Blount said on a website launched yesterday to communicate the new strategy. “Now is one of those times for Kellogg. The nature of business and how it operates in the 21st century requires that we rethink who we are and how we do what we do.”

Through Envision Kellogg, the school hopes to “shape business education and thought leadership for the 21st century,” the website proclaims. The 18-month, 360-degree assessment that informed the new strategy involved more than 1,000 alumni, faculty, administrators, students, corporate partners and others and was completed with the assistance of consulting firms Booz & Co., Boston Consulting Group and Deloitte.

Among other things, this comprehensive review revealed increasing demand for the school’s 12-month MBA program for students who already have an undergraduate degree. Application volume and class size for this program have both been on the rise since 2007, while applications to Kellogg’s full-time two-year MBA program have fallen in the last year. 

“It’s very clear that growth in demand for the two-year MBA is going to be slowing and that growth for one-year programs will be growing,” Blount said in an interview with PoetsandQuants. “We have to be realistic about the market in which we find ourselves. We think the market for two-year MBAs is going to get very elite.”

For this reason, Kellogg plans to market its one-year program more aggressively. Blount told PoetsandQuants that she thinks enrollment in Kellogg’s one-year MBA program could grow from its current 85 students to perhaps 250 over the next five years, while enrollment in the school’s two-year program could fall to about 850 students from 1,115.

“The two-year MBA is a stunning product that we are very proud of,” Blount told PoetsandQuants. “We are definitely staying in that market, but we are preparing for a world where the best students may not want that and they have options. We don’t think 20-something people from China are going to come to the U.S. for a two-year degree. The opportunity cost is just perceived to be too high.”

The strategic plan also calls for the creation of four “impact areas” that will reorganize how the school conducts research and what makes up its curriculum. These four areas – coined “Markets, customers and growth;” “Innovation and entrepreneurship;” “Architectures of collaboration,” and “Private enterprise and public policy” – are intended to provide a framework for study within Kellogg’s traditional core academic areas of finance, accounting, marketing, strategy, organizational behavior, and managerial economics and decision sciences.

For more details on Kellogg’s new strategic plan for management education, click here.

“Came to the interview early to prep and get comfortable. Got a chance to sit in on a class and some other activities day-of. Interviewer was very nice and direct. Here are the questions I can recall:

Overall, I think the interview went really well, I had actually met the interviewer 3 months earlier at an information session in my city. She clearly had not remembered me, but it helped that I had a reference. The interview was brisk, calm, and methodical. At the very end I felt like she had gotten a very complete snap shot of me and it left me at a loss for questions. Though she started the session saying it would take about 30 min., it took 45 minutes.”

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Wiki this season!  For the next few weeks, we’ll be awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate to every fifth applicant who submits content for the Wiki!  In other words, all you have to do is send us your interview field report for inclusion in the Wiki and, if you’re selected, we’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift certificate.   While any contributor can win, you must send your interview report to wiki@clearadmit.com to be eligible; we’ll post it to the Wiki and notify the winners by e-mail (Limit: one Amazon gift card per person).

The most helpful and informative reports usually include the following information:

Applicants who would like to supplement the information available on the Wiki can check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which provide school-specific insight and strategic about admissions interviews. Best of luck in your interviews!

From now until Tuesday, January 10 at 9am EST, purchase our School Guide titles to HBS, Kellogg and Stanford for just $19.99.  Not applying to these programs?  You’ll find 27 titles to leading MBA programs in the U.S. and abroad available for immediate download in the Clear Admit Shop.

Clear Admit wishes the best of luck to Round 2 applicants!

“When I showed up for my Kellogg interview, I was asked to present my resume and fill out some paper work regarding my career goals, short and long, and my intended concentrations at Kellogg. My assumption was that the interviewer would quickly look a this in advance of the interview along with my resume. There will likely be several students in the lobby preparing to interview. I would suggest getting to know them and making conversation as a way to ease nerves before the interview.

My interviewer was a 1st year student. She started the interview by telling me it would be a blind interview and that the fact that she was a 1st year student did not put me at any disadvantage. Then the questions began as follows.

My interview lasted 35 minutes.”

To see more MBA admissions interview reports, check out the Clear Admit Wiki – a free resource with hundreds of real, documented interview experiences from b-school applicants. Also, if you’d like to help your fellow applicants by adding your experiences, please send us your interview field report and we’ll post it to the wiki. Finally, if you’d like even more helpful hints and detailed analysis on how to ace your interview, check out our line of Interview Guides, which demystify the most common questions asked by the leading programs and offer step-by-step guidance for a successful interview.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and best of luck to those undergoing admissions interviews!

“I had mine on campus. Interviewer was an admissions [officer] and very friendly. Handed my resume and a sheet, which i had just filled out upon arrival, which asked to write ST/LT goals (space given to answer each is limited so i think they just expect the highlights)

Questions i got:

Interview lasted 1 hour. Hope it helps! Good luck to all!”

For more MBA admissions interview reports, be sure to check out the Clear Admit Wiki – a free resource with hundreds of real, documented interview experiences from b-school applicants.  Also, if you’d like to help your fellow applicants by adding your experiences, please send us your interview field report and we’ll post it to the wiki.  Finally, if you’d like even more helpful hints and detailed analysis on how to ace your interview, check out our line of Interview Guides, which demystify the most common questions asked by the leading programs and offer step-by-step guidance for a successful interview.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and best of luck to anyone still undergoing admissions interviews.

“The Next Generation of Social Impact” was the theme of this year’s Innovating Social Change Conference, which took place at Kellogg on October 15th. The annual conference, now in its 12th year, is one of several student-led events at Kellogg. 

Honest Tea’s Goldman encouraged conference attendees to target business practices toward social responsibility rather than making social impact a sideline consideration. “If you make $10 million and do something nice with $1 million, you’ve missed the mark,” he said. Coca-Cola, recognizing that environmental consciousness and social responsibility were becoming more important to their consumers, in March 2011 acquired Honest Tea, which has a recognized commitment to natural ingredients and fair-trade practices. According to Goldman, Coke’s acquisition was as much for Honest Tea’s brand message as it was to round out its beverage line-up.

The conference also featured a range of panel discussions, including one entitled “Money vs. Talent: Achieving Scale in Social Impact” moderated by Kellogg lecturer of social enterprise Jason Saul. Saul noted that more and more large corporations, like Coca-Cola, are recognizing that their consumers are demanding more social responsibility. “Companies are trying to bottle, package and sell social impact,” Saul said.

Panelists – such as Liam Krehbiel ’07, founder and CEO of venture philanthropy fund A Better Chicago – shared ways to harness corporate interest to increase the impact of social responsibility. On behalf of corporations, Krehbiel’s organization researches the best education nonprofits in the area to help companies achieve a greater impact. “They trust us to find the best organizations and make an impact with pooled resources,” Krehbiel said.

The mission and message of the recent conference dovetails with Kellogg’s new “Think Bravely” campaign, which suggests that to truly impact the world, future business leaders must couple strong business savvy with social responsibility.

Darell Hammond, founder of KaBOOM!, which uses corporate donations and employee volunteerism to build playgrounds, urged Kellogg students attending the conference to carry what they’d learned with them regardless of where their careers were headed. “Everything you touch, make better,” he said. “You don’t have to start a company to do that.”

To learn more about the Innovating Social Change Conference at Kellogg, click here.

“My interview was conducted by two people: a Kellogg admissions officer and a first year student who was training to be a part of recruiting. The interview was pretty conversational and the interviewers were very friendly. Here is an overview of the of the questions I was asked:

For more MBA admissions interview reports, be sure to check out the Clear Admit Wiki – a free resource with hundreds of real, documented interview experiences from b-school applicants.  Also, if you’d like to help your fellow applicants by adding your experiences, please send us your interview field report and we’ll post it to the wiki.  Finally, if you’d like even more helpful hints and detailed analysis on how to ace your interview, check out our line of Interview Guides, which demystify the most common questions asked by the leading programs and offer step-by-step guidance for a successful interview.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and best of luck to anyone still undergoing admissions interviews.

Through combined admissions, schools can look for applicants whose profiles may not be strong enough to secure a spot in the full-time MBA program but who might be well suited for the part-time or executive MBA programs. For example, students with low GMAT scores but valuable work experience could be admitted to the EMBA cohort at certain programs instead of the full-time MBA program, admissions officials told the FT.

Schools that embrace combined admissions are able to merge the admissions functions of different programs within the school, realizing cost savings and better meeting their recruiting targets by being able to market the traditional full-time MBA as well as the part-time and executive programs to applicants to ensure that each student finds a fit with one program.

At CBS, for example, Vice Dean Amir Ziv helped centralize admissions two years ago. Before then “the full-time MBA and EMBA were separate divisions and instead of co-operating they were almost competing [for students],” Ziv told the FT.

At IE, meanwhile, the new system helps direct highly qualified students who may not gain admission to the full-time MBA program to consider alternate programs instead. Strong candidates who are turned down for IE’s flagship international MBA program now undergo a more formal counseling process about which other programs could be a fit, Lisa Bevil, director of full-time admissions, told the FT. Ten percent of students who applied to one program now study in another as a result of the new system, she said.

The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business combined admissions two years ago, and since then 130 students have applied to the part-time program instead of the EMBA after receiving advice from admissions counselors about better fit, Ross Director of Admissions Soojin Koh told the FT. “They would have all applied to the EMBA and probably would have not been admitted, because they had mis-evaluated their experience,” Koh said. 

Combined admissions is also helping schools cut costs. “We didn’t have shared accountability for the enrolment results . . . there was no formal process for cross selling and there was no co-ordinated marketing plan,” Liz Riley Hargrove, associate dean for admission at Duke, told the FT about the school’s previous system. Now, “we save a significant amount of money just by co-ordinating the [recruiting] schedule,” she added. 

To learn more about some schools’ move toward combined admissions, click here.

“Wow!” was Sanket‘s first reaction to the Stanford School Guide, which he praises for its use as a comparative tool for MBA program research:

“USP [Unique Selling Proposition] of the guide – Comparative study…The graphical presentation of the information in comparison with other programs makes it easy to understand how GSB is different…In fact, this is very good tool for school selection.”

My MBA Dreamz, who frequents the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Blog for school research, wished he had read the Darden guide earlier:

“I had attended the Darden Info Session, and thought I was fully equipped to apply to Darden. But I was wrong. I can see that after reading the Clear Admit guide, which explains in great detail, the various aspects of Darden. I wish I had read this guide before attending the info session.”

Roller Coaster had this, and more, to say about the Clear Admit School Guide to Kellogg:

“I had always read that such guides are just a summary of what can be found on the website. While this guide largely conforms to this assertion, it gives you some nuggets of information which are more than worth the price of the guide…I would highly recommend Clearadmit’s guides if you are looking for information on schools in a clear and concise form.”

With Round 1 interview invitations coming out over the next few weeks and Round 2 deadlines on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to do school research.  All 27 Clear Admit School Guides are available for immediate download in the Clear Admit Shop.  If you’re using an iPad or iPhone, be sure to check out the App versions of seven of our School Guides in the iTunes Store.

Prospective applicants to Chicago Booth, Columbia, Harvard, INSEAD, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton need to look no further for a comprehensive, at your fingertips resource that is helpful at all stages of the MBA admissions process.  Whether you are just beginning to research target schools, crafting application essays, preparing for an admissions interview or making a final decision about where you attend, the Clear Admit MBA Guide Apps are a valuable and time-saving resource.

Each of the seven MBA Guide Apps includes 30+ pages of objective information covering student demographics, academics, special programs, student life, career services, admission and financial aid among other things.  The convenient “Notes” feature allows you to record your thoughts as you peruse each page of the guide.

If you’re an MBA applicant who wants the benefits of the Clear Admit School Guides with the convince of being able to read them anywhere, the School Guide Apps are for you!

Visit the iTunes Store today to download the MBA Guide Apps for the iPad and iPhone!