Kellogg Admissions Officers Offer Insights in Online BusinessWeek Chat

Earlier this week Beth Flye, assistant dean and director of admissions at the Kellogg School of Management, and Carla Edelston, senior associate director of the school's Career Management Center, fielded questions from applicants during a live online chat on BusinessWeek. In the chat Flye and Edelston offered up some good nuggets for applicants who are in the thick of the MBA admissions process.

When asked about how much Kellogg "weighs extracurricular activities," Flye's response was right on target with what we tell our clients: "We do review extracurricular activities as that area shows us more about the applicant—i.e., his/her passions, involvements—as well as [allowing us to] learn more about that person's leadership and team involvements beyond work."

Note those last few words... Don't think of extracurricular activities, community service, and hobbies as a "check the box" exercise, but rather as one more way to demonstrate the traits that admissions officers look for in all applicants: leadership, teamwork, innovation, and maturity. While it may not seem obvious at first glance, community service and recreational activities can help you demonstrate these attributes just as much as your full-time job can.

In terms of the number of applications Kellogg has received so far this year, Flye reports that Kellogg's numbers are up slightly vs. this time last year. It will be interesting to see where Kellogg and other top MBA programs net out at the end of the year... Will the soft economy keep pushing more people to grad school, or will the worldwide financial shakeout continue to put downward pressure on the number of business school applications? Or both?

One applicant asked about whether a low GMAT score will hurt an applicant with a strong undergraduate GPA, and once again Flye gave advice that we frequently give to applicants: "If your quantitative score was not as competitive and if you had never had a quant class, I would encourage you to take a statistics course to be more competitive, and to further prepare yourself to be a student." We firmly believe that you can't go wrong by taking a couple of college-level courses before applying to business school, especially if you didn't major in (or do well in) quant-oriented courses while you were an undergrad.

Interestingly, while some schools recently have encouraged applicants to consider applying in Round 3, Kellogg's take is less rosy for a potential Round 3 applicant: "We strongly encourage candidates to apply for one of the first two rounds."

Finally, to an applicant who asked about low GMAT scores, Flye confirmed that Kellogg focuses on an applicant's highest GMAT score. So, if you aren't satisfied with your current score, there's virtually no downside in taking it again.

If you're ready to start building your own application for Kellogg or other top MBA programs, call us at 1-800-925-7737 and speak with an MBA admissions consultant today!