Kellogg Leaders are primed to tackle today’s pressing concerns everywhere, from the boardroom to their neighborhoods. Tell us about a time in your life where you’ve needed a combination of skills to solve a problem or overcome a challenge. Which skills did you use? What did you accomplish? (450 words)
Leadership is one of the most sought-after qualities by the best business schools. Each of the top MBA programs expects their MBA admits to having displayed leadership skills and having high potential for becoming a strong leader after MBA.
This MBA essay from Kellogg seeks to understand how, as a leader, you face and overcome challenges. Don't consider this to be just an achievement story or use this space to talk about the quantitative impact you might have made in your company. This Kellogg MBA essay seeks to understand you at a deeper level - you as a person, your character, and your skills that are displayed in crisis/ challenging situations.
So think about scenarios and situations where you had to encounter significant challenges, maybe even risks, but despite that, you displayed courage, found solutions, applied skills and went ahead to create - a positive impact on people, organization(s), and communities around you.
Since the significant portion of this MBA essay will be about the challenges you faced - narrating the significant difficulties coherently but concisely and showing how you applied your thought and intelligence to find solutions, and what you learned from them, will make for an impactful MBA essay. Try to also show your emotions and thought process and help the Kellogg MBA admissions team get a glimpse into your authentic self.
Do your best!
At Kellogg, our values are based on research that concludes organizations comprised of leaders with varied backgrounds and perspectives outperform homogeneous ones. How do you believe your personal and professional experiences to date will help to enrich the Kellogg community?(450 words)
A new essay from Kellogg aims to take into account details of your backgrounds that might not have been captured in other aspects of your application.
So your objective in this essay is two-fold:
1. Decide what aspects of your personal and professional experiences, make you unique and would be valuable for Kellogg.
2. Think about how through those experiences, you will contribute to Kellogg.
Now these contributions can be in the form of initiatives you will take, or unique perspectives that you will bring or assests that come with you to the business school community.
As is the objective with all the MBA essays - your focus must be on wowing the admissions team! Go for it!
If needed, use this section to briefly describe any extenuating circumstances (e.g. unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, etc.) (No word limit)
Use the Kellogg optional essay to explain shortfalls in your application which you feel are truly detrimental to your candidature. If you believe some aspect in your application that needs to be explained, better do so. The admissions team might making incorrect estimations in absence of explanation. E.g. if you are not providing recommendation from your immediate supervisor, adcom might construe you are not on good terms with your manager and might misconstrue your interpersonal skills. So, explicitly describe the reasons.
Comment on your shortcomings with intelligence, perspective and credibility: giving vague excuses or blaming xyz for failures will be completely counter-productive. Explain the issue clearly and maintain greater focus on the correction for the issue. Keep it brief and to the point.
Go for it!
After submitting a completed application, each applicant will be asked to complete several Video Essay Questions. The questions will be comparable to questions asked in an interview setting. Candidates will have 20 seconds to think about their question and up to 1 minute to give their response.
Kellogg's instructions: There are 10 practice questions which candidates can complete as many times as they like to get comfortable with the format and technology. The practice questions and experience will simulate the actual video essay experience, so this is meant to be a useful tool and help applicants feel prepared. There is not an opportunity to re-do the answer to the official video essay questions. We encourage applicants to practice so they are comfortable with the format once it is time to complete the official questions. Candidates will have 20 seconds to think about their question and up to 1 minute to give their response.
MBA video tipsKellogg MBA application requires you to submit a one-page resume along with details about your employment and academics. The typical MBA resume format consists of employment, education, and extracurricular details. MBA resume tips
In your Kellogg application, you will be asked to provide two MBA letters of recommendation - from your current or previous supervisors. Like many top business schools in the US, Kellogg MBA application constitutes of letter of recommendation questions from the GMAC MBA letter of recommendation template. MBA LOR tips
As is the policy with most top business schools, Kellogg MBA interviews are conducted only by invitation. Students typically would receive an invite 4-6 weeks after submitting their MBA applications. MBA interview tips
