Congratulations Kellogg 2012 Round 1 Admits

For the last two or three days, I’ve been getting periodic requests from folks to join the Kellogg class of 2012 group on Facebook, but just today I've been flooded with them. This must mean that acceptances have finally started rolling out, which is pretty big news. I'm writing here just to send a quick congratulations to everyone who has been accepted so far, because many of you will be my classmates next year. Although I'm currently at Northwestern now, as a JD-MBA student, I don't actually matriculate at Kellogg until the Fall of 2010, so I'm actually part of the class of 2012. For those of you who are seriously considering Kellogg, you should definitely make sure you come to Day at Kellogg (DAK) in February to check out the campus and meet your potential classmates before making your final decision. I went to DAK last year and had a really good time. I also plan to go this year, so be sure to keep a look out for me on campus when you are there.

Best of luck to everyone still waiting out admissions decisions ! I know from experience that waiting often feels like the hardest part of the process.

Mckinsey & Co Reception

Just last week, I attended an evening reception at Mckinsey & Co here in downtown Chicago. The event was a reception for first year MBA students, and although I’m not at Kellogg this year, and won't technically be a first year at Kellogg until next year, one of the recruiters sent me a personal invite to attend. So I took her up on her offer and I decided to bring a couple of my JD-MBA buddies to the reception along with me.

When it comes to management consulting, and probably business in general, McKinsey is the most well-known of the firms. The name certainly carries a bit of prestige with it, and they definitely have a huge presence in Chicago. Over the past year or so, I’ve been to a couple of McKinsey events, and they’ve all been a lot of fun and drew a pretty unique crowd of folks with different professional backgrounds and interests. So I was pretty intrigued to see how this event would turn out.

This reception happened to be the most informal of the events I’ve been too. It took place in the corner room of a medium sized restaurant downtown near the water. It was a pretty intimate crowd, maybe 30 or so MBAs from both Chicago Booth and Kellogg. There were three of us 1st year JD-MBAs from Northwestern and probably 6 or 7 McKinsey consultants.

The entire night was basically a meet-and-greet. No presentations. No speeches. And no forced networking. The McKinsey team spread themselves out around the room and hung out with us over some appetizers and drinks while chatting with us about the firm and about school. As usual, the consultants I met at the event were really accomplished and well rounded with diverse backgrounds and experiences. I met one consultant with a background in investment banking, another who worked at a competitor consulting firm before Mckinsey, another who was in marketing before business school, and another who worked in the education sector before business school.

I ended up chatting with one of the local Chicago consultants for about 45 minutes. She was an engagement manager at the firm and a Kellogg grad a couple of years back. We talked a lot about Kellogg and about some of the current projects at the firm, which was interesting since I have a few friends there now and was familiar with some of the work she brought up. We also talked a lot about law school, and she had a lot of interest and insight into my experience, given her husband been to law school a few years ago. That said, McKinsey is a big supporter of hiring from law schools and especially from JD-MBA programs. They are the only firm that has a team of recruiters dedicated to specifically to law schools, which should come as good news to current and future JD-MBAs here at Kellogg.

As a 1st year JD-MBA at the law school, I won’t be interviewing for consulting jobs this year. But it’s nice to get a head start on the networking and learning about the firms, because next year at Kellogg, we'll be going to dozens and dozens of these types of events over the year. The whole process of getting a consulting job can be tiring and a bit intimidating for some, just like applying to business school and law school, but starting the process now should make things a little easier next year. I also think these events are a great way to meet new people, including both at the firms and at the local business schools. There's always a lot of people with really interesting backgrounds, so there's always the chance to strike up some pretty interesting conversations, and I always find at least one unique connection at every event. At this event, I actually ran into a good number of people that I had already met over the past year so it was nice catching up with them. It will be interesting to see where everyone ends up this summer.

Northwestern Announces JD-MBA Professorship, $3MM Funding, and Support of JD-MBA Program

Earlier today, I received an email from the Dean of the law school, Dean Van Zandt, and he gave some really good news. He announced that General Dynamics recently made a $3 million donation to Northwestern Law and the Kellogg School of Management. The donation was in made in honor of General Dynamics recently retired CEO, Nicholas D. Chabraja, who as Northwestern law alum worked at the intersection of business and law for many years.

This gift is the first of its kind and will fund a joint professorship between the Law School and the Kellogg School of Management. Doing so, it will provide the support needed to bring Bernard Black to come teach at both campuses here at Northwestern (Northwestern Law and Kellogg). Bernard Black is really accomplished, it's great we were able to get him here at Northwestern. The donation also will provide support for the JD-MBA program here, which is amazing news for us current students. As usual it’s great to see Northwestern leading the way in the JD-MBA space. The JD-MBA program here is currently the largest and most integrated joint law and business program in the world and the first to introduce a three-year format.

For more details on the donation and the professor, check out the email from the Dean below. To see the press release that Northwestern put out today CLICK HERE. For more information on Northwestern’s JD-MBA program, CLICK HERE.


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To: Northwestern Law Community
From: David E. Van Zandt
Re: $3 Million Gift to Fund Nicholas D. Chabraja Professorship

I am delighted to let you know that the Law School and the Kellogg School of Management have received a $3 Million gift from General Dynamics to honor the retirement of Nicholas Chabraja JD’67 from his position as the company’s Chief Executive Officer.

This gift, the first of its kind, will fund a joint professorship between the Law School and the Kellogg School. It also symbolizes the increasingly integrated fields of law and business and will solidify the strong relationship between the Law School and the Kellogg School and our concerted efforts to prepare students for careers in which these two disciplines converge. The donation also will provide support for our JD-MBA Program, the largest and most integrated joint law and business program in the world and the first to introduce a three-year format.

I am also pleased to announce that Bernard Black will be appointed as the first Nicholas J. Chabraja Professor. Bernie will officially join the Law School in September 2010 with a joint appointment in the Finance Department at the Kellogg School of Management.

Since its formation in 1952, General Dynamics has grown to become one of our nation’s leading defense contractors, specializing in aerospace, combat systems, marine systems, information systems, and technology.

Nicholas Chabraja, also a 1964 alumnus of Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, has enjoyed a distinguished career since graduating from the Law School in 1967. From 1997 until this past June, Nick served as General Dynamics’ Chief Executive Officer and became the longest-serving chief executive among the nation’s top five defense contractors. Since stepping down, he has remained as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of General Dynamics. Prior to his appointment as Chief Executive Officer, Nick held several other important positions at General Dynamics, including Vice Chairman (1996-1997); Executive Vice President (1994-1996); and Senior Vice President & General Counsel (1993-1994). Before his career at General Dynamics, Nick was a litigation partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block for 22 years. In 1986, he was also appointed Special Trial Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Nick has been a consistent supporter of the Law School and is a member of Northwestern’s Board of Trustees.

Bernard Black, a nationally-recognized expert in corporate law and finance as well as health care regulation, currently serves as the Hayden W. Head Regents Chair for Faculty Excellence at the University of Texas School of Law, a professor of finance at the McCombs School of Business, and co-director of the Center for Law, Business, and Economics at the University of Texas.

Prior to these appointments, he was the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford and, prior to that, he was a law professor at Columbia Law School, counsel to a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, an attorney at Skadden Arps in New York, and a clerk for the Hon. Patricia Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Black has also served as a policy advisor to the US government as well as several countries throughout the world, including Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, South Korea, Mongolia, and Vietnam. He has authored or co-authored numerous books and scholarly articles. He received a BA from Princeton, an MA in physics from Berkeley, and a JD from Stanford Law School.

We are extremely grateful to General Dynamics for their generous gift. Please also join me in congratulating Bernard Black as the inaugural holder of this endowed professorship and Nicholas Chabraja on his retirement from a career that has been truly extraordinary.

Achievement

Moving into the first week of October, "Achievement" seems to be a big theme for lots of people I know. It's specifically relevant for those who are either in graduate school or who are applying to graduate school this fall. Just two days ago, I met a future applicant to Northwestern Law, and I stopped and chatted with him for about 25 minutes to give him a few pointers on how to stand out in his application and how to talk about his past achievements in his personal statement. Yesterday, a buddy of mine asked me to review some essays for HBS, including their staple essay "What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such?" Like the gentleman applying to law school, he also wanted help quantifying his past achievements. And just today, I met with a JD-MBA prospect at Northwestern. I chatted with him for over an hour about his application, and he told me about some of the things he had achieved since graduating back in 2005. He's gearing up to submit his JD-MBA application on 10/15.

I've also been doing a lot of thinking about my own achievements recently. Having recently returned to the life of a student again, it's hard not to wonder what type of grades I'll get, what types of jobs I'll have over the next few years, and ultimately what I'll be doing many years from now. Every day, I'm working to achieve as much as possible. Doing so, I can't help but think a lot about my classmates who are going through the same process. Northwestern Law has a lot of sharp kids, and it's pretty clear that many of them will achieve a lot in their careers. My entire section spends a lot of time in the library, and as a whole everyone seems pretty motivated. I have one friend in particular who I chat with quite a bit. She has as much discipline as anyone I know in the class. She has a 5am early morning study schedule, a laser focus on getting good grades, an ability to block out all the social chaos that comes with law school, and a commitment to doing what it takes to get a great job upon graduation. I am pretty impressed, and I have no doubt that she'll do really well and achieve everything she's hoping to.

My point is that thinking about your achievements is something that successful people do for a large part of their lives. It's inevitable. Although it seems a bit counterintuitive in environments like Northwestern, where the culture is overwhelmingly team-based and where most people come to leave their egos at the door, Northwestern is no exception to the rule. People here think and talk all the time about what they want to individually achieve.

I remember almost 12 months ago when I first began thinking about my achievements. I had just begun my business school applications. My first step after narrowing down the schools I wanted to apply to was thinking long and hard about every single one of my accomplishments. I was forced brainstorm all my major things I'd done in my life, decide which ones were most important to me, analyze which ones had the broadest impact, quantify how each one impacted the people and organizations around me, and finally sum up all the things I learned from the experiences. I took the process pretty seriously, especially in a year full of b-school applicants, and it took months to organize all my thoughts. But this process really paid off, and I recommend all current applicants do the same. I'll tell you why.

Conventional wisdom says that your past performance (i.e. achievements) is the best indicator of future performance. The theory is that if you've achieved a lot in the past, than you're more likely to do so in the future. Graduate schools bank on this fact when they're making admissions decisions, especially MBA programs . For example, if you've done well in a relevant job, earned good grades in a relevant major, and received strong reviews in a competitive work environment, then odds are you're more likely to be better prepared to do well in graduate school and eventually in the workforce again.

But this concept doesn't just apply to admissions, it also applies to job searching. Right now, all of my business school counterparts at Kellogg are currently re-thinking through their accomplishments, as they're starting the recruiting process. They're being asked questions such as What was your role at your last job? What have accomplished so far in school? What did you do as club president? and Why should we hire you? The number of behavioral questions can be really challenging, and during an interview you don't have time to think about your response and you don't have the leeway to improvise on the spot. You've got to come prepared to talk. And if you can do that well, then you'll probably do quite well in the interview. But don't be fooled, once my classmates get a job, it doesn't end there. They'll still be doing the same after school when they're interviewing for their second and third jobs and when they're marketing their companies, offering their services to clients, running political campaigns, and going through performance reviews.

Ultimately, what I've learned since starting my application process more than 15 months ago is that being successful necessitates a very high level of reflection on past achievements. It requires being self aware and understanding how your environments effect your ability to succeed at the same levels you have experienced before. In my own experience, the more I've thought about my experiences ahead of time, the better off I've been. I believe that the best leaders reflect on past experiences all the time. This is why they so often have compelling stories, a grand vision for the future, and are able to achieve seemingly impossible results. And in the end, their reflection gives them an arsenal to draw on not only to achieve a high level of success but to help others do the same.

Kellogg Preview Weekend

Hey all, just wanted to quickly pass along the info for Kellogg's Preview Weekend. Kellogg Preview is a minority prospective weekend for this year's Kellogg applicants. I went last year, and it was a lot of fun. It was a great chance to mingle with lots of potential Kellogg students, many who actually ended up at Kellogg. It was also a great chance to see firsthand what it would be like to be a student at both Kellogg and the JD-MBA program, and it was also a good time to do your interview on campus with an admissions staff member. I plan to be stop by the event this year, so I hope to see some of you there. Keep in mind that if you do end up at Kellogg next year, we'll be classmates because I'm spending my time at the law school this year and will start at Kellogg in 2010.

Anyhow, see below for official info on our event. If you are considering going, then I suggest you consider signing up soon because last year the event filled up. Also, note that although the event targets a specific audience, it is open to all prospective students.

Below is the official Kellogg blurb on the event. Feel free to use my comment box to ask any questions about the event.

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Kellogg Preview: Minority Prospective Student Weekend – November 13-14, 2009

The admissions office along with the Africa Business Club, Black Management Association and Hispanic Business Student Association are excited to once again host this annual event. Over this two day event, participants will enjoy mock classes with Professor Harry Kraemer and Professor Steve Rogers and connect with an assigned KPW Buddy while interacting with students from the larger Kellogg community.

To register for these and our off-campus events, visit our website.

We look forward to meeting you soon!

NBMBAA Conference Recap

I just got back from New Orleans this past weekend from the NBMBAA conference. I had an incredible time. Thousands of people came from all over the US, enthusiastic to network with other business school students, optimistic to make that one special connection with a recruiter, and eager to get a competitive advantage and get one step closer to a full-time, 6-figure gig after graduation.

I arrived on Thursday early morning and after checking into my hotel, went straight to the career fair. Upon walking into the convention center, I saw hundreds of people scrambling to the registration room, all dressed in their best suits and in their shiny black shoes. Some were quickly running through their resumes before heading to talk to employers, others scrolling through emails on their blackberries, and others looking at the maps trying to find their target companies.

The crowd was incredibly diverse. It not only consisted of Black MBAs but also many of the world's diverse cultures--Asian, Indian, Hispanic, White, and more. It was good to see that there were also quite a few women at the conference. Professionally, the people were mostly business school students.

Having been in MLT and having gone to lots receptions and admitted student weekends over the past year, I'd had the chance to meet a fair number of these people before, so it was nice to have a chance to see them all again. MLT was there in full force. Not only did dozens of MLT'ers from my class come out, but people from other classes came too. MLT also had a booth right near the front door. It felt like a mini-reunion.

Kellogg kids were also abound at the conference. Being in downtown Chicago at the law school, I don't get to go down to Evanston as much as I'd like to, so it was nice to get together with everyone. Like MLT, Kellogg had a booth at the conference, and I spent a good deal of time there hanging out with the admissions team as well a with all the 1st and 2nd year students. About 15 or so other Schools were also in attendance, including the University of Chicago Booth, which is pretty close to Kellogg here in Chicago.

But despite all of the mingling, make no mistake about it, the highlight of the conference was Career Fair. Over the three days, more than 400 employers came out to actively recruit MBAs for summer internships and full-time positions. And this year, in these "odd" economic times, people didn't take it for granted. My Kellogg counterparts were definitely on point. I chatted with them a lot about their job searches, and most of them had 1st and 2nd round interviews at the fair.

This fact highlights the biggest difference in recruiting at business schools and law schools. My MBA counterparts were hustling around for almost the entire conference, because for them, recruiting began before school even started. However at law school, we don't start recruiting until December, which supposedly gives us a chance to focus more on our school work. As such, there isn't much pressure for us to scramble around to find a job. As a JD-MBA I felt like I was part of both worlds. I was really interested to watch the recruiting process from the front line, so I definitely chatted lots of firms. But as a current law student, I didn't feel any of the stress the MBAs felt, and I didn't target any interviews during the conference.

Instead, my approach was to get a bird's eye view of the recruiting environment and to see how all the companies fit into the puzzle. I spent my time talking to companies about the economy, asking questions about their financial well-being, and getting their perspectives on diversity. Most employers were quite willing to talk, especially since I probably came off as quite sincere given I didn't have a hidden agenda of getting hired. On a couple of different occasions I was able to engage recruiters for 45-60 minutes at a time, whereas most people had closer to 10-15 minutes to make a pitch.

I was also able to learn a lot about a couple of not-for-profits who were at the conference. I spent a good deal of time with Education Pioneers and The Gates Foundation and went to their reception on Thursday evening for a couple of hours. The people at both organizations were fantastic, and I look forward to spending a lot more time checking out both organizations in the near future.

After a long two days of watching people run around looking for jobs, the career fair finally ended Friday at 5pm. At that point a lot of people went home to rest for a few hours before a night out on the town. I decided to head over to a private BCG reception at the local W hotel to mingle with some of the firm consultants. I'd met the Director of Diversity Recruiting a few times before, but it was good to see him again. After that, I went to the awards ceremony at another hotel to pick up my NBMBAA scholarship award with the other ten or so winners. As you might guess considering we were in New Orleans, the ceremony was more of a big celebration than anything, and it was a great lead-in to an unforgettable night on Bourbon Street.

I had a flight back to Chicago Saturday morning. I was on a flight with an MLT buddy who I wrote essays with in Boston, and I arrived home just in time to finish writing my Legal Writing paper for Sunday afternoon. It was quite a long weekend, but it was definitely worth the time. If you're thinking about going to the NBMBAA conference in the future, you should definitely consider attending. The caliber of people are high, the opportunity to learn about companies is paramount, you'll probably be in a pretty lively city, and the employers will likely be aggressively recruiting, which is especially nice in these "odd" economic times.

Kellogg Incoming Class Profile: Innovation Still Reigns

The Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern) recently released statistics for its Class of 2011, revealing what I think is a pretty unique trend at Northwestern. First, here are a few of the general statistics:

In the 08-09 season, there were 5,795 applicants, 689 enrolled students, of which 33 percent are female, 21 percent are U.S. ethnic minorities and 30 percent are international students. The average GMAT is 708, 45% of admits scored between 700 and 740, and 32% majored in business administration prior to school.

The biggest differences from last year are as follows: there were about ~700 additional applicants, 38 additional admitted students, a decrease in average GMAT by 4 points, a 3% decrease in ethnic minorities, a 2% decrease in women, and a 5% decrease in international students. The stats, especially the decrease in GMAT, are pretty shocking considering how competitive a year it was. I would have suspected that Kellogg could have had its choice of candidates and put together a class similar to last year's.

But for me, perhaps most interesting among the statistics was that 163 of the students, or almost 24%, will be part of innovative MBA programs, including the MMM, JD-MBA, or 1-year MBA. Last year, Kellogg had 165 of these students (~25%). This represents a radical departure from the typical 2-year MBA option which for decades has been the standard and still is the standard at most other schools.

In general, Northwestern has been leading the trend on developing these innovative, accelerated programs. And it's working. The JD-MBA program applications were up by about 50% this year, demonstrating a trend of increasing interest among applicants. While many folks believe it's fair to debate the merits of these programs, schools are saying otherwise, as both U-Penn and Yale created a 3-year accelerated JD-MBA program this year and Sloan has implemented a program similar to the MMM a little while back. In addition, Northwestern Law has recently come out with a 2-year JD program that is beginning this year. Interesting to think about what Northwestern will do next and which schools will be next to follow the trend.

For more details on the Kellogg Class of 2011 profile, click here.

A World Apart

Hey everyone. So I just arrived in Chicago this past week. It's definitely different a world apart from Phoenix, where I spent the summer, and from Boston, where I spent the past two years. The best news is that I won't have to deal with any more 100 degree weather. I also don't have to deal with having a car, since I'm living in downtown Chicago which is definitely a nice convenience.

First off, the area is pretty cool. My apartment sits less than one block away from Lake Michigan, and the picture above is taken right from the window in my room. Surrounding my apartment is all of downtown Chicago, which consists of lots of really nice apartment buildings, Northwestern's 20+ acre downtown campus, the beach, and the magnificent mile. If you don't know that magnificent mile, it's a world-renown shopping district that goes through the city of Chicago. It has all the top shopping spots, nice restaurants, tons of people in the summer, and lots other of things to do.

My building is about a 4 minute walk from the law school campus, which sits adjacent to the Kellogg Executive Campus (downtown) and the Med School campus. Generally, in the morning students are hustling about through the city to go to class and professionals are walking or taking the metro to work. In the summer, people are always outside, either running, tanning on the beach, swimming, or just enjoying the warm weather while we have it, since Chicago does get extremely cold in the winter.

It definitely is a big change to be headed back to school again after a few years off. I've spent a lot of time in the law school since I've been here. Not everyone is here on campus yet, but when you enter into the law school, it's a surprise to see people in jeans and t-shirts and starring at laptops rather than taking in all the city has to offer, especially in the summer. But I'd expect nothing less at law school. The kids seem to be a bit more serious than the b-school kids. They're definitely sharp, but they also seem to want to work really hard. And since law school grading is based on a curve, it seems like we'll all be spending a lot more time in the books than I will be next year at Kellogg.

In terms of facilities, the law school building is nothing like that of Kellogg. Kellogg is actually pretty old for a business school, though fortunately a new building is in the works. However, the law school has some of the most attractive physical facilities of any law school and the best location of any major urban law school, since it has prime real estate downtown less than a block from the lake and beach.

School wise, this week I'm doing a summer preparation program that Northwestern has, which is sponsored by one of Chicago's bigger law firms. The point of the program is to allow a handful of the students to get a head start on how to prepare for law school. Basically, we all had to apply to this program a few weeks ago, and the school accepted about 30 of us. Today was the first day of the program, and we are learning about things such as outlining, briefing cases, performing the Socratic Method, and other similar things. All these things are pretty foreign to me, since I've been in business the past few years. But despite being a world apart, I'm pretty excited to learn a bit about the legal industry. I plan to post a little about my experience in this program later in the week. Stay tuned!

PepsiCo Challenge

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a pre-MBA workship with PepsiCo in New York City. The purpose of the event to show the attendees a little about what it’s like to work in marketing at Pepsi. I was personally interested in the session because Pepsi has a huge presence in Chicago, so I know that at some point, I might make my way there for interview or at the very least, an event they sponsored for Kellogg.

As expected, our day was jam-packed with panels, Q&A sessions, case studies, and a team based project, just like all the sessions I’ve been to. Also, like most of the other boot camps I’ve been too, I was really impressed with all the senior folks who took time from their day to come chat with us. There were a couple of Senior Managers, one or two Directors, and a VP. All the executives came from schools such as Kellogg, HBS, Stanford, and USC, and they all seemed to be high trajectory employees. Reflecting on the personnel who attended and on the rigor of the event, it’s pretty clear that the event was twofold: 1) to sell us on why Pepsi (and marketing) is a great company and 2) to profile potential applicants to PepsiCo down the line.

While I don’t plan to interview for marketing roles after school, the session definitely opened up the marketing profession for me. I got the chance to experience firsthand how marketing professionals approach problems and how cross-functional the marketing role is, at least at Pepsi.

I was also impressed to the extent to which the employees talked about values and how they used them to employ marketing strategies. While a lot of talk a lot about values, Pepsi definitely stood out. Every color they used, slogan they created, and campaign they launched touched on important company principles, such as youthfulness, daringness, larger-than-life attitude, and human performance. It was pretty impressive to see how everything connected behind the scenes.

The highlight of the day was our team project, where the groups was broken into teams, and each team was charged to come up with a new product for PepsiCo to sell. There were 8 or 9 groups, and we all broke off for about 90 minutes to brainstorm, come up with the product details, draw out a informal presentation, and pitch our idea to the Pepsi executives. It was pretty cool to see the variety of different products that the teams came up with, such as a new health drink, a new low-fat ice cream bar, and a new energy snack.

As I’ve continued to experience in these sessions as well as in my pre-MBA consulting career, there is definitely an art to working effectively in diverse groups. No matter how good you are with people or how charismatic you are, working effectively in a group of 5 or 6 people, especially type-A personalities is really hard, especially when there is no clearly assigned leader. I look forward to continuing to practice at Kellogg, where teamwork definitely takes center stage.

Reflecting back on the overall session, I learned that marketing is less about creativity and fuzzy ideas than it is about analytics and rigorous business analysis. The teams who did the best in the Pepsi challenge seemed to work pretty well together and had a solid business plan to back up their creative products.

After chatting with the executives, I also learned that there’s not a whole lot of room for JD-MBAs in the marketing profession, at least not right out of school. While JDs are definitely smart enough to do well in the profession, many of the recruiters don't see a strong academic fit. The good news is that if you are considering the JD-MBA and if you are interested in marketing, the business development function (a cousin to marketing) is definitely a good fit in the long run because of its deal, negotiation, and contractual components.

Although I don’t plan to go into marketing after I graduate, I’m still glad I went to the PepsiCo event and ecstatic that I’ll be going to Kellogg, where I’ll learn a lot about marketing and where I'll probably get more "teamwork" than I can handle.

Kellogg and HBS

For everyone who knows anything about business school reputations, you know that Kellogg and Harvard Business School (HBS) have something in common--they’re often seen to be the "soft skills" schools. This has both positive and negative connotations. On the positive side, both schools are praised for teaching interpersonal skills, teamwork, and leadership ability. Conversely, both schools are also considered programs where you don’t need to take any real finance courses or have quantitative skills to get through, despite the number of folks who actually do go into the finance industry.

Recently at a Bain recruiting event I went to, one of the firm's senior managers made a pretty funny comment during a panel. He was facilitating a session where we were chatting about how to get into the consulting industry, and he asked, “So how many of you out there are going to HBS or Kellogg?” A good number us put our hands up. Then he told us, “My best advice to you is, please, try to take a lot of finance classes. Because you won't get them otherwise” Everyone in the room chuckled.

Admittedly he was joking with us a bit, but he was also definitely serious. While he told us that we didn’t necessarily need the classes to land a consulting job, he also said that the classes would be the most beneficial courses in the long run. He told us-—and it’s something we’ve all heard before—-that finance is the language of business. And if we ever want to move to the top floor, then we’d better understand every aspect of finance. He then talked a bit about the CEOs close relationship with the CFO and compared it to the CEOs relationship and trust level with other top executives. He seemed to have a pretty good point.

Despite a pretty persuasive argument, I also think it’s fair to note that Bain is pretty finance-oriented compared to some of the other major firms, so his opinion was probably a bit biased. Bain has the biggest private equity arm (by far) of the consulting firms, and it also has things such as the Bain Capital investment spin-off and a turnarounds/restructuring group, both which operate based on financial analytics.

That said, I still think it’s solid advice. While I don’t consider myself to be a finance person and am not going to b-school specifically for that reason, I do think someone with his experience has really valuable insight, and I’ll probably pick up some extra finance courses more than I might otherwise have taken. Kellogg's most famous class is Entrepreneurial Finance, which I will definitely take.

The comment also shows that despite the strong brand of both these schools and the caliber of the students, reputation will play a part in how we are perceived in the workforce, good and bad. And conversely, despite the fact that dozens of other schools teach the soft skills very well (too many to name), those school don't get the reputation for it that Kellogg and HBS get.

Personally, I really value the "soft skills," so as an applicant I really liked the brands of both HBS and Kellogg. I am excited to be headed to Kellogg and the JD-MBA program this fall.

Kellogg MBA Class of 2012

Because I’m in the 3-year JD-MBA program at Northwestern, I will begin my studies at the law school this fall and won’t officially start at Kellogg until the fall of 2010. This means that I won’t graduate with all the b-school kids that I applied with in the class of 2011, which is definitely unfortunate, because I have quite a few friends starting at Kellogg and at other schools.

However despite not being able to graduate with my fellow admits, I’m still excited to meet this year's MBA applicants. You guys will be admitted to the class of 2012, which is my class. So for those of you who go to Kellogg, we'll be starting at the same time, and we might even be in the same section.

As such, I intend to write a lot about Kellogg this season, and hopefully I can share some quality insights about the MBA program. To that end, I’m also planning on using my blog to post some of my responses to applicant questions. So stay tuned, read, and please feel free to make a few comments on my blog along the way.

Hopefully you’ve already gotten started in the application process. Keep me posted on your progress.

Good luck!

Never Eat Alone

A former colleague recently recommended the book "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi. My colleague recently read the book, and he told me that my style and background reminded him a lot of Keith. I picked up the book about two weeks ago and just finished reading. It's definitely a good read and is very relevant for those in the MBA world.

In the book, Keith lays out the specific steps he uses to connect and stay in contact with others—friends, colleagues, family, and associates. He basically sees the world around him as a place that should be based on generosity, where he helps friends, helps people connect with each other, rather than networking for personal gain.

I enjoy his approaches and theories about networking and 100% agree with the emphasis he places on it. But whether or not you agree with his philosophies, I think the topic is very relevant for all of us MBA applicants/admits/students. In MBA programs, students’ schedules are jam packed 7 days a week--studying for class, practicing cases, attending speakers events, meeting with professors, planning student events, on trips with classmates, prepping for interviews, and attending networking events. We will all interact with thousands of different people in a 2-year span. And if you're on your game, this process begins well before we ever set foot in our first class.

As such, I think it’s important to think about what you want to get out of those interactions. Perhaps you want to run for a specific club leadership role or maybe student government. Perhaps, you want to meet everyone in a certain company or industry or maybe just find the right colleague who can prep us for a job interview. Perhaps you want to make sure you have a huge network after school or maybe even just have a really good time there. Maybe you want to do all of that. No matter what your goals are, making friends and contacts is an important part of school.

We don’t all have to be power networkers, but I think it’s important that we figure out how we want to balance our networking energies and schedules with everything else. And while most of us will have some preconceptions about our strategies going in, I suspect it will be a lot of learning as we go. One thing I do know though, is that once my program begins, I don’t plan on eating alone too many times.

Kellogg/Northwestern Housing

Unlike my Kellogg MBA classmates, this year I'll be living in downtown Chicago and not Evanston. The JD-MBA program begins at the law school, which is downtown, and I want to live as close to campus as possible. Once I begin my studies my second year at Kellogg, I'll plan to move down to Evanston.

Aside from not seeing a lot of my Kellogg buddies regularly, I'm pretty psyched to live downtown. Chicago is an amazing city; it's open late (4 and 5 am), has a lot of fun spots, has lots of cool people, and is cheap relative to comparable big cities (NYC, SF, LA, Boston). What's also great is that there are a lot of places to stay that are just a two blocks or so from the law school campus.

I'll be living downtown in a high rise at the end of on East Ohio. It's on the 40th floor and has a view of the beach on Lake Michigan. It's a great building that's pretty new, includes utilities in the rent, has a modern design, and has a gym, lap pool, and free business center inside. A lot of the JD-MBAs and law students will be there, so I suspect it will be a really good time. All you Kellogg'ers should definitely give me a shout when you make it out to the city, which I hear is about once per week for many of you.

Speaking of Kellogg folks, I've recently chatted with a lot of Kellogg friends about Evanston housing decisions for the first year. A lot of the new admits I've met will be living in one of two places.

1) The Reserve. I hear this place is the best deal for how nice the place is. Everything is new there, and it also has a gym which is a nice selling point. The downside is that I've heard some people don't enjoy the neighborhood because its noisy with too many students.

2) McManus. This is a nice seven-story apartment complex that's pretty central to campus. It's definitely convenient, close to campus, includes utilities, and is filled with Kellogg kids. This place is great, because you can leave for the summer without having any fees. The negative here is that it feels a bit dormy.

Of all the alternatives I've heard of, McManus is the most appealing to me. But I've got a long time until I need be thinking about it.

Kellogg 360-Degree Feedback Assessment

As part of going to Kellogg, matriculating students have to do a 360 Feedback Assessment. This means that we are rated on my leadership and teamwork characteristics by former colleagues, including peers, mentors, bosses, customers and community members. I recently solicited about 12 people for feedback, and about half have completed my assessment. I also recently submitted my personal assessment. Some of the categories for ranking included:

- Vision and Alignment
- Change and Innovation
- Values and Integrity
- Self-Reflection
- Team Building
- Goal Setting
- Relationship Building

I tried to be as objective as possible in my own rankings. I think I can predict how most people see my leadership and working style, and I am pretty excited to see how the cumulative results turn out. I'll get a chance to see the final report when my time at Kellogg begins.

Kellogg names new interim dean

What's up everyone! I noticed that yesterday Kellogg named a new Interim Dean. Dean Jain will definitely be missed by the students, they really love him at Kellogg.

I don't know if this change is reflective of anything happening at Kellogg. What I do know is that Deans often decide to change things up after the 10 year mark, and Dean Jain was getting ready for his 9th year. I had the fortune of meeting Interim Dean Chopra at DAK this spring. He was brilliant and really cool. From the limited amount I know about him, he's definitely deserving of the role.

What I find particularly interesting is that Kellogg hired another Indian executive for the role. Personally, I am very interested in how Indians fit into the whole B-school process. They definitely apply in some of the biggest numbers, bring a lot of the highest grades and scores, and are definitely some of the brightest people I met in the application process. They also seem to represent a lot of professor positions at many of the good schools.

I am interested to see who Kellogg decides to go with for the full-time role and if he or she will also be Indian. If so, that may say something about Kellogg's leadership strategy. Perhaps it's also just a coincidence. Unfortunately, Dean Chopra is only up for a one year term, so he won't be around in 2010 when I start at Kellogg.

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Home/News_Articles/2009/Sunil_Chopra_named_interim_dean.aspx

Why Kellogg

I recently got an email from someone interested in applying to the JD-MBA program. She sent a couple of questions, including "Why Northwestern?" I'll take a stab at answering the question below.

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So when I tell people I'm headed to Northwestern's JD-MBA program, I usually get three different responses: (i) Congratulations! (ii) Why Kellogg/Northwestern? and (iii) Why a JD and an MBA?

What I've learned about going through this process and answering these questions is that choosing a business school is no easy feat. The are a number of top programs out there that will help you accomplish your career goals. I had the good fortune of being part of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) as an applicant. MLT focuses on the business school application process and specifically helped me determine my priorities for choosing a school. As part of the program, I spent a lot of time visiting campuses, interacting with current students, reflecting on my personal goals, writing strong essays, and going to admitted student weekends. I strongly suggest that any graduate school applicant go through the same due diligence.

I ultimately chose to attend Kellogg's JD-MBA program. Accepting a place at Kellogg was not a hard decision given it's top ranking and premier resources. However, turning down other top schools was a bit more difficult. Upon reflection, there are a couple of specific reasons that helped me realize that Kellogg was the best fit for me.

Teamwork. Having worked on a variety of project teams as a consultant, I've learned the distinct advantage of having a high-performing team. Kellogg pioneered the concept of teamwork in b-school. From being a student-driven culture, to rotating study groups, to a lopsided amount of team-based coursework, Kellogg and Northwestern law will best allow me to hone my teamwork skills.

Classmates: Students at Northwestern are slightly older and amongst the most collegial, fun loving students at any school. This is true at both Kellogg and Northwestern Law, and I look forward to a really fun three years.

Marketing Orientation. Unlike many Kellogg students, I don't plan to go into marketing after graduation. But I do believe that marketing/ sales is one of the most important functions in business. As such, Kellogg's strong marketing curriculum--from the world-renowned marketing curriculum to its annual marketing competition--will be a good fit for me.

Leadership Development. I believe that running a company is as much about influential leadership as it is about analysis and processes. I've had the fortunate experience of having worked with one or two really good leaders in addition to a lot of really bad ones, teaching me the importance of good leadership in business. Kellogg offers things like a 360 leadership assessment, a culture based on feedback, a great MORS major (and leadership minor), and countless ways to lead/organize as a part of the student body.

Negotiation Coursework. I am really interested academically in negotiations. Law school is generally a great way to get this exposure, and Northwestern Law is one of the best with the topic. Northwestern Law is also known for its practical coursework and its clinics, including a negotiations clinic. Kellogg also has a great negotiations curriculum. They have some of the best professors in the field who have written some of the best books in the field. At Kellogg, you can even get a minor in negotiations.

Consulting. I have a background in human capital consulting and plan to pursue the management consulting field post-graduation. Kellogg is one of the best at sending students into the field, they even have the "Analytical Consulting" major specifically designed to enter the field.

JD-MBA Program. I will talk more about the specifics of the dual program in my next post, but attaining both degrees was definitely a huge factor in my school decision, probably the biggest, as my long-term professional interests are tied to both law and business. In m opinion, Northwestern far and away has the best and most integrated JD-MBA program.

At Northwestern, I know I can gain the skills and experiences to achieve my professional goals and continue on my leadership journey. I look forward to starting at Northwestern this fall.