Kellogg MBA 2023-24 Essays Tips & Deadlines

Kellogg MBA Essay Instructions:

Please include the essay prompt in bold at the top of the page. Please use 12-point Times New Roman font, line spacing at 1.5 lines and 1-inch margins.

Kellogg MBA Essay One:

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?

Kellogg MBA Admission Committee wants to evaluate three aspects of your leadership persona:

  • (1) Your leadership skills and core competencies
  • (2) How do you leverage your management skills to accomplish your goal?
  • (3) How do you overcome challenges in your path and use those setbacks as stepping-stones to your success?

First of all, Kellogg here is asking for ONLY one experience. You can use any story from your professional life or from your extracurricular activities. However, I prefer that you use a story from your professional career. But, if you have a fabulous story from any side hustle, nonprofit experience, sports or music, then feel free to use that story in this essay. Kellogg aspires to admit candidates who are self-reflective. Whether it’s through a setback you’ve experienced, or how you dealt with unstructured situations, they are looking for potential leaders who are resilient and can face challenges head-on with steel in their spine. They haven’t specifically mentioned a professional challenge; hence, consider every possible option for various aspects of your life — office, college life, family, personal life, community engagements, sports, music and so on.

“Show, don’t tell”. That’s the secret of narrating a great story. Clearly show how you tackled the challenge at hand. Show yourself as a dynamic person who leads your team from the front. Narrate your inner thought process and decision-making mechanism. In your essay, Kellogg must see a proactive leader, who organize his team members, inspire them to achieve great heights, chalk out strategies to overcome challenges, energize setbacks and learn from initial mistakes, charter a new course of action, re-energize his team to follow through the action plan and finally achieve success. If you narrate your story in this fashion, Kellogg will get a clear impression not only of what you accomplished but also of various facets of your leadership personality, i.e. “a combination of skills”.

Finally, explain what you learned from this episode of your life. Show them how this challenge offered you eye-opening lessons on management and sharpened your leadership thinking.

Please keep one thing in mind. Don't over exaggerate the situation. Be genuine, as that's the kind of student Kellogg is looking for.

Now, how to select the best story? Have you championed any Six Sigma initiative in your company? Have you spearheaded any strategic project that significantly improved your company’s bottom-line or led an initiative to launch new products in the emerging markets? Have you supervised your company’s social initiatives or been a board member of any nonprofit? Well, all these are appropriate examples of “creating lasting values”.

Write this “leadership challenge” essay with a masterful mix of personal anecdotes, sparks of insight and applicable pieces of wisdom. The details about exactly what you did, said and learned will provide valuable information about how you approach issues and learn from experience. Write down a few sentences to set up the background of the story, and then use the majority of the space to describe specifically what you did, thought, felt and how you behaved. Use details to entice the reader and differentiate yourself from hundreds of other Kellogg applicants.

Show them how you faced the challenges along your path. Did you manage global teams based in Asia or the Middle East? Did you stretch yourself to coordinate with virtual teams located across different time zones while managing clients’ expectations? Did you face any inter-personal challenge from a hostile colleague with whom you struggled to develop a good working relationship? Did you manage any third party vendor or purchased industrial products from vendors in China or Korea and face substantial cross cultural challenges in that endeavor? The crux of this essay is what you learnt from this experience. You should highlight the transferable skills that you acquired or sharpened during this challenging phase of your career.

Don’t forget to mention teamwork, which is a core value of Kellogg’s culture. Choose a leadership example that showcases your ability to rally others around you to achieve a target and guide them toward an objective. Keep in mind that ability to seamlessly work with people from all walks of life demonstrates maturity and social skills.

How to differentiate yourself from others?

Keep in mind that every applicant is going to write his best leadership experience in this essay. Hence, you need to articulate the insights on leadership and management that you have learned from this chapter of your life. Explain how you created value, not just for yourself but for your team, company, or whatever entity you were contributing to. Show the admissions team how the lessons learned through this experience will help you to contribute to your peers at Kellogg. Such information will certainly make the admissions team feel like exploring your leadership potential more in an interview.

Kellogg MBA Essay Two:

Values are what guide you in your life and work. What values are important to you and how have they influenced you? (450 words)

Kellogg’s essays in the past have inquired about candidates’ “values.” Values are our fundamental beliefs. They control our subconscious mind and guide our actions. For instance, if you believe that your time on this planet is a finite resource that would get exhausted one day, then you are not very likely to procrastinate. You will respect timeliness and are most likely to complete your tasks on time. On the other hand, if you believe that stress is a major problem in your life and reducing stress is one of your priorities, then you are more likely to relax and not get jittery about deadlines. Hence, two human beings who have different core beliefs behave in totally different ways. Some examples of core values are - Dependability, Loyalty, Commitment, Open-mindedness, Consistency, Honesty, Efficiency, Innovation, Creativity, Compassion, Spirit of adventure, Positivity, Optimism, Courage, Perseverance etc.

“Teamwork” is one of the core values of Kellogg. It was the first B-school in the United States that highlighted the importance of teamwork in management in its MBA curriculum. It believes that people from different walks of life can come together and create a synergy that will help the whole team to achieve excellence. If you ever visit the Kellogg campus, you will witness the camaraderie among the Kellogg MBA students. The ideal Kellogg class is a diverse group of people with varied backgrounds.

For the Kellogg admission team, the million-dollar questions are - what are your core beliefs, and how will it enrich the Kellogg community? Ask yourself: “What makes me special?” “What core skills do I possess that will help me to significantly contribute to the Kellogg community, both inside and outside the classroom?” Consider specific classes, programs, potential collaborations with other parts of the school, clubs, conferences, or other offerings that your involvement would enhance.

In order to answer this question appropriately, you need to know in detail about the Kellogg MBA program. Connect with the Kellogg admission team, attend their webinars, and visit the campus to interact with students and faculty members. Thereby, you will be able to identify areas in which your values, beliefs, knowledge and experience would help the other students and the Kellogg community at large.

In case you need personalized guidance, kindly talk to me.

Kellogg Video Essay:

The Kellogg admissions team advises the following in regards to the video essay: The video essay provides you with an additional opportunity to demonstrate what you will bring to our vibrant Kellogg community — in an interactive way. You will respond to several short video essay questions. The questions are designed to bring to life the person we have learned about on paper.

Read specific advice that Kellogg has given to applicants here.

Prepare as if you would for an interview. Write a few bullet points down in advance that will assist you remember and focus as you answer the questions. But don’t panic while recording the answers. Don’t show extra enthusiasm or skepticism. Just remain calm and you certainly will handle these simple questions.

Don’t forget to smile! Keep a smiley above or below the camera that will remind you to smile at suitable junctures while recording the answers. Talking into a camera lens without any human feedback may be uncomfortable in the beginning. It is also not the same as video conferencing in Skype. But with little practice, you will be comfortable.

Ideally, the video should accurately depict your personality. Prepare well and be yourself when you are recording the video. Kellogg allows you to practice with the video format a few times before you submit your official video. But, it should not create a feeling that you are scripted and are “acting”. Record your answer in a calm and quiet place that is far away from any distractions such as children or pets. A blank wall will be a great background. Dress code should be either “business” or “business casuals”.

Review additional tips on video essays in my blog. In case you need any assistance, talk to us! We will be glad to assist you.

Kellogg MBA Reapplicant Essay:

Since your previous application, what steps have you taken to strengthen your candidacy? (250 word limit)

This is a straightforward reapplication essay question. You need to show them some tangible progress in your overall profile since you last applied. It can include an increase in GMAT score, enrollment in few courses on statistics or mathematics to increase your quant skills, a promotion at work, new volunteer activities, or increased responsibility at work and so on. If your resume hasn’t changed, you can discuss how you have matured as a human being and resultantly how your career goals have changed.

Kellogg MBA Optional Essay:

All applicants have the opportunity to provide explanations or clarification in Additional Information

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 count)

Please review my tips on optional application essays in the following blog posts:

Dual-degree applicants:

For applicants to the MMM or JD-MBA dual degree programs, please explain why that program is right for you. (250 words)

If you are a MMM program applicant, please explain in details how this degree will help you to achieve your career goals. If you have researched the Kellogg MBA program in details, talked to the admissions team and networked with the students or alumni, you will be able to tell them why you need the MMM program rather than the standalone MBA program itself. Please explain in detail how an additional MS degree in Design Innovation will boost your career.

Similarly, the JD-MBA at Kellogg will earn you a Juris Doctor from the Northwestern School of Law and a Master of Business Administration from Kellogg. Explain to the admissions committee why you need the JD-MBA program to achieve your career goals. If you aspire to be a legal expert with a solid understanding of business or a business leader with legal expertise, this program is ideal for you. The admission to this program is extremely competitive. So make sure that you explain your career goals in details and explain why you need both these degree from two schools to make it all happen.

If you would like professional guidance with your Kellogg MBA application, please consider our MBA Essay Support or our MBA Application Packages, which include advising, editing essays, interview coaching, a resume edit and reco edit for the Kellogg application.

Kellogg MBA Application Deadlines & Class Profiles

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Sandip Bhattacharya MBA Admissions Consultant

Sandip Bhattacharya, General Management Program (Harvard), Master's in Creative Writing (Oxford)

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Kellogg Differentiation

  • Best marketing program globally
  • Complete team-based assignments
  • One Year MBA option

Kellogg is known for

  • Relaxed atmosphere
  • Excellent general management program
  • MBA + Master’s in Engineering Management

Apply if you have

  • You want to go into consulting
  • Like collaboration and team work
  • Aren’t looking for a typical “finance school

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