We at the India Business Club get lots of questions from prospective students, especially during admissions season. We love to answer these, but in order to ensure that everyone benefits from these, we have started this initiative.

We have selected some of these questions and every week, we approach one current student to answer it from his/her experience. Efforts have been made to get the most relevant profile for answering these. If you have other questions, check out the prospective students page.

How an Indian engineering education is complemented by Kellogg's "collaborative-ness"


Let me start by saying that I'm a finance major with a background in management consulting. Yet, I've chosen to write about the teamwork and collaborative aspects of my Kellogg MBA as it is something that often gets associated with the school.
Although the numbers vary from year to year , a significant number of applications from India to a top B-School like Kellogg are from engineers (Class of 2010 had atleat 10 from the IITs and many more from other schools). Given the strong analytical and quantitative skills these candidates bring with them, Kellogg's collaborative and teamwork oriented education helps build an excellent well rounded personality that recruiters look for. Some of the ways in which you can develop these skills are:

  • Teams, teams, teams: At any given time I am part of 5 to 10 different teams. You have a study group for every class that you take, in addition most people are part of teams while leading various clubs, conferences, trips etc. And your teams often change each quarter. A rough estimate- that totals to about 30 to 40 teams for an average Kellogg person in two year MBA program. This gives you a change to try and excel in different roles in a team such as content expert, process manager, motivational leader etc. and that too with a very smart bunch of people.
  • It’s the Culture, stupid: One of the distinguishing factors for Kellogg as a School is its unique culture which manifests itself in the way that students help each other out in recruiting, academic and recreational environments. A small example - one of the key elements of consulting recruitment is case interview preparation. At Kellogg I've seen students get a lot of practice doing mock interviews with classmates and second years. What surprised me about this was the extent to which second years would go help first years, some people set aside their entire free time over a period of 3-4 weeks just to help others. One of the factors that contributes to this is the fact that Kellogg is an "almost residential" school and not a "commuter" school. People live in the same buildings, eat at the same restaurants, party at the same bars etc. and therefore there is a sense of community here.
  • The education of course: I'm personally a big fan of education. For someone looking to explore teamwork, leadership and other generic/people skills, Kellogg offers a number of great classes taught by outstanding faculty. The core class - Leadership in Organizations is one of my favorites.
So, overall Kellogg applies a strong "transformation function" (in engineering lingo!) to create all-rounded leaders and that’s what recruiters from top consulting firms, banks, general management programs etc. look for
PS: This is not a cut/paste from my admissions essay :)


Manvinder Singh (KSM'10) is a Vice President of the India Business Club. He worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company before school and spent the summer of 2009 with the Office of the CEO at SAP AG. He can be reached at msingh2010@kellogg.northwestern.edu