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2022 MBA Essay Questions: Northwestern Kellogg

Check out all EssaySnark blahg posts tagged for Kellogg including real essay reviews!

 

Kellogg is a school that, it seems, EVERYONE wants to go to right now! Good luck if you’re trying this season!

 
EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2022 Northwestern Kellogg MBA Essays and Application
The Class of 2025 Kellogg MBA Application Guide walks you through their critical components
 

 
 

2022 Kellogg Full-Time MBA Essay Questions – Class of 2025

Kellogg Round 1 is 4 months, 2 weeks, 2 days ago (September 14).

This is one week after HBS, and around the same time as schools like Wharton and Stanford.

 

Our Kellogg application guide walks through the necessaries for a strong application to this school.

Here are their essay questions:

  1. Kellogg’s purpose is to educate, equip and inspire leaders who create lasting value. Provide a recent example where you have demonstrated leadership and created value. What challenges did you face and what did you learn? (450 words)
  2. Values are what guide you in your life and work. What values are important to you and how have they influenced you? (450 words)

If you have a story about taking a risk or doing something outside your comfort zone, that could work quite nicely for essay 1. However, any definition of leadership you may feel is appropriate can work for that. The values is an opportunity for real self-reflection. Be specific, and use an example there too!

We also have to mention that even though it dipped somewhat since the pandemic began, Kellogg’s average GMAT score had been sky-high before now. They really do care about seeing your skills as demonstrated on a standardized test!! Their GRE scores further demonstrate the premium they place on these stats in the profile.

If you have weakness in the academic transcripts, you’re going to need to show proof that you have the ability to succeed in their challenging program. (Our Transcripts & Grades App Accelerator can help!)

The Kellogg MBA essays are a prime opportunity for differentiation. An amazing set of essays can tip the scales at this school.

How do you answer them?

WITH EXAMPLES!

As they are directing you in essay 1: RECENT EXAMPLES!

Though that advice applies to essay 2 also, and in fact, to almost all essays you’ll write to pretty much every school out there.

How recent is “recent”?

Within the last three years is a good guideline. It’s very rare that you’d want to go further back than that in most of your essay content (again, for most schools). The adcoms want to hear about you as a contributing member of society, a mature adult who’s out in the world doing stuff. Can you really say you were doing that more than three years ago? (Sure, some of you can, because you’re a bit older — but then maybe you don’t want to be emphasizing that directly in your content strategy, right?)

The main risk to using an older story is that it can appear that you’ve peaked early. If your best example from leadership is way back in college, well, then hmm. What have you done lately?

For Essay 2, this one is going to be tough for a lot of people, because the common tendency is to come up with some values that sound impressive. The only way your Essay 2 is going to resonate is if you back up your claims to those values through EVIDENCE.

Want more help with these? Our Kellogg Essay Guide is ready to support you on the brainstorming, planning, and essay-structuring tasks you need for a multidimensional approach to your Class of 2025 application. This one is going to take some time and you really need to start as soon as you can! We go in-depth on what the Kellogg adcom expects and what they, err, value. These are challenging essays! Learning these pro tips will be important, so don’t wait, get started in learning more and formulating your strategy right away!

 
 

EssaySnark's Strategies for the Kellogg MBA Application
 


 

 

2022 Kellogg MBA recommendations

Kellogg uses the standardized recommender questions plus one unique one specific to Kellogg.

Our Recommenders’ Instruction Sets are likely to be of real help to your recommenders.
 

Kellogg Class of 2025 Full-time MBA Dates & Deadlines

Kellogg F/T MBA Application Deadlines

  • Round 1: September 14, 2022. This is in the middle of the Round 1 cycle — you will be busy! In terms of the process you’ll go through, note that Kellogg does not do a midcycle “release” since they manage interviews differently than other schools.
  • Round 2: January 10, 2023. Thankfully this is well into the month — past the New Year holiday and in a kinder place on the calendar for those who are trying in the second round. Round 2 is likely to be quite competitive but it’s still very viable as part of an application strategy. We have a slight preference for Round 1 at Kellogg, all things considered, however it’s fine if you end up submitting in Round 2 instead, especially if that means your application will be stronger.

EssaySnark does not list Round 3 dates at such a challenging school, because people really shouldn’t bother (especially not this year that’s shaping up to be so competitive). Applying at the end of the season at a school like this almost always ends up be just being a waste of time and money, and can set you up for greater difficulties as a reapplicant in the Fall.

 

Kellogg Links & Application Info

 

Kellogg Info Courtesy of EssaySnark

These are from the ‘snarchive but still very relevant to study for this school!

 

EssaySnark Reviews

We’ve done a lot with the Kellogg essays! And there’s a lot of former BSers in Evanston. Here’s where we ripped some of those previous essays to shreds:

Our SnarkStrategies Guide for Kellogg is here to help – pick it up for help on your essays!

 

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