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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.

3 Comments to Kellogg Incoming Class Profile: Innovation Still Reigns

paragon2pieces
August 20, 2009

The innovative programs are an awesome feature at Northwestern! Our Dean told me last year that UT is considering the three-year JD/MBA as well. But as someone going into my last year of a four year JD/MBA program, I think that I needed this extra year to fully take advantage of the programming and opportunities I wanted to participate in. Of course, this would not be the case for all students and some probably feel bored during the final year. I hope that both three-year and four-year JD/MBA options remain so that students can self-select into the track that best suits their needs.

Anonymous
August 20, 2009

Jeremy – I love your insightful comments and observations. It is definitely clear that the current *mba model* must change to add value as a proposition to students vs. just a place to wait out a bad job market (and it is a tad too long I think) – maybe law school too I have no idea.

I look forward to continuing to read your posts.

Sincerely,
Liz Michiels, Stanford MBA 2003

Jeremy
August 21, 2009

@P2P-Pretty cool to hear about Texas. I suspect that there will definitely be a trickle effect. I also think that once schools start to hop on board with the shortened JD-MBA "program", then schools will start finding other ways to differentiate their program again, by doing things such as increasing the the size of the class, etc.

@Liz-Thanks so much for the comment. I'm glad you plan to continue reading!

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