First Kellogg experiences

It's now been a couple of weeks since Kellogg has given me the nod, and the feeling of blind ecstacy is slowly turning into a more modest state of happiness. It's still a great feeling to know that a year's worth of obsession with the GMAT and essays has actually paid off.

Preparing my matriculation has already given me some Kellogg experiences to report on. The "wow"s have been mostly positive, but also some negative. I'll first get the negative observations out of the way.

To secure your position in class, you have to advance $1000 on your tuition. The accepted payment methods are check and money order. In Holland, and I suspect in many other places around the world, checks have been abandoned a long time ago. And neither I nor my bank know what a money order is. I asked Kellogg whether I could pay through bank transfer, credit card, or maybe PayPal or Western Union, but alas, impossible. Other students ended up sending signed checks through the mail, and I have now bought traveler's checks and will hand-deliver them at Day at Kellogg. My interviewer had already warned me that rules and procedures tend to be a bit US-centric, but this just seemed a bit backward to me. All b-schools nowadays say they are 'global', but I hope that this doesn't mean "US... Oh, and everything abroad".

Something else that hasn't impressed me is the various Kellogg websites. The student web-mail looks like Hotmail version 0.1 beta. There is no Sent folder -- if you want to retain your sent messages "you can include your own e-mail address on the Cc: field". Puh-lease. It's not a big deal (you can download your mail into Outlook Express) but impressive, no. Some of the other pages deep down in the Kellogg website look like they were designed in the 1980s. I generally prefer substance over form, but for a school that is known for its marketing prowess I expect a bit more than Times New Roman 12pt and awkwardly proportioned images. Again, no biggie, but I had expected a bit more.

The positive impressions are fortunately the things that really matter. And the biggest 'wow'-factor must be the recruiting side.

As I'm contemplating becoming an I-banker (no points for originality, I know), scavenging the club websites has been very rewarding. Presentations from students who have summered at Goldman, Merrill, BoA, Citigroup, CSFB, Deutsche, reporting on the up- and downsides of banking, how to be a career switcher, compensation statistics, lifestyle issues, how to land an offer, etc. Complete primers on the i-banking world (how does the industry *really* work), 70-page interviewing guides, etc. etc. Truly very impressive. Kellogg has excellent statistics on offer percentages and compensation compared to other top schools. I think this is important, because you can talk about school 'fit' all you want, but at the end of the day it's the job you can get after b-school that really matters.