Meet Indiana Kelley’s MBA Class Of 2021

A STRONG STEM PRESENCE

The Class of 2021 is smaller than its predecessors. It boasts 135 full-time students, down from the 185 students who entered the year before. This can be traced to applications, which fell from 1,082 to 741 in one year. Overall, applicants enjoyed a one-in-two chance of being accepted in 2019 – or a 49.4% acceptance rate to be exact.

Average GMAT scores also declined with the incoming class, falling from 674 to 666 (though 41% of the class scored 700 or above). That said, average GPAs actually inched up from 3.33 to 3.34. In addition, 33% of the class are women, down from 35% in 2018. That said, the percentage of international students held steady at 36%. Another 36% of the class hails from the Midwest – negating the notion that Kelley is just a “Midwest” school. Another 16% of the class comes from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, with the West and Southwest (8%) and the South (4%) also represented in the class.

In terms of education, the largest segment of the class – 39% – majored in Science and Engineering as undergrads. Another third hold degrees Business, with the remainder of the class falling into the Social Sciences and Humanities bucket.

A RISING POWER IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The Kelley MBA is known as a haven for career changers, thanks to its personalized coaching culture that materializes in the program’s trademark Leadership Academies and Me, Inc. orientation. Beyond that, Kelley possesses the resources of a much larger business school. It ranks as the #2 online MBA program and a Top 20 undergraduate program. As a result, Kelley MBAs can piggyback off of resources given to 8,000 undergraduate business majors and another 1,000 online MBAs. In fact, Kelley’s 325-member faculty is larger than the entire full-time MBA cohort, giving students easy access to an array of business expertise.

Highly regarded by academics as a top business school for management, marketing, operations, and accounting, Kelley has also emerged as a startup Mecca. In 2019, the school ranked #8 in P&Q’s inaugural MBA entrepreneurship ranking, thanks to a mix of diverse programming, talented faculty, and committed peer students, says Ryan Underdahl, a 2019 Kelley MBA and founder of Civic Champs.

“I had the opportunity to learn from a number of dynamic professors who brought real-world experiences to the coursework and helped me identify opportunities, understand the intricacies of starting and growing a business, and gave me the tools to strategically tackle the issues I face every day,” he explains. “The Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship [also] provided invaluable feedback, connections, and direction. We were also fortunate enough to win the Johnson Center’s Clapp IDEA Competition which provided us with a great amount of exposure that has been extremely beneficial. Finally, the informal organizations at Kelley, namely my fellow classmates, provided unrivaled support. I was fortunate enough to learn alongside a group of truly bright and compassionate individuals who constantly made themselves available to me to discuss our business, get their feedback, and help hone our idea and value proposition.”

LOTS TO DO IN BLOOMINGTON

Kelley’s thriving startup scene is just one of the unexpected benefits of the program. For example, some applicants picture Bloomington as a small, sleepy town, leaving students with little to do after dark…let alone the weekends. However, 2019 grad Tyler Yoder found it to be exactly the opposite.

“I believe Bloomington rivals major cities in terms of the diverse opportunities available to students. For some, it may include eating their way down Fourth Street with cuisine from around the world. For others, taking advantage of performances at the world-renowned Jacobs School of Music or an IU basketball game could be up their alley. I enjoyed running the B-Line trail with classmates on Saturday mornings and wrapping up at the farmers market.”

Beyond the wide-ranging activities, Bloomington enables Kelley MBAs to build deeper relationships through their closer proximity. “Just the other night, several of my classmates and I played board games and listened to live music for a few hours at Switchyard, the new local brewery in town,” Yoder adds. “I have hosted meals at my apartment, hiked with classmates in the Brown County State Park, had book discussion groups at local restaurants and played basketball against Kelley faculty in Assembly Hall.  Bloomington has been an ideal location for me to get my MBA.”

CAN GET A JOB ANYWHERE AFTER GRADUATION

Another myth about the school? Students only land jobs in the Midwest. In reality, just 47% of the Class of 2019 stayed here – down four points from the previous year. At the same time, Kelley is hardly a consumer products factory, either. Just 15% of last year’s graduating class entered the industry, less than consulting (21%) and technology (19%) – and barely more than healthcare (12%). Miguel Klee Roldan, a 2019 P&Q Best & Brightest MBA, came to Kelley from San Diego and ultimately returned to the West Coast with Amazon. One reason: he was able to network with several Kelley MBAs in the region.

“The alums that I met were not only helpful throughout the recruiting process, but also helped reassure me that moving to the West from Indiana was not impossible,” he writes. “Additionally, when I worked at Amazon during the summer, there was a group of Kelley alums at Amazon who met with me and my classmates every week of our internship to help us with our projects to ensure we were on track for a full-time offer. Kelley has the resources to get you to where you want to go. So long as you put in the work, you’ll get there.”

The Class of 2019 also enjoyed a big year, pay-wise, seeing base paying jump from $107,000 to $115,000 – a positive sign for incoming MBA students. What’s more, according to Forbes 2019 research, Kelley MBAs can expect their pay to increase by $63,500 within five years of graduation. That’s not the only good news coming out of Bloomington in recent months. Last month, Kelley received a $16 million dollar gift from the Jellison family, placing the school on track to meet its $200 million-dollar fundraising goal this summer.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE MBA DIRECTOR

What else can future Kelley MBAs expect? Last fall, P&Q reached out to Gale Gold Nichols, the executive director of the full-time MBA program. From new developments to underrated aspects of the program, here is what Gold Nichols told P&Q about what is coming up in the future at Kelley.

P&Q: What are the most exciting new developments in your program?

GGN: “We have launched a joint degree program enabling students to earn an MBA and an MS in Information Systems. The program focuses on digital enterprise and prepares students to be leaders in the use of technology as a competitive advantage, creating value in digitized processes and user experiences. We are also partnering with our top-ranked Kelley Direct Program to offer our students the option to pursue an M.S. degree in Business Analytics after completing their full-time MBA. This is a great opportunity to earn a second graduate degree and valuable additional expertise that can enhance students’ skills and career options.

We’re delighted to be rolling out a brand-new GLOBASE program in Belo Horizonte, Brazil this year. It will be our first GLOBASE program in that country, and we are excited to add this location to our existing programs in China, Ghana, Indonesia, and Thailand. GLOBASE is our premier experiential learning program and is one of the most popular and valuable features of our program.

We hired four regionally-based team members for our Graduate Career Services office’s Employer Relations Team. Over the last 12 months, these team members, based in Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and Bloomington, have generated more than 1,200 new jobs from more than 200 companies who had not previously hired from Kelley programs.”

P&Q: What is the most underrated part of your program that you wish prospective students knew more about?

GGN: “I would say there are three areas:

1) Access to certified coaches who can support students in their personal and professional growth throughout their time at Kelley.

2) The academic flexibility that the program provides: students can design their own major, take graduate-level classes outside of the business school that can count toward their degree, and combine residency in Bloomington (for one, two, or three semesters) with completion of the MBA via our highly-ranked online program.

3) The tremendous growth and learning that can take place when a student takes part in one or more of our global programs—it’s not only fun to participate in a GLOBASE or study abroad program, but it can also spur personal growth, understanding of another culture and economy, and building of a professional network in another part of the world.”