Kellogg MBA Class Of 2024 Profile: GPA, GMAT & Internationals All Up

Northwestern Kellogg reports that 48% of its new MBA class are women, down from 49% last year

KELLOGG REMAINS ON THE VERGE OF PARITY

Northwestern Kellogg nearly reached the promised land of gender parity last year with 49% women in the MBA Class of 2023. This year Kellogg’s push to parity slowed, with the percentage of women at 48%, leaving Wharton as the only M7 school to report 50% women in its full-time MBA (which it has now done twice in two years).

In another area, Kellogg did set what appears to be a school record (based on P&Q data going back to 2012): internationals. Like many B-schools this year, Kellogg appears to have shored up a widely reported decline in U.S. domestic applications with an increase in international admissions; its students from outside the U.S., which includes dual citizens, increased to 38% of the new class, up from 36% last year and up 12 percentage points in two years. This helped Kellogg maintain a similar class size, at 503, down just five seats from last year.

Like most B-schools in the last year, Kellogg has begun posting its adherence to both methods of reporting race and ethnicity in its MBA class profiles, using both Federal Reporting Guidelines as advised by the Graduate Management Admission Council, and Multi-Dimensional Reporting, “which allows students to select multiple categories of race and ethnicity if they identify with those categories.” This means, to use Kellogg’s own example, “if a student identifies as both Black and Asian, he or she is counted in both the ‘Black’ and ‘Asian’ categories under Multi-Dimensional Reporting, as opposed to being classified as ‘multi-racial’ under Federal Guidelines Reporting.” In Multi-Dimensional Reporting, Kellogg’s minority cohort is 23%, about the same as last year, while according to the federal standard it is 38%. In both measures, the class is comprised of 11% hispanic/Latinx students.

In another key measure, 8.2% of the new class identifies as part of the LGBTQ community.

STEM MAJORS KEEP GROWING AS PART OF THE KELLOGG MBA CLASS

The new Kellogg MBA class is slightly more experienced than its immediate predecessor, with an average rate 62 months work experience, up from 60 last year.

The new students hail mostly from the consulting (24%, down from 28%), financial services (19%, down from 29%), and tech (17%, up from 12%) industries. Those with experience in the government/education/nonprofit, consumer products, and healthcare/biopharmaceuticals sectors all saw increases to 7% of the class each.

Last year, nearly half (49%) of the Kellogg MBA Class of 2023 had majored in economics or business in undergrad, while 35% majored in a STEM field, up from 29% the previous year. Humanities majors dipped to 21% from 28%. This year, business majors still dominate, at 45%, while STEM majors climbed again, to 38%, and humanities rebounded to 24%.

KELLOGG’S CLASS OF 2024: ‘BRILLIANCE & AMBITION’

“Beyond the statistics, we are proud that the remarkable individuals in the Class of 2024 bring to our community their own unique academic backgrounds and professional paths,” Emily Haydon says.

“When I think of the brilliance and ambition in this class, I think of the student who led a $10 billion real estate re-development project, the largest in his firm’s history, while he oversaw a team of 70-plus people. I think of the student who built a charter school chain’s development program from the ground up, as she generated more than $15 million and tripled its number of donors.

“And I think of the U.S. military veteran joining us this year, and how he initiated a first-of-its-kind effort that integrated Marine and Navy planning and analytical capability across the entire Pacific Theater.”

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