This content was originally published in Poets&Quants.
You come for the people. That’s the real difference. Business school is all about being around the right people, the kind who’ll support and challenge you – and ultimately bring out your best. During recruiting, their alumni are the first to return your calls. When you visit campus, you find your fellow recruits are fun-loving team players just like you. That’s when you know a community is for you – and you can’t wait for the next two years to start.
The Kellogg School of Management boasts a number of advantages. Their marketing, entrepreneurship, and technology programming is second-to-none. Evanston is College Town USA, safe and friendly along picturesque Lake Michigan, with Chicago just 40 minutes away by train. In the end, people are the school’s biggest draw. On paper, it may appear that Kellogg seeks the same student profiles as peer schools: innovators, risk-takers, and collaborators who are dynamic, adventurous, and growth-minded.
Still, there is something distinct about Kellogg MBA students. Maybe it is a sense of fellowship honed by participating in over 200 meetings during their time in the Global Hub. Then again, it could stem from the expectation – enforced by students – that everyone contributes to the Kellogg experience. Either way, Kellogg classes are known for a shared mission and value system that produces a camaraderie that lasts long after graduation.
A student-driven culture
“It sounds cliché, but I chose Kellogg for the community,” explains Lauren Cziesla ’23 MBA. “Coming from a non-traditional business school background, I knew I wanted to be somewhere where I would be surrounded by positive, outgoing, and friendly people who had a diverse set of experiences from which I could learn. Kellogg, with its “high impact, low ego” mantra, fit that bill perfectly. I was impressed with every student and alumni who reached out prior to my commitment to attend and could tell that Kellogg was a community where people were eager to help and genuinely cared about one another’s success.”
First-year Alejandro Mestre’25 MMM Program witnessed these qualities modeled through Sammy Goldstein ’22 MBA, whom he met at a seminar. Through Goldenstein, Mestre experienced what Kellogg’s “student-driven culture” really involved.
“[It is] one where students are teammates, not competition; where students are taught how to elevate the whole room vs. solely themselves; where students are challenged, but supported. Sammy stayed in touch with me throughout my application process, supporting me at every step. She demonstrated the type of support I could expect from Kellogg students during my time at Kellogg and beyond.”
The crucible moment
The Class of 2025 was also exposed to the Kellogg character during student orientation, or CIM (Where Culture Is Made). As part of the orientation, students participate in the “Crucible Moment” tradition. Over dinner, eight-member learning pods share their personal stories, from life-transforming events to favorite travel destinations. For Phillip Cox ’25 Two-Year MBA Program, who describes his first-year classmates as “inclusive and passionate,” the Crucible Moment was an exercise that reflected how being open and vulnerable can fuel lifelong bonds.
“I was worried at first about how others would judge me from sharing things that were so personal,” Cox admits, “but I was taken aback by how encouraging and supportive everyone in our group was. Despite being eight strangers, we shared how these personal pivotal moments in our lives have truly shaped who we are as people and leaders. The dinner was filled with tears, laughs, and nothing but warm energy. It was also really inspiring to see how each of our experiences fueled our passions in our personal and professional lives and how everyone was supportive of each other. I left dinner with seven new incredible friends and an appreciation for the welcoming Kellogg community that I can call home.”
Ana Sulakvelidze ’24 MBAi Program, a senior analytics engineer before joining the fall class, describes the Crucible Moment this way: “I laughed and cried that evening, and most importantly I made some great friends.”
And those Kellogg friends, adds Martha Wong ’24 One-Year MBA Program, are often refreshingly different than themselves. “As someone who was an undergraduate business major and spent six years in finance, it has been a new experience to be around people who don’t know or care what EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) is. There is so much to learn when in a group of people with such diverse backgrounds.”
