Kellogg School of Management graduates are making bank, according to a recent study.
The study from AdmissionsConsultants, a group that provides counseling services to prospective college and graduate students, shows job recruiters predict Kellogg graduates will be the sixth-highest paid business school graduates in the country. Kellogg also ranked first in teamwork and skills development as well as in marketing and sales, said David Petersam, president of the group.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Daniel Hirt, a Kellogg second year JD-MBA student. “Kellogg is one of the top-ranked programs in the nation.”
In conducting the survey to see how business school names affected salaries, AdmissionsConsultants compiled over 2,800 fictional résumés and sent them to job recruiters around the country. All of the fictional applicants were male, had Anglo-Saxon names, attended similar schools for undergraduate studies and had the same level of work experience. The only variable was where the applicant went to business school.
“We didn’t really tell recruiters what we were doing,” Petersam said.
Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management made up the highest suspected salaries, followed by Kellogg, results show.
Petersam said he was not surprised by the findings.
“I fully suspected that having Harvard on your résumé would be more rewarding than having a lower-tier school on your résumé,” he said.
But there’s more to salary predictions than just the name of the school, he said. The top schools attract the best applicants and provide more networking opportunities, he said.
“As much as you learn from your professors, you learn even more from your classmates,” Petersam said.
Arielle Deane, a first-year Kellogg student, said she expected Kellogg to rank higher. Deane said she has received two job offers and is planning on accepting one in New Jersey.
“I think we’re probably a little bit higher in world ranking,” she said. “There’s probably more people doing social entrepreneurship or things with lower salaries (at Kellogg).”
AdmissionsConsultants also focused on the geographic region of business schools and job opportunities. The group found that “recruiters give advantages to candidates who had already lived or worked in the same geographic region as the job they are applying for,” according to the study.
Geographical preference applies more to small companies, as large firms are more likely to travel to get the graduates of top-ranked schools, Petersam said.
“Kellogg is a very well-known business school, so we get recruiters from all parts of the country,” Hirt said.
But a small company in the Midwest, for example, would be more likely to recruit applicants from Kellogg than from Harvard or Stanford, Petersam said.
“In the Midwest, Kellogg has a great brand name,” said Sherry Jun, a first-year Kellogg MBA student.
Kellogg students find jobs in a wide variety of fields including banking, consulting and social work, Hirt said.
“They bring credibility to everything they do.”[email protected]
