Who selects the countries for the KIPS program each year?
The students. There's usually a leadership team for a particular country: a group of students who have special interest in that country and would like to
see a course focused around that country. They put together a proposal for the course and trip, present it to a faculty committee, and assess the interest
among the students to make sure there are enough students who are ultimately interested in the course and the trip to make it a viable class. Usually
towards the end of their first year they start thinking about what KIPs courses they are interested in for their second year and then the students get
together to draft proposals.
What should students expect from the Leadership Development Institute?
That's one of the other distinguishing factors of our program. The Leadership Development Institute is designed to provide people with the
opportunity to fully assess their leadership skills and all those qualities and characteristics that impact leadership.
Early on in their
first year, all of our students go through a pretty lengthy and individual leadership assessment. They are put through different scenarios
and exercises. They're observed and video-taped, and later given a very detailed assessment. They receive feedback on their strengths and
limitations and are then provided opportunities over the course of the two years of the MBA program to participate in sessions and activities
to shore up some of the areas that need improvement.
Another nice thing about the Leadership Development Institute program is that we recognize
that to be good leaders and to continue to advance in their management careers, they are all likely to be in positions where they need to
assess and help develop leadership skills in others. So the students all go through a course to help them learn how to facilitate leadership
assessments. As second year students they are actively involved in helping with the assessments of the first year class.
What are some of the attractions of going to school in Bloomington as opposed to a city like New York, Chicago or Boston?
Bloomington is a great college town. We may be a small town in southern Indiana, but when you have a university with 37,000 to 38,000 students,
that brings a lot of energy, activity, diversity and opportunity to the community. There is no shortage of things to do outside of class in
terms of athletic and recreational events, artistic events, and cultural events on campus.
But the real nice thing about being in a place
like Bloomington is that we're able to develop such a strong sense of community among our faculty, staff, and students. It would be safe to
say that 95% to 98% of our faculty, staff, and students live within a 4-5 mile radius of campus. What that means is that our faculty aren't
the kind of people who commute in once a week to teach their class and then disappear again until the next week. Their lives are here in
Bloomington – they live in Bloomington – they are very accessible to our students and very involved in the program and activities both in and
out of class. Our faculty members are still well connected with business and industry in that they serve on boards of directors, they consult,
they do executive education. Many have industry experience. But during the academic year, they are here in Bloomington and are very available to our students.
How was the 2005-2006 admissions season for the Kelley School of Business?
It was certainly better than the few years prior to that. We are beginning to see an upward swing in applications. Not only were
applications up, but our yield was up as well in terms of the number of students that accepted our offers for admission. Our entering
class is a little bit bigger than it has been over the last two years.
What general advice do you have for applicants?
Give yourself time. Start the process early. And when you start the process, do your research, visit schools.
There's so much good
information on the web these days, people can gather information and begin to make decisions about schools that might be a good fit,
might have the academic program they are interested in, might have relationships with the type of employers they are interested in
working for and with. But sometimes determining whether the people are the type of people you want to spend two years with – that you
want to hang on to as professional colleagues or friends for the rest of your career and life – some of that you can't get until you visit
campus. Sit in on a class, meet students, meet faculty members and get a sense of how the program really operates.
So again I would say,
give yourself time, do good research on business schools, talk to alumni, talk to current students or communicate by email. Then when you
start working on the application, you need to be sure to read the instructions carefully and follow the deadlines.
What are the specific traits you look for in candidates?
There are a number of things we are looking for in an MBA candidate.
We are looking for people who have clearly given this some thought – candidates
who know why they want an MBA and why this is a good time to get an MBA for them personally.
We are also interested in applicants who can explain
why they are interested in a Kelley MBA and how the Kelley MBA program can help them achieve their goals.
Our program is very collaborative,
there's a lot of teamwork, so we are looking for people who appear to have a successful track record of teamwork, people who have something
to contribute to the program and people who are interested in learning from their classmates.
Our program is academically rigorous, so their
academic record and test scores become important. We want to make sure they are able to handle the academic rigors of the program.
And
through our interviews, we want to assess their communication skills, to make sure that they are ready to be full contributors in the
classroom and have the potential to be successful in their job search.
Can you describe the applicant interview process?
It's a fairly straightforward and traditional. Anyone who visits the campus or meets us on the road in the fall before our
application deadline can request an interview. We would be happy to schedule an interview during a campus visit or while we are
on the road. After a person applies, if they haven't already interviewed, interviews are by invitation only. So after we review
their application, we'll determine who we would like additional information from. We will extend an invitation to interview at that point.
They can either make a trip to visit us on campus or we will arrange a phone interview.
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