Kellogg Full-Time MBA Program

In addition to making decisions about the GMAT/GRE and ordering transcripts, you will want to start thinking about potential recommenders. You want to consider the people in your professional life that are willing to invest the time to support you in the application process. Kellogg requires two recommendations and we would like to have a recommendation from your immediate supervisor, if possible. We understand that this may not always be the case and candidates who cannot ask their supervisor should provide an explanation in the Additional Information section of Part II of the application. The second recommender should be someone that can evaluate your career, including your leadership and managerial potential and your career progression to date. Many applicants use previous supervisors or people that are above their immediate supervisor, but this does not have to be the case.

Discuss your application to business school with colleagues and prime several of them to support you in the process. Keep in mind that if you are applying to multiple business schools, you may not be able to ask the same set of recommenders to answer questions for several schools. You should never help write recommendation letters but you should sit down with your recommender to discuss why you are applying to school and remind them of some of the work you’ve done for or with them over the past few years. You’ll want to register them as recommenders as soon as you start the application; you don’t want to ask them to serve as a recommender two days before the recommendation is due.