How US-based Kellogg School of Management prepares students to be future-ready

Over the past few years, students' demand to pursue an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) has surged, with the USA being the top destination. According to the Graduation Management Admissions Council (GMAC), between 2023 and 2024, the total applications to pursue the MBA programmes surged by 11%. 

Amidst the popularity of pursuing an MBA, Kellogg School of Management, which is part of Northwestern University, is focusing on learning with empathy, Dean Francesca Cornelli tells Business Today in an interaction. 

What makes Kellogg School of Management, according to Cornelli, a top destination for MBA, is the institute's unique "catalogue of approaches that opens minds of students in different areas.’ “It's a lot of focus on new topics, on things people have not taught. There's a lot on leadership. We believe in leading with empathy. There's also a lot of focus on communication, especially with courses like selling yourself and your ideas, elevator pitch, and Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIML),” says Cornelli. 

The management school has also launched a special project on private equity. "When people say, ‘I learn on the job,’ on the job, you learn one job, and you learn how you're doing it now. But in the future, that job will be transformed. It will be a different job. There may be jobs out there for you that you didn't even know. So what we need is to get people to experiment, to think, to understand what suits them or not,” says Cornelli. 

The management school offers a two-year full-time MBA programme, a one-year MBA program, a dual degree MMM program, and a joint JD MBA program. The institute enrolls approximately 1,200 to 1,300 students every year across its MBA program. Of this, 48–49% of students are female. 

Indian students are the largest nationality after the USA citizens. This is followed up be Brazilian and Chinese students. “Indian students are the largest amongst the international students. From 2020 23 to 2024 students from India, applications increased 11.5% Yeah. So we went from 920 applications to over 1000 applications. And the upward trend for 2025—we're still accepting applications,” says Cornelli. As per Cornelli, in 2024, approximately 120 Indian students were enrolled across Kellogg School of Management’s program. 

Notably among the highest opted career options following an MBA are consulting (above 30%), financial services (20%), and technology (22%). “We are actually the school that sends the largest number of students in absolute numbers to the big tech. And there's a matter of fact, like, like, among our Indian students, yeah, 35% of the Indian students go in technology,” observes Cornelli. 

Cornelli notes that despite Trump Administration 2.0 and the possibility of a trade war, the institute's enrolment and interest management have not diminished. “So far international applications, even in round two, after the January elections were up. So I don't see diminished interest at all, and that's because the US economy is doing so well so far,” says Cornelli. 

‘Want to be part of India’s Golden Decade’

Notably, Kellogg School of Management was one of the schools behind the creation of the country’s top-ranking Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB). As per the school’s website, “the ISB-Kellogg Global Advanced Management Programme is an open-enrolment, non-degree executive education course designed to enhance participants’ understanding of the global economy.”

Regarding the Indian economy, Cornelli says that India is booming right now. “We have a lot of history of a lot of engagement in India. India is booming right now, we want to be part of the Golden Decade,” says Cornelli. 

The institute organised Kellogg School of Management’s ‘Pragati: India’s Golden Decade Conference’ earlier this month, through its extensive alumni network in India. Cornelli says that AI will be the biggest transformation in terms of jobs in India. “AI is going to be a big transformation. And I know that a lot of people are super worried because some of the growth in the past in India has been by jobs that can get easily automated. But we at Kellogg School of Management want to be part of the conversation. We strongly believe that having a group of data scientists is not going to have an impact unless you interact with the business. Our entire approach focuses on building the bridge between science and business via AI,” says Cornelli.