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<p>I think even more importantly, even if you aren’t going to work abroad in your lifetime, the fact is, we live in a global economy. You could easily find yourself working in the US, but for a foreign company or subsidiary. Or your client base or investor base might be international. For example, I know one guy who is trying to start a tech company in the US and whose potential investors are a bunch of Israeli VC’s (granted, the guy himself is obviously an Israeli-American).</p>
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<p>Sam Lee, I think you are the one who is being ridiculous. </p>
<p>What I said is that practically nobody has heard of Northwestern/Kellogg internationally, and even most people in the US have never heard of it. It’s unfortunately true, and here’s what I mean: ask a regular man on the street whether he’s ever heard of Northwestern. Or Kellogg. You’ll get a blank stare. Heck, even most people in Chicago have never heard of Northwestern. But, let’s face it, everybody has heard of Harvard. </p>
<p>Now, what you’re talking about is a small narrow subset of people who actually know the business school rankings well. But that’s practically nobody, compared to the general population, which speaks to my entire basic point: If Northwestern/Kellogg was so good at marketing, then why isn’t their brand name better known?. In contrast, again, everybody has heard of Harvard. So, honestly, who has done a better job of marketing their brand? </p>
<p>Come on, Sam Lee, you know it’s true. You know there’s something amiss about the notion that Northwestern/Kellogg is supposedly such a great marketing school, and yet they can’t even build a better brand name than - certainly - Harvard, and probably not even Stanford or Wharton. If you’re really so good at marketing, you should be the most famous school in the country, right? Everybody should have heard of you, right? Otherwise, maybe the marketing really ain’t as great as they claim it to be.</p>
<p>While I didn’t agree with what Sam was saying, I think your defense is wrong. One, while your ego may be stroked, what “the regular man on the street” thinks is relatively meaningless to your career prospects. “The regular man on the street” is in no position to be hiring students who are the caliber of Harvard or Kellogg students. Second, the most famous school does not mean that it needs to be the best at teaching marketing to its students or have its grads known for going onto prominent marketing positions. You are mixing two things together that have no necessary relationship. Why does the best school need to be the best at teaching and having people go into marketing? I would think, if anything, the opposite would be true; that the best students at the best schools would be gunning for PE, HF, IB, MC and looking to avoid marketing, so by definition the best schools would not be known for marketing.</p>
<p>When I hear Kellogg, I first think of cereal.</p>
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<p>Oh, I doubt that. There are a lot of companies that are run or managed by regular people - i.e. large family businesses, especially overseas - that may indeed be interested in hiring Harvard or potentially Kellogg MBA’s. </p>
<p>But hiring is not the only activity at play. Regular people will often times become your clientele. For example, if you’re looking to perform wealth management, you have to obtain clients. If you want to start your own professional services firm, you have to obtain clients. I know one guy who finished his MBA and immediately started his own computer security firm that would find and plug hackable holes in the computer systems of small businesses - precisely the types of businesses that can’t afford to hire the major computer security firms. One of his company’s major selling points is that the company was staffed by graduates of Harvard and MIT (which was actually referring to himself, having degrees from both places). </p>
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<p>Actually, that is not what I am saying. I never said that Kellogg necessarily needs to have its best people go into marketing. This has nothing to do with where the students choose to go.</p>
<p>I am simply saying that if Kellogg is supposedly such a great school for marketing, then why can’t it simply market itself better? That is to say, why isn’t Kellogg’s brand name more famous? Why can’t it apply its own lessons about marketing - which it is supposed to understand deeply given its #1 ranking in marketing - to itself to build the best brand name in the MBA universe? If it can’t, then what does it really mean to be the #1 school in marketing? </p>
<p>Let me give you an example from Google, since that company was brought up previously. Google has argued that Gmail is the best webmail system in the world, in fact, so good that Google is trying to sell a corporate version of it to companies with which to replace their own internal corporate email systems. Now, the vast majority of employees at Google do not work on Gmail. Probably less than 1% do, as Google has numerous projects and divisions. Nevertheless, Google still touts Gmail as the best webmail system in the world.</p>
<p>Now, what if it turned out that Google itself, internally, did not actually use Gmail for its own corporate email system? What if - horrors - they actually used a standard Microsoft Exchange system instead? Then potential clients would reasonably ask why should they buy the corporate Gmail system when Google itself refuses to do the same? You should be willing to eat your own home cooking.</p>
<p>I’m simply saying that Kellogg has a weakness in its narrative. Is it a fatal weakness? No. I still think Kellogg is a top MBA school. However, what I am saying is that one of Kellogg’s problems is a relative lack of brand recognition (relative to places like Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton), which is ironic considering that Kellogg is purported to have such strengths in marketing.</p>
<p>I think your reasoning is still flawed sakky. Brand recognition is created by excellence across a variety of fields and prominent alums in top positions (Stanford GSB and HBS are by far the leaders in this) and not, primarily, by “marketing” techniques. Excellence in specialized field such as marketing naturally does not lead to great holistic brand recognition.</p>
<p>I am not arguing against the fact that Kellogg can probably do a better job getting its name out there, but there is no necessary stipulation that having a great marketing department means you should have a great global brand name with the common man. MIT Sloan and Columbia BSchool have cultivated more recognition than Kellogg because of the institutions they’re tied to, the variety of fields they excel in, and the powerful alum network they have. Not because they are pro marketers.</p>
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that’s good, because it received an enormous grant from the family of the guy who started the processed foods company, so they’re actually named after the same thing.</p>
<p>that’s marketing!</p>
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<p>I guess you could call it marketing if your goal is to have a program that immediately brings up images of Tony the Tiger.</p>
<p>At least that’s a positive association. My alma mater, Columbia, brings up images of paramilitary drug warlords in a semi-anarchic south american state.</p>
<p>Pablo Escobar was a huge fan of “Frosted” Flakes</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
<p>I find it interesting that you’d go out of your way to attack Kellogg’s marketing department when you know very well Harvard’s brand has a lot to do with the general brand of Harvard University, not some magical marketing strategy. In fact, you were the one that argued Harvard’s engineering is better than, say, UIUC, because of the Harvard brand in the past. So you know very well the significance of Harvard brand. Northwestern is no Harvard so no matter how good its marketing strategy (or department) is (just like regardless of how good UIUC’s engineering is), it’s not gonna catch Harvard. You know this well but it seems like you have an ax to grind. I am curious why/what motivates you to do that.</p>
<p>As far as regular man on the street goes, many don’t know Wharton either.</p>
<p>^ +1</p>
<p>[10 char.]</p>
<p>Sam, while I appreciate you using my argument, you need to learn how to attack ideas and not people. From the tone of your original posts, it’s clear that your opinion of Kellogg is biased and that you are actually the one with an ax to grind. Reread your posts and compare the tone to that of others in this thread, as well as how you address people vs. ideas.</p>
<p>^I was not using “your” argument. Many people can see the same thing without reading your post. Please don’t suggest I copied your idea. Also, I think it’s ironic that you asked me not to call out sakky while at the same time, accuse me of having an ax to grind. Maybe not just I, but you also can learn to give others appropriate respect as well.</p>
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<p>Yeah, I don’t think anyone here is arguing against the undeniable strength and reach of the Harvard name. Having said that, Wharton seems to be doing a pretty decent job holding its own against HBS (both in the US and abroad). I do agree with Sakky that for such a touted marketing program its curious that Kellogg hasn’t been able to do a better job promoting its own brand – which, frankly, has less name recognition vs. Wharton even in the US.</p>
<p>^ I think it’s the nature of the beast. Wharton is known for finance…finance is generally seen as a more prestigious/lucrative field than marketing.</p>
<p>I think most (though clearly not all) will concede that the top two competitors for #4 are MIT-Sloan and Columbia. One could make a case for Tuck/Kellogg/Booth but I think each comes up slightly short. I know Kellogg sometimes usurps in the rankings, but marketing types aside, do many people (today) really ever choose Northwestern over MIT/Columbia? On average, I think not. NU is just not quite as impressive (although still very good). I’d like to add that I’m slightly biased in favor Northwestern as my grandfather taught there for decades, but I still consider it a slightly lesser school. </p>
<p>Tuck/Kellogg/Booth are just a notch below Sloan and Columbia, which are in turn a notch below H/S/W.</p>
<p>So, I have to ask, which of the two do people think is stronger: MIT or Columbia? Personally, I’m stumped…</p>
<p>^Northwestern isn’t only good at marketing.
Management (USN 2010 ranking):
<p>I second what UCBChemEGrad said. It seems to me there’s certain bias toward finance or schools close to/at NYC on this board. Business is much more than just finance (and marketing for that matter). What about “management”? </p>
<p>If you are really that into crunching numbers that actually matter, maybe you want to look at accounting ranking and put UT Austin much higher. </p>
<p>Peer Assessment:
Harvard 4.8
Stanford 4.8
Penn 4.8
MIT 4.8
Northwestern 4.7
Chicago 4.7
Berkeley 4.6
Columbia 4.5
Michigan 4.4
Duke 4.4
Dartmouth 4.3
NYU 4.3</p>
<p>Recruiter Assessment:
Harvard 4.5
Stanford 4.5
Northwestern 4.3
Penn 4.3
MIT 4.3
Chicago 4.3
Dartmouth 4.1
Columbia 4.1
Berkeley 4.0
Michigan 4.0
Virginia 4.0
Yale 4.0</p>
<p>08 graduates employed at graduation (top-5)
Northwesten 89.3%
Chicago 87.4%
Harvard 87.0%
Berkeley 85.1%
Dartmouth 85.1% </p>
<p>It’s interesting how those ratings for Northwestern look higher than what some of the posters suggested.</p>
<p>USN ranking that just came out:
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<p>Not many top MBAs are interested in going into accounting positions though.</p>