Hi RM,

Welcome to Kelley Direct! We're excited to have you.

Kelley Connect Week should be fun. I know Dean Smith, Associate Dean Kesner, and the rest of the faculty team have been putting finishing touches on the case on which you'll be working. This year the first and second-year Kelley Connect Week students will be on campus at the same time, so you will have a great opportunity to not only meet your fellow first-years, but also the second-year students.

Right now we have about 15 students who are also planning to go to the Annual Business Conference. The spring application deadline is January 31 so we expect that number to increase.

We look forward to seeing you and your colleagues in March!

Darren Klein
Kelley Direct Programs

P.S. If anyone has questions about Kelley Direct, feel free to contact me here. We will hopefully soon be announcing some events that we will be doing here in the near future.

Darren,
Thanks!! The welcome is much appreciated. I am looking forward to the Connect Week as well. It does look like it is going to be a long week though with the case study and the team presentation at the end of the week. I don't have a business background so I have a bad feeling that the whole thing may get a little overwhelmimg.

Are there any suggestions on what is the best way to prepare for the week (in terms of brushing up concepts, etc) so that things go a little more smoothly?

Hi RM,

I would not worry too much about your background...you will not be the only student with a limited business background. We carefully assign students to teams so that there is a good balance of backgrounds (amount of experience, type of experience, cultural background, quantitative skills, etc.). Regardless of your background we are confident that you will be able to contribute strongly to your team.

I also wouldn't worry too much about preparing for the week, as you'll be learning the concepts you need to apply in the case throughout the week. The best piece of advice I can give is to plan on not being available to your work colleagues during the week (i.e. don't plan on checking in to the office regularly or being available to do work-related activities in the evening). Between class sessions, case work, team-building, and networking activities, you will have little free time.

Of course, while the week is intense, it is a lot of fun. Between the new relationships you develop and the new concepts you learn, we think you'll find the week incredibly fulfilling and, hopefully, inspiring.

Take care and let me know if there is anything else we can do to help!

Darren Klein
Kelley Direct Programs

Hi RM. Im a second year MBA student at KD right now and will be on campus the same time as you are for our second connect week. If you have any questions on it feel free to write to me here. Most of my work experience was in engineering and engineering management and never felt as if I was lost. You will find a very varied set of backgrounds and some really great people to work with. The week itself is intense but very rewarding. If is is similar in structure to what we did last year you have have very limited free time. After the first day of classes and casework I pretty much told my wife I would have time to give her a call on her lunch break and little time to check in otherwise (my original plan was to Skype every night with her and my daughter). Make work aware that you will be available via email only and that you will only be checking that once a day. While you will have opportunities to check in, it really does vary everyday and it is better to have them prepared for the worst case scenario because it will be very hard to juggle work while taking part in everything during the week.

The classes are fantastic and the professors very engaging. You will get the most out of the classes by taking part in them as its more of an open forum of discussion rather than just lectures. And if you dont understand something ask questions either during or after the class. Everyone is in the same boat when it comes to understanding some of the concepts. And lean on your classmates for advice. Everyone has varied backgrounds and can help with something whether its Finance, Marketing, Law, etc...

And if you haven't been to the campus before try to take some of it in if you can. I walked everyday rather than taking a bus and you will probably find some folks willing to do the same. I also decided to stay an extra night which was worth it and this time around Im flying in a day early and staying a day late just to check out more of Bloomington.

If you have any questions about it or how the classes work after the Connect Week feel free to drop me a line. Good luck.

Hey Fitzgerald,

You have 750 on gmat and almost everyone with that score would look for a top league score. Can you please let us know why did you choose Kelley.

Also,
How much scholarship did you get...

Thanks in Advance

vikram4689 wrote:Hey Fitzgerald,

You have 750 on gmat and almost everyone with that score would look for a top league score. Can you please let us know why did you choose Kelley.

Also,
How much scholarship did you get...

Thanks in Advance

Hi Vikram.

Im an older MBA admit (Im in my mid 30s) which would have made any of the top schools a reach, unless I wanted to pursue an EMBA which I really did not want to do. More than that though, I needed a flexible way to attend school. Being married and having a 2 year old daughter makes leaving work for 2 years not an option. My options were to either pursue an online program or consider one of the part time programs in the area, the best being NYU and the runner up being Rutgers. I admit the thought of NYU was tempting, but the commute was going to be difficult (I live in NJ but not very close to NYC) and they seem to make a distinction between the part time and full time programs despite the cost being extremely high.

Kelley for me was a very intriguing option. Its a top 20 or so program and their online program had been in existence for some time. They had programs that catered to some very large companies so I knew it was well designed. Its also half the price. I gave all options significant thought and what really sold me on Kelley was the support I received from other students in the online program. The admissions staff, which was great, understood I needed time to decide and put me in contact with multiple current and former students from my area. I was really impressed with the way they reached out to me to tell me about the program. Age range and backgrounds varied (some were early 20s and one a PhD in his 40s) which also made me think it was a good fit. No students seemed to think that employers looked down on this as an "online degree" as they were being promoted or changing jobs no differently than any other MBA candidate.

Looking back I definitely made the right choice. The classes are all very informative and the case studies I think work very well in the online environment since you have more time to analyze certain things before commenting on them. Learning to work in virtual groups is very advantageous as well. The only drawback is that I would like to have an opportunity to work on more presentations which you cant really do online. Kelley does have two weeks where you are on campus which culminate in group presentations, but when technology allows for more virtual presentations it will be a big asset.

That doesnt mean its for everyone. If you are in your mid 20s and dont have a family Im sure the full time option may open a few more doors, but its a very good program and I have a hard time believing that the coursework is more difficult in the full time program (I have friends that went to some of the local schools in the area and I can definitely say I am doing more work than they did for their MBAs). In terms of scholarship I forget exactly what it was. I want to say it works out to about 18% off the tuition, but I cant recall the exact figure. Hope that helps.

This might be a little late, but I wrote a post about why I chose Kelley Direct over Booth that might help you and other people thinking about Kelley Direct: https://www.pathikbhatt.com/2012/kelley- ... ington-in/