Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / Episode 510: Admissions Director Q&A with Steve Thompson of Northwestern Kellogg

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Episode 510: Admissions Director Q&A with Steve Thompson of Northwestern Kellogg · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm your host, Graham Richmond, and this special episode is part of our Admissions Director Q and A series. Today I'm excited to welcome Steve Thompson from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Steve's title is Senior Director of Admissions for full time MBA programs. Steve has played a critical leadership role at Kellogg since January of 2018, when he first joined the team as Director of the executive MBA program. In 2021, he began leading full time MBA admissions for Kellogg, the role he remains in today. And prior to Kellogg, Steve worked at IE Business School as the Executive Director of the program. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing From Arizona State's W.P. carey School of Business and a Master's in International Relations from IE in Madrid. Welcome, Steve.
• 1:08
  Speaker B: Thank you, Graham. Thank you for inviting me. A pleasure to catch up with you.
• 1:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's always great to catch up with you and I gave a little bit of background on you, but I always want to give people a chance just to tell their story a bit. So if you could just tell me a little bit about your background and the path that led you to your current role because you've, you know, it sounds like you were working in Madrid for a while. You've been, I know you were in Miami at Kellogg's campus down there. So tell us a little about this journey that's led to Chicago.
• 1:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, it hasn't been linear at all. It's been a lot of luck and some strategy involved as well. I'll go back a little bit further. So out of undergrad, my first role was with Black and Decker.
• 1:42
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 1:43
  Speaker B: So I was spending a lot of time in home improvement stores and talking to contractors and selling power tools. And it was a really good experience. But unfortunately, timing wise, when the 2008 financial crisis hit, obviously the housing market was one of the biggest impacted markets. And as a result, this sales and development program I was a part of got completely reorganized and I was going to have to relocate. And I decided with all that uncertainty, that's not something I felt was the wise decision. And so I did what most people do and I decided I'm just going to pack things up and move to Argentina. Which really part of it was I had a company car, so I was carless. I didn't have much timing down there, wasn't a good shop market. So I decided I'm going to take a step back, take some Spanish courses and kind of figure out what's next. And lucky for me, I did figure out what was next, which was I applied for a grant to teach English in Spain. I was awarded that grant and spent two years living on the Mediterranean and kind of being the funny uncle in class teaching primary school students some English. And then I decided it was time to try to get back on path and I ended up applying to IU University in Madrid. I did the Master's in International Relationship and towards the end of that program I was encouraged to apply for a job in the business school in the full time MBA program. And honestly, at that moment, the motivation was I want to stay in Spain. But I ended up discovering my passion. And so here I am over 15 years later. I've been working in different capacities, but always with full time MBA students and executive MBA students.
• 3:14
  Speaker A: Got it. It's funny, you talk about your early, early career in power tools and stuff. I had an early career experience working at a hardware store. And even though it was not relevant to where I am today at all in some regards, I think that these types of roles where you're out there, you know, I was in a store, you were probably visiting stores. It's actually really, really valuable as you kind of go through your career. But yeah, wow, what an interesting journey that you've been on. So you're fluent in Spanish, I'm guessing after all that time in Argentina and Spain and working at IE, right?
• 3:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, 10 years in Spain. And in addition, my wife is from Paraguay and when we met she spoke very little English. And so we're trying to raise our kids bilingual here in the Chicagoland area. And so, yeah, it's a daily, daily task to speak Spanish.
• 3:55
  Speaker A: Oh, that's great. So tell me, you know, you talked about kind of discovering your passion, but you know, what drew you to admissions work and I guess more importantly, what keeps you excited about it today?
• 4:06
  Speaker B: So I love being in admissions and I think part of why I love it so much is I had the benefit of being embedded with students for so many years prior to it. And so when I speak to the experience, my exuberance, I think, as I've been told in feedback, you know, it's palatable. And so I had always collaborated with admissions and been willing to travel and speak with prospective students. And I really enjoyed it, you know, not selling them on the school, but really allowing, helping curate a conversation that allows them to connect the dots and see where the MBA fits in and being able to describe the experience or connect them with students so that they can really understand the experience. And so when the opportunity arose to do that Full time. I was very excited and it's been extremely rewarding. I do miss seeing the daily evolution of students. But on the flip side, I'm now with prospective students and helping them understand really how, how many of their dreams can be achieved by going and getting their MBA and expanding their network and their knowledge base. It really is a life changing experience.
• 5:06
  Speaker A: So I have to ask you, you know, I think that sometimes applicants imagine admissions officers to be of, you know, like a sort of gatekeepers or a certain type of person or something. And I wonder if, would you be willing to like, what's one misconception that applicants have about admissions officers or even the process?
• 5:24
  Speaker B: Sure, you know, it's. I know it's going to be different at every school, but I think everyone could agree that, you know, it's not just about us using some formulaic algorithm to rank order everybody and then draw the cutoff line and say, there we are, we're good to go. There's an art and a science to this, which is another thing that I love about it. And so certainly there's some pretty sophisticated means in ensuring the rubric remains consistent in evaluating. But our job is to curate an experience for those students. And so to do so, we need to make sure there's people from all walks of life and the diversity of thought in that classroom. So it's very enriching. I often compare it to an orchestra. You don't want a bunch of students that are just playing a single instrument. That might sound okay for a while, but it gets boring. And so we really want to bring a bunch of different instruments into the classroom. And then our faculty are the maestros that are able to bring it all together and make it a dynamic environment. That, that is beautiful music. And so that's something that, you know, you know, what's. We get the questions all the time. You know, what's the one thing I should be doing or focusing on? And it's the famous business school answer, which is, it depends. And so I'm willing to dig deeper and have those conversations. But it really isn't as simple as, you know. Yes. No, it is complex.
• 6:32
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's what. I mean, I know that's what I appreciate about the sort of MBA admissions process. And I love the. I may have to steal that analogy at some point because that's such a great analogy with the orchestra. So I guess one thing I'm wondering, and you know, we talked a little bit before we came on air about, you know, Kellogg has these video Kind of essay type questions or video questions that people do. But I wondered, how has your thinking about admissions changed over the years? And the reason I'm thinking about the video is just because that does feel like something newer. But what, what, how has things have, have things evolved since you kind of first started working in admissions?
• 7:05
  Speaker B: Sure. Well, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is certainly how AI has disrupted everything. And on our end, you know, going back to my analogy, real ways to stand out are intangibles. When we're trying to curate this classroom experience. And so sticking to a script and being too well polished, it simply, it usually doesn't land well. And so we've had to kind of evolve with that to ensure we're providing the rich environment that will enable them to be authentic, share their voice, share their story, share some of the nuances of their experiences and their values in a way where we can really identify will they fit with our community? Have they really thought through the impact of what the MBA will be and not some boxed answer that might sound really good and would be like a talking point on a news channel. If you participated in interviews, you can probably imagine how mundane that can get as you're reading through hundreds of applications in every round. And so that's really, as we've evolved, we've tried to provide more inputs that allow us to tap into that. And so the video essays have been part of that. We were early adopters of it. We were doing it before I came on board, but now we're doubling down on it. And it can make people nervous because I get, it's kind of an awkward environment, but at the same time, only one person gets to interview and then they share their feedback with the team. Whereas this gives an opportunity for everyone on the team to engage with you in a little bit more intimate environment and hear directly from you in the moment how you approached a problem or a challenge.
• 8:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, and I feel like, you know, one of the benefits of technology is that in, you know, 20 years ago, schools had to, you know, really pick and choose who they could interview in many instances because of just capacity. And most of these things were done back then in person. And this idea that everyone on your team can at least get a glimpse of a candidate and understand, you know, kind of how they, how they communicate and, you know, what their answers are to these questions. It must just be a little more interesting for you guys on the other side of the table too, because you, the candidates are kind of really brought to life probably through these video Exercises.
• 9:07
  Speaker B: It really is. You know, we even tested a hypothesis of is this a barrier? Because not as many schools do the video essays. And so we made it optional one year and the large majority of the of the applicants still opted into it, but those that didn't, we missed it and actually put them at a disadvantage because we so value that input that we made it a requirement again.
• 9:25
  Speaker A: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And I will say, I feel like one of the trends that we're seeing and as I talk to, you know, some of your colleagues at other schools is, you know, more and more use of video and use of like impromptu sort of exercises where you're not given, you know, five minutes to prepare for a question you're going to answer on a video. It's like you have like 10 seconds or 30 seconds. I think it's, you know, schools are trying to get it, you know, really authentic responses. But speaking of all that, what is something that applicants tend to worry about far more than they should?
• 9:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, I was thinking about this question because there's a lot of worrying that goes on. And I get it. It's high stakes and it's a life changing experience. So there's a lot of pressure. But one thing I'd like to zero in on is how frequently we hear someone within the first breath of their introduction is they're a non traditional candidate and sharing that in a way like they're at some disadvantage. And you know, I remind them that the MBA is a generalist degree. Now through electives and specializations you can refine, but it is a broad opportunity and within that comes the opportunity for many to approach it. We're not looking for someone that's in business, wants to study business and go back to business. There's plenty of people that go on that career path, but we have plenty of people that come from military or are nurses or doctors, or we're engineers. And never touch the business or strategy side. As long as you can connect those dots for us and really tell the story of where the MBA fits in, that's your secret recipe to success. And us understanding that you put a lot of thought into this. You understand maybe some of the challenges involved, but the non traditional element is not something that ever crosses our minds. So I would tell those candidates that aren't currently in a strategy role or a business role that that in no way is something where we're all of a sudden deducing points or thinking you're at a disadvantage. Your experiences are unique. Convey those to us, connect the dots for us. And you're in good shape in terms of that aspect of application?
• 11:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, I can definitely, you know, when I used to be in admissions, like, it's sometimes, you know, you read a file from someone who's doing something kind of different, and it's quite refreshing, you know, to sort of just see all the different backgrounds that coming from. You know, it's just that's what keeps the job interesting. I did want to ask you a question. This is. So when you look back at the students you've admitted over the years, what qualities tend to distinguish those who make the most of the opportunities during the mba? So this isn't like, what qualities are the ones that you admit to the program? I'm saying, is there anything that you've kind of identified over the years that makes for a great student in the program? So when it really takes advantage of everything. Yeah.
• 11:55
  Speaker B: And again, having the benefit of managing student and academic experience for so many years, I had the privilege of speaking to our new students now in my admissions role during their orientation week. And I use that as an opportunity to do basically two things. One is I know there's a lot of imposter syndrome in that room, and that's why I try to convey how talented my team is. And you're here for a reason and don't second guess that. And then the other is some pieces of advice. And one of those that I give is this is such a unique experience and certainly you want to do well, so there's some risk involved, but there's not risk involved in the sense of the decisions you make in the classroom is going to get somebody fired or lose the company money. Now is the time to really stretch yourself and experiment when it comes time to taking electives, take those electives that make you anxious but, you know, are critical to your development and your career ambitions. Rarely will you have these kind of opportunities where you're being encouraged to take risks without the impact of doing the same thing in the real world. So to that, I say get involved early, Narrow it down so you're not overwhelmed during your whole MBA period. But don't just stick to the script that's kind of defined you to this moment. Now's the time to reinvent yourself in some respects. And with that comes some risk.
• 13:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, we do a series on our website that you've probably seen called Real Humans. And we talk sometimes to students, but often to alums as well. And it's so interesting to hear what they talk about with when they say, you know, oh, Some of the classes I took that really pushed me, that I was kind of really stretching myself are the ones I remember most and have had a big influence on my career. So I love that advice. I also love this idea that you're standing up in front of the room saying, if you think you're an imposter, you're basically suggesting that my team and I didn't do a good job of picking, that we somehow made a mistake. So that's a great way to get them to be like, okay, I'm here for a reason. You know, Steve and his team are great. So when alums come back to campus, I'm sure, you know, there are various points in the year where you guys are engaging with alumni. And even when you're, you know, on the road, I guess what is something that they often tell you that they didn't fully appreciate while they were students, but that now as grads, they really do.
• 14:03
  Speaker B: Good question. You know, it's something I know they value and appreciate while they're here, but once they graduate and they're no longer on campus, it's something that they realize how profound it was, and that's the community. And I'll kind of narrow in something more specific. Something beautiful that happened decades ago at Kellogg was what we call small group dinners. And this is this idea of community and breaking bread together and getting to know each other. And so small group dinners, there must be dozens. I mean, on the weekend, it must explode. But, you know, really, every night of the week, opportunities for people to come together, break bread and have a conversation. And it's not just about inviting those who become your closest friends. All of our students have slack. I hear that, you know, a message will go out. Hey, I'd love to have some people over to talk about this topic or how we can engage with the community, make impact while we're here. And those just flourish under the, well, years and years of momentum. But the culture that we have. And so I've heard that from alumni of I just need my small group dinners back. You know, I want that one. I didn't realize how much that became a part of my weekly habits and, you know, my enrichment of my soul, really.
• 15:12
  Speaker A: And I actually, it's funny, I've never. I had not heard about this. So that sounds like a great tradition that's in place. I wonder if, while we're talking about this stuff, would you be willing to just briefly talk a little bit about quest? Because I think. I mean, I haven't, you know, didn't do my MBA at Kellogg. But when I think about that experience and how it kicks off with this special program, I feel like that must leave a lasting memory too. But maybe just for our listeners benefit, take us through a little bit about like, what is Quest and how does it work?
• 15:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love to. In fact, my first introduction to Quest was when I was at IE Business school. We had students go on long exchange and do electives at Kellogg and they would always come back and they didn't get to experience Quest, which I'll describe in a minute. But they said, we need to do this, you need to do this at ie. And when you learn about it, you'll see why that, that kind of made me nervous. Because Quest is a one week experience that students go on prior to courses actually starting. And so it's part of orientation, it's not required. But the second year students in this kind of pay it forward mentality that exists in our college, they plan these trips because someone did it for them and so forth and so on. And they have different themes and they take place all over the world. So some people might be going on sailboats in the Mediterranean, while others might be going to the mountains in Montana. It all depends on what you're into, but there's different themes and different levels of activity, and it just depends on what, what you're into. And the beauty of it is you don't know anybody really, that you're being paired up with. You know, you rank order the places you like to go. And then when you, when you head there, there's, there's some pretty specific rules at the beginning, which is we don't want the surface level details coming out yet. So don't talk about where you worked before, what you want to do later, even if you're here with, with a partner. Let's get deep quick. And so you have very meaningful conversations. And then I think a couple nights in, you do the big reveal, okay. And you start talking like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that, I'm from Boston too. And you have all these, you know, epiphanies. And sometimes it's even your partners on this trip with you and you say, and I'm married to Leticia.
• 17:13
  Speaker A: Oh, that's great.
• 17:14
  Speaker B: And so it just makes it all the more memorable and impactful. And you come back having made some really, really close friends, dare I say best friends. And so you embark on this journey with orientation and beyond, having already made some pretty deep connection connections. And to try to replicate that, I Can't even imagine. It's a lot of work on our student experience, academic experience, and.
• 17:33
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 17:33
  Speaker B: And students themselves.
• 17:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds like a lot of fun and a great way to kind of kick off the MBA experience. So I have to ask this one. Give me a stereotype about Kellogg that you would like to debunk.
• 17:45
  Speaker B: Sure. Well, it's not necessarily debunk, but when. When I speak to prospective students, you know, the first thing I'll ask is, is what comes to mind when you think of the Kellogg School of Management? And it's almost guaranteed that first person that raised their hand is either going to say marketing or collaboration. And that's not something I want to veer away from. I just wish people knew more about the history of the why behind us being known for those two things. So if you. I'd just like to share real quickly, you know, on the marketing side, Kellogg's known for marketing because it did not exist as a learning discipline on its own prior to Kellogg introducing it to their curriculum so many decades ago. The dean at the time, Don Jacobs, approached an economics professor and said, I believe this is a missing piece from the MDA toolkit. I'd like you to develop a course around it. There was some resistance, but lo and behold, Philip Kotler, he put together what is still the bestselling textbook on marketing.
• 18:36
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 18:37
  Speaker B: And it became a core foundation in our curriculum and eventually all. All curriculums. And so that gives a little piece of, you know, kind of the innovation mindset that exists at Kellogg. And then on the collaboration side, similarly, the dean at the time decided that the curriculum is very individualistic, focused, but we're training business leaders. And when you get out into the business world, you're working in teams, you're leading teams, and that's challenging. You know, bringing people with different opinions together to decide on a single strategy is not always easy. And so we need to start introducing that into our curriculum so they're better prepared. And so, little by little, every course started requiring a component that was a group project and group grade. And it was controversial at the time. There's an article in Poets and Quants that kind of relays it, as when deans were talking about this, some said, we consider that cheating. And once again, all schools have come along to understand that collaboration is essential to be a good leader. And so it's at the core of all business education now. But Kellogg really introduced it, I think, somewhere in the early 90s. And so that's not a debunk, but the history of how we got there and why we're proud of it.
• 19:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. And obviously marketing and collaboration are really critical components and yeah, obviously nothing to shy away from there. Those, it's great that the school is known for that. It's funny, that textbook that you mentioned, the marketing textbook is the one that I had in business school. I'm guessing everyone did, right? So what a milestone there.
• 19:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, the four P's.
• 19:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. One last question for you is, you know, obviously Kellogg is in Evanston, you know, just north of the city of Chicago. But what role does, you know, the city, the region or the broader community play in the student experience at Kellogg?
• 20:15
  Speaker B: So I'm biased. I live in Evanston and I love it, but I have a completely different experience than the students. I think Evanston gives you the best of both worlds, I mean, depending on what you're looking for. But Evanston is not a, it's, it's not a small city, but it's not by any means a big city and it's very much a college town. But all of our students, I would say 90% of or upwards of that live within walking distance of each other. They're in the same apartment buildings. Buildings. And it's just really conducive to creating this environment where you're organically always having something to do. You don't have to rely on being so intentional every day. I mean, that's a good thing to have. But because you're so close, there's no FOMO about missing out on something. There's plenty of walks home, especially on beautiful weather days where you decide to pop into a coffee shop or an idea pops up. And just having that, I think is for me, I would seek that out, that kind of community that is just kind of built in to the experience itself. On the flip side, Chicago is a short train right away and it's one of the most dynamic cities in the world. And so you have plenty of opportunities for nightlife and world class restaurants and culture and art and the like. And you know, it is about the 40, 30 minute commute. So we wondered once, well, how often are our students going down there? So we polled them and it turns out on average they're going downtown more than once a week. Oh, wow. I think it was like 1.3. And so they're finding the means to get out and enjoy all the benefits that Chicago has to offer while coming home to a kind of a smaller community that allows you to kind of hunker down and really get to know your classmates.
• 21:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, it Seems like a kind of best of both worlds scenario where you've got that kind of college campus environment, college town, as you described Evanston. But you know, right there is one of the major cities in the world. You didn't mention Cubs games. I assume it's not too hard to go to a Cubs game, right? You can just get on the subway. No. Or is.
• 22:06
  Speaker B: Am I. Yeah, no, I. Prior to coming to Evanston, I was. I was quite close to Wrigleyville. And yeah, it's very easy. Even if you know, when they're good, it's harder to get tickets.
• 22:16
  Speaker A: Yes, of course.
• 22:17
  Speaker B: But it's a great. It's a great place to go on a game day either way and just enjoy that environment.
• 22:21
  Speaker A: And I'm sure the school is. I mean, obviously almost every corporation has offices in Chicago. I'm assuming there's a lot of interactivity. Students are probably some of those trips downtown might be to go to do sort of business and stuff. Right.
• 22:35
  Speaker B: Certainly from a recruitment standpoint, many large multinationals having, if not headquarters here, important offices here, but also the opportunity for our faculty to bring in practitioners to add context to the case study and the like.
• 22:49
  Speaker A: Got it. Okay. Well, I appreciate you answering all these questions. We do this thing at the end of these, which our listeners probably already know because they've been listening to these episodes for a while now. But we do this thing called Lightning Round. These are fun questions, just kind of rapid fire. And I just love to hear your answers. And the idea is just to let our audience get to know you a little bit better. So if you're ready, I'm going to launch into them.
• 23:10
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 23:11
  Speaker A: All right. Coffee or tea?
• 23:13
  Speaker B: Coffee.
• 23:13
  Speaker A: Okay. Beach or mountains?
• 23:16
  Speaker B: That might be tougher than coffee or tea, but if I had to choose, I'd have to go with beach.
• 23:21
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I was going to say, you know, you mentioned living on the Mediterranean, so I was thinking beach.
• 23:27
  Speaker B: Yeah. And even Evanston offers Lake Michigan, which has beautiful sandy beaches.
• 23:31
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Morning person or night owl?
• 23:34
  Speaker B: Well, having lived in Spain, I've had my opportunity to be a night owl and enjoy the nightlife. But I have a six year old and a three year old and so not necessarily by choice, I am officially a morning person.
• 23:43
  Speaker A: You're this. You're the second admissions director that I've spoken with on this show recently who said, you know, I used to be a night person and now I'm forced to be a morning person because of kids. What about a pet peeve that you have?
• 23:57
  Speaker B: Oh, this is what I Talk about with my team and just in general, tracking communications across email, slack teams, text messages, and even more is definitely something that gets on my nerves.
• 24:08
  Speaker A: Yes. I think, yeah, we're all there. There's so many platforms and ways to communicate now. Like, sometimes, yeah, it just gets a little hairy. What about a comfort food that you like?
• 24:18
  Speaker B: So I mentioned my wife is from Paraguay, and she's a wonderful cook. And something she makes that makes her nostalgic of home is a chicken soup dish called Bori Bori. And it is very, very good. And especially on a cold day, it really hits the soul.
• 24:33
  Speaker A: That sounds good. What about a guilty pleasure? And it can't be eating your wife's chicken soup.
• 24:40
  Speaker B: So having worked at Black and Decker and just having a curiosity, I'm pretty handy. And so now doom scrolling on home improvement videos is adding to my list of ideas. And it's probably not healthy, but I still, you know, I still do it.
• 24:55
  Speaker A: I think. Actually, I think doom scrolling on something that. Like that, where you're, you know, maybe making plans to do work around the house is probably better than, you know, watching, like, sort of silly videos or something. So maybe there's something in there that's
• 25:06
  Speaker B: a good way to put it. That's how I'll explain it to my wife.
• 25:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. What's the best advice that you've ever received?
• 25:14
  Speaker B: That's tough, but one that pops to mind, because it was. It was recent, was slow down. We're in a hurry, which is counterintuitive. But I have a tendency when there's a problem, especially a time constraint, to jump into the mode of solving that problem immediately. But it's sometimes important to know, take a step back, think it through before you start moving, because just jumping into action can lead you down the wrong path.
• 25:37
  Speaker A: Okay, that's great advice. One thing that applicants should stop doing
• 25:42
  Speaker B: immediately, leveraging AI to the point where it erases your voice, you should not try to outsource authenticity. And so I think using it as a thought partner, as I do, it's great. But don't lose your voice.
• 25:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's really important. I agree with that. And then the best thing that you've read, watched, or listened to recently, there's
• 26:03
  Speaker B: a lot of bluey going on in the house right now, but I'll skip that. You know this. My son's in. My older son's in summer camp, and he came home this week, and he spent that day inventing a card game. He came out with all these scrap pieces of paper that he had torn up. He had drawn shapes and colors and different patterns on them, and he invented this whole game. And we sat down that night and we played and, and watching how he invented this world in his mind and, you know, he, he was pretty quick to tell me, nope, that means this. This means that. And it was just such a joy to watch. I couldn't figure out how to win. But, you know, I, I, I still want to play that game with him because it was so much fun.
• 26:40
  Speaker A: Did, did he happen to win each time you played or.
• 26:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, he happened to figure out how to win it every game.
• 26:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. That. Yeah. When, when they're at that age, it's a. So, Steve, I know you're a busy guy. You're probably getting ready for the next admission cycle. Is your, do we know your first deadline yet for full time round one admissions?
• 27:00
  Speaker B: Oh, you're putting me on the spot here. I don't want to misquote it, but it's, it's like the second week of September.
• 27:04
  Speaker A: Okay, so early September.
• 27:06
  Speaker B: Everything's posted on our website. Yeah. Early September.
• 27:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
• 27:09
  Speaker B: We're not veering away from the typical schedule we've had in the past few cycles. Okay.
• 27:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry to put you on the spot.
• 27:14
  Speaker B: No, not at all.
• 27:14
  Speaker A: But I just want to encourage people, you know, if you're interested in Kellogg, go to the website, get the exact date. But yeah, you know, we've learned a lot today about Kellogg. I really appreciate you making time, Steve, and hope to see you again soon.
• 27:24
  Speaker B: That was fun.
• 27:25
  Speaker A: All right, so that's going to do it for this episode of the show. Thanks for tuning in to the Clear Admit MBA admissions podcast. And please remember to subscribe, rate, and review the show wherever you listen. We'll be back with more of these admissions Q&As all summer long, as well as our regular weekly episodes airing on Monday. Sam.