Northwestern Kellogg MBAs Join The $200K Starting Pay Club
Kellogg School of Management has released more detailed MBA Class of 2023 employment numbers showing declines in job offers and acceptances three months after graduation, much the same as every other top U.S. B-school
The $200K Club — business schools whose MBAs have reported a median or average total pay of $200K counting starting salary, signing and other bonuses, and adjusted for the percentage of those who reported getting bonuses — has another new member.
Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University has released updated MBA Class of 2023 employment data showing that median starting salary grew to $175K from $165K in 2022 and median signing bonus was stable at $30K. Adjusted for the 85% of the class that reported receiving a bonus, that puts Kellogg’s median total pay at $200,500 — up nearly 5% from last year. (Note: Poets&Quants uses its own formula to calculate total pay; Kellogg estimates its median total pay at $207,000.)
“The final data for our Two-Year MBA Class of 2023 is in, and Kellogg Leaders continue to be in incredibly high demand,” writes Liza Kirkpatrick, assistant dean of Kellogg’s Career Management Center, in a blog. “They’re breaking salary records, landing major sign-on bonuses, navigating career shifts and securing title bumps.”
See P&Q’s coverage of other new members of the $200K Club: Yale SOM and NYU Stern.
ONE CLASS OF 2023 GRAD IN FINANCE MADE $450K TO START
Kellogg has always been a consulting powerhouse but the MBA Class of 2023 set a new record with 42% going into the industry, up from last year's record 40%. Financial services saw an even bigger upswing, from 16% last year to 22%, eclipsing tech as the No. 2 destination for Kellogg MBAs for the first time since 2015. Tech slipped to 17% from 20.5%.
"This year’s top employers — McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co. and Boston Consulting Group — highly value how Kellogg Leaders apply creative problem-solving, and a combination of analytical, creative and social intelligence, across industries and functions," Kirkpatrick writes.
Consulting grads reported the highest median base salary, $190K, while finance was $175K and tech was $155K. The highest median signing bonus was for the 1% of the class that went into equipment/hardware/networking, a subset of tech: $60K. The next-highest was in the finance subset of investment banking/brokerage, into which 7.7% of the class went: $57,500. The highest salary was reported by a private equity grad — a cool $450K.
KELLOGG MBA EMPLOYMENT 2019-2023
Stats | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
Median Base Salary | $175,000 | $165,000 | $150,000 | $144,000 | $140,000 |
Median Signing Bonus | $30,000 | $30,000 | $30,000 | $30,000 | $30,000 |
% Receiving Bonus | 85% | 87% | 86% | 93% | 83.6% |
Median Total Pay* | $200,500 | $191,100 | $175,800 | $172,200 | $165,080 |
Offers by 3 Months | 95% | 99% | 97% | 95% | 98% |
Acceptances By 3 Months | 92% | 97% | 96% | 93% | 95% |
*Median total pay includes base salary and sign-on bonus, adjusted for the percentage of graduates receiving bonuses.
JOB LANDSCAPE SHIFTS AS FEWER GRADS GO WEST
Overall job placement slipped for Kellogg grads this year, as it did at every U.S. business school, though it could hardly have gotten better than it was in 2022. Job offers at three months post-graduation fell to 95% from 99%, and acceptances declined from 97% to 92%.
As a Midwest institution, Kellogg has always seen the largest group of any graduating class remain in the region, especially Chicago, and that did not change in 2023: Thirty-two percent of the Class of 2023 stayed in the Midwest, same as the previous class. One big shift did occur: Kellogg MBAs preferred the East Coast to the West by a wide margin, when the opposite was true last year. Headed West this year was 23% of the class, down from 30%, and headed East was 28%, up from 22%. Eleven percent went South, same as last year; 6% went outside the U.S., up from 5%.
"While Kellogg has maintained its strong presence in the Midwest, particularly Chicago, as a post-graduation destination, a large percentage of our students are consistently accepting positions in the Northeast and on the West Coast," Kirkpatrick writes. "More than 47% of this class accepted jobs in these locations, which includes a record-high 23% of students accepting jobs in the Northeast, with 20% of the class accepting roles in the New York City and tri-state area. They represent a range of industries from biopharmaceuticals and tech to retail and investment banking."
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