kunzi wrote:
Congrats to all accepted candidates.. and Good Luck to those waitlisted or dinged.
It'll be great if people can share their experiences. I am an R1 applicant and hope to learn from these.
Those that were admitted in EA were exactly in your shoes just 2 days ago, and surely some of us have been dinged once (or more) before, so there's no magic tip we can give.
Nevertheless, I can think of several tips that made me feel confident in my application and connection with the school. Most of it can be found in any admission consultants blog, but I will write it here anyway.
1.
Research the program to the point that you can clearly articulate WHY you should go there and not any other school. Identify the courses, the professors, the employers, the clubs and the conferences that LINK you to this specific school. If you can state this link, and it is unique to
you (i.e. I can't just take out your name, insert some "John Doe" and it will relate to them as well), it will reflect in your essays.
2.
Talk to students and alumni. For each school I was interested in, I approached many members of the community. Some of them told me great things, some didn't, most of them were very friendly and responsive and a few were annoying. However, through each conversation I learned yet another thing or two, and it influenced my connection with the school. It can make you fall in love with the school or exactly the opposite, but it will give you precious information, formally and informally.
3.
Make sure your goals are reasonable, ambitious and make sense. There should be a clear thread that starts in your work experience, goes through Bschool (see my 1st point), leads to your ST goal and in few (7/10/20/...) years will bring you to the LT goal. This thread must be SOLID and obvious. It must make sense to everyone who hears it, and you should be able to state this thread in 3-4 sentences to yourself. It took me a couple of months to think I had my goals right (I was wrong), and then another 6-7 months to really make them great and to the point. And you know what, after more discussions with students and alumni I lately discovered that I still have room to improve, but for starting my BSchool experience these goals are perfectly fine.
4.
Take every tip you get with a grain of salt. The world is full of admission consultants, friends and family that may or may not have an MBA, online forums and multitude of essays analyses. Read and hear it all, but trust your instincts in the same time.
Again, being admitted doesn't mean we did a fantastic job with our essays or have an amazing resume, it just means that we were able to wrap it all in a nice, cohesive package that was clear to the reader\interviewer, and we probably had some luck
I can write about my thoughts, but it is certainly not "One size fits all" approach:
I really felt that the
25 facts essay was something that made my image pop out of the page, in the eyes of the admission officers. This is a valuable opportunity that not many other school offer, and you should use it wisely. Make the reader get interested in knowing you, having a beer with you after work or just spending an hour with you between classes. If you can make the reader smile to himself and say - "this fella is quite cool!" - you've done it correctly. Don't waste room on boasting your work achievements. It is the person that should come off the page, not the professional (although it seems fine to write something about work. Just don't make it a copy of your resume).
The second essay ("Why Duke") is pretty standard but it also deals with you and your motives and reasons for applying to Duke (again, see my 1st point). Make your reasons bullet proof and make sure there are unique to you. Again, if I can do a "Search and Replace" with another name, and this essay will work just fine, you are wrong. There should be clear passion for the Fuqua in this essay, for whatever your reasons are.Make the combination of You+Why Fuqua a perfect match.
I hope it helps other GMAT clubbers in some way