Alumni reception with the dean of Duke's Fuqua School

I just returned from an alumni event where I got a chance to talk at length with the dean of Fuqua after his speech. It was interesting to hear his thoughts about everything under the sun including Fuqua's ambitious surge in its relatively short period of existence. Some points that I can remember from his speech...

- Starting this year, they are emphasizing more on interview performance. According to him, test scores do matter but interviews will also be weighed heavily henceforth.
- Acceptance rate will go down in the coming years to what it was a few years ago (15-20%). They increased the class size by 60 in 2003 which resulted in an increase in the acceptance rate.
- Applications are up 20% despite the bad press due to the lacrosse scandal.
- Expect major alliances with the London School of Economics and Indian Institute of Ahmedabad (which he called the Harvard of Asia).
- Most international school after Stanford.
- Fuqua's faculty ranks among the best in all functional areas. According to him Stanford, Chicago, MIT and Fuqua have recruited the best faculty in the last 5-10 years.
- They are working on deals with major consulting firms to place people internationally with at par dollar salaries (not in Yuan, Rupees whatever)

Time to sleep, I rambled about everything that I can remember...