Calling all Duke (Fuqua) Fall 2009 applicants!

Has anyone started on Fuqua Long essay?

1-Today, companies must navigate through complex and interdependent issues. They must deal with health and security matters, environmental impact questions, and diversity and cultural concerns. Leaders need adaptability, imagination, and emotional intelligence as well as business acumen.
Upon graduation, a Duke MBA will be a leader of consequence - able to deal simultaneously with complex matters and engage skillfully with colleagues, clients, and community. What impact do you hope to have as a leader of consequence?


Although the question seems self-explanatory, I am struggling with structuring my thought process..

-mod edit-
aakashganga, please don't make new threads out of questions you can post in this thread. I have deleted your new thread with this same exact post.
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Back away from the question. Put it aside and think about where you're going. What do you want to be and do? What matters to you? Who will be around you? What kind of city will you work in? What organization? What are the issues? What will challenge you? What will you do about these challenges? How will you define success, and what will it look like? Paint a picture of your future. Once you've done that, you can describe in your essay what it means to you to be a leader of consequence and what your impact will be.

That's at least one way to go at it.

BTW - Leaders of Consequence is a big deal at Duke, driven by Blair Sheppard. I'm sure there is a ton of stuff about that means on the web. It would probably be helpful to check that out.

Yeah, I'm applying to Duke. In addition to the ones you mentioned above, I'm also applying to Tuck.

RF

Just an FyI to fellow Duke applicants:

Sharon Thompson said at an MBADiversity Syposium roundtable that they strongly prefer straightforwards essays and that essays that try to be cute and creative usually fail. This is probably true for most school...don't go with that approach unless you are a masterful writer.

i.e. don't start your essays with "It's the year 2035 and I'm sitting in the CEOs office on the 56th floor..."

This is MUSIC to my ears! I've been killing myself trying just to come up with decent content! I read some of the books on how to write essays and I think "how the heck am I gonna come up with something like that?".

And I would tend to agree that the clever stuff tends to come off poorly. Either what you write is meaningful and relevant or it isn't. The good essays don't need the "fluff" and in the bad ones, it just comes off as pandering.

RF

Thanks for letting us know. I was spending way too much time on coming up with creative beginnings. Is there a place where we can read her advice?

Awesome Tuck was one of my earlier choices. But, knowing that my wife wouldn't find a job there, I dropped it. But, its still one of the best schools in my opinion.

Hi aaudetat, I searched on the web for the phrase "Leader of consequence" but didn't find anything. Do you know what exactly I should search for?

While they don't want you to get crazy, I assume it still helps to have an intro with a bit of flair. I wouldn't want them to be bored. It just seems like maybe you'd want to go with the content focused lead versus the style focused lead as Bodine puts it in his book. Clearly I have not evaluated any essays though.

I think that sums it up. Focus on content to start with. If you can add something to make it more interesting, do it, but content should be your number one concern.

Consider the flair icing on the cake.

RF

Aaudetat, two questions:

1. Are you taking part in the Health Care Sector Management program?
2. How would you define "fit" at Duke? I've heard that teamwork is a priority at Duke, how does that show itself?

RF

Try talking with some students. Fit is for you to determine on your own. What may be a fit for aau may not be a fit for you.

I realize that you are trying to get some insight to help with your essay questions, but I think the best thing to do is to reach out to students via phone and or campus/class visits.

I am not an HSMer, but I think about 1/4 of the students are.

Fit at Duke...hmmm....yes, we're definitely about teamwork. We're joiners - people are involved in clubs and that sort of thing. We are very social, and it's not cool to be unkind or backstabbing.

I am sure that most schools would say that, but there are lots of little things that happen at Duke that some of my friends at other schools have said would be uncommon. For example, the stars in my section for stats, econ, and acctg held "office hours" during finals and midterms so that others from the section could stop by and ask questions.

Another example: there was an SY last year who had a bit of a reputation. He apparently would say things in front of recruiters to put other students down. ("Hey, Jackie, let me know if you need help with finance again. I'm happy to help out.") People were polite to him, but he didn't fit in and wasn't appreciated.

Does that help? This stuff is so hard to describe.

Well, I agree and disagree. There are personal aspects of "fit". Career goals, learning style, preference of urban or rural, etc. Then there are aspects of a school that equally apply to everyone. For example, Tuck has a very small town feel. If someone prefers living a big, anonymous city, they won't fit into Tuck no matter what.

It's stuff like that that I'm trying to get a grasp of.

I've already got enough personal "fit" stuff for my Duke essay. What I'm trying to gauge now is the "feel" of the campus.

RF

That first anecdote is awesome! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Like you said, it's never easy to describe how a place "feels". Often what makes a place feel a certain way is quite intangible.

When I ask current students and alumni at most any school I tend to get the same stuff "teamwork! excellence! blah!". It doesn't really help me understand what a place is like. But that story you conveyed certainly does.

Thanks!

RF

And since you asked what the place feels like, it's a bubble, to be honest. There are about 865 FYs and SYs together, plus some PhD students. Most of us are not from the area (though some definitely are), so our social, academic and even career worlds all revolve around Fuqua. I wanted that in a program - I only plan to do grad school once, and I wanted an immersion. But if you want a more commuter experience, you'll be the odd one out. One girl from my section has that. She's a touch older and would have preferred an EMBA of some sort. she's also got this partner I've never met, and she had weird rules about not being on campus after 5pm. Well, we do LOTS of team assignments, tons of them. And it was super hard to work with her, and we didn't really appreciate having to work around her all the time. her contributions weren't helpful, because she'd fire them off by email, but without being part of the team discussion, it was hard to fit them in.

Lots of people have families, but they work hard to balance the two. She didn't at all.

Hmm.... that's pretty odd. My understanding is that most full time MBA programs are like that, you're either on campus or you're at home sleeping. I find it odd that someone would try to make a 9-5 job out of it.

Thanks for your insight!

RF