Calling All Duke Fuqua MBA Applicants: 2024 Intake Class of 2026

Thankyou so much for lettiing us know about fee waivers.

No worries, I am still connected to my clients from Duke and they seem to have enjoyed their mba there

I want to understand how slim my chances are with following background. Of course there are several parameters that affect the final admit, however, a general idea would also be great.

GMAT: 710 (V38, Q49)
Graduation: Business Economics (First Division; 6.63/10)
High School: Business and Commerce (First Division; 9.43/10)
Current Industry: B2B Digital Media Publishing and Conferences (Times Internet)
Previous Industry: Advertising (Leo Burnett, Wunderman Thompson)
Role: Project Management
Experience: 50+ months right now
Post-MBA Industry: Management Consulting
Alternate Career Path: Product Marketing Management

What else do you need?

your profile great! you have all chances to be admitted)

Your stats look fine. Wouldn’t say they’re slim at all. A point of concern may be your UG GPA (I’m not sure how they evaluate scores based on a 10 point scale. I’m around the same ballpark myself),and your GMAT is just around their average, so you may want to try and get a higher GMAT if you still have the time. Ps - A higher GMAT is also useful for Management Consulting recruitment as they take people from various backgrounds, this is a tool that they use to filter candidates.
Cheers and Good luck!

Pre-dominantly Indian male candidates (assuming based on username & GPA style- correct me if I'm wrong) at Duke have a GMAT of 730+ over the observation of candidates of previous years.

The ones that do have slightly (not more than 20 points) lower score have either had a different profile than general work ex- as in employee in a certain company with some promotion (e.g. business owners, could be generational wealth too)


That said, you've got a slight deviation from the general OR pool of Engineers. That does help in job search. From admissions standpoint, given what I've observed over the past 7 years, I'd recommend pushing the score up


There's a way still. I understand GMAT prep takes time.


Here's my suggestion, you can take it if you can, it's just that, a recommendation-

A. Understand if Duke really is your first choice school. If so, apply in early action round to maximize your odds. You'll still need to boost the GMAT score a little. But usually Duke's approach is to waitlist than to reject - not always but that's the trend again - can change. This buys you enough time to push GMAT until Feb 2024- they'll be releasing R2 decisions around then so you've to ensure they have seats. If they get a new score, and it's satisfying the criteria, you'll get in. And coz you applied in EA round, they have an assurance that you won't affect their acceptance rate. Taking you would be an easy choice for them.

B. Apply in R1 but notify about your GMAT retake, same process as above but the acceptance rate risk goes up

C. Apply in school better suited for your profile and GMAT score.

You can check this challenge we currently have going on - mbaconquerors.com/challenge


I'll be honest though, the best bet would be from T-15 to T-30.

Under T-15, every school (except Cornell & Stern) are a stretch. Even Cornell & Stern are hard to get in but there have been more cases of accepted candidates with slightly lower GMAT than other schools. Also, they have other MBA programs that they push to you just in case they think you'd be better suited for them.


Hoping this helps

Posted from my mobile device

How to apply for Open Interview round or Early Action? Also, if someone applies for early round, I guess they are not allowed to apply to other schools, by when does this decision declared if a candidate is selected or not?

If the early decision is binding, then yes, you are supposed to back out of other applications. The decisions for early action are late Oct.

You can apply to other schools but you must withdraw the applications from other schools and only go to Duke in that particular Application Cycle. Unless they changed it. Obviously, you’d have applied to the other schools by the deadline. Well, I checked, you can visit this -https://blogs.fuqua.duke.edu/duke-mba/2012/08/31/megan-lynam-overbay/is-early-action-right-for-me

Also, the client we got in also got scholarship (Later after negotiation). Scholarships aren’t as high in general.

Which are the most scholarship heavy schools? I mean which schools do give large number of scholarships?

Has application opend for DUke yet?

Has the app opened for Duke?

Anyone able to create their account?

They haven’t opened yet.

Okay thanks

Depends on your profile.

4 kudos, assuming 4 other people have the same question? It is a holistic process (to most extent- statistics heavy though). Also, very You-specific. If you have unique profile, and have substantial leverage over a school’s adcom which can be ANYTHING, you have an upper hand on negotiation. I sound evil but an evil man doesn’t get people scholarships, right? Jokes aside- what is your profile so I can at least give you some idea. DMs open

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Well Businessconquerer, I work in a pharmaceutical company as a statistical analyst and I’ve heard that Duke is quite good for people like me. Is that the case? Also b-schools in the US don’t make sense to me unless you get scholarship since the opportunity cost for a 2 year MBA is quite high (as compared to a 1 year MBA). Is securing a scholarship in a US B-school hard for someone working in a pharmaceutical company?

I know there are more elements to a b-school application and every University have a holistic approach. But just wondering if there are universities that prefer a certain set of people with a certain background over others

That’s not what I meant. I think this might help. We’ve got a top 10 or nothing challenge where we have the major elements addressed - mbaconquerors.com/challenge

And industry and function are one part of it. Sure. But how’s it represnted in the pool also matters. They do like diverse profiles. If you’re giving them the stats they seek. You can certainly build leverage.

There are common ways to build leverage, it’s definitely the key to negotiation. But that’s something of a secret sauce for us - clients only.


Like Finance schools looking for Finance profile like Columbia & Georgetown, Consulting schools looking for Consulting profiles like- Fuqua & Darden, Tech schools looking for tech profile- Tepper & Foster, Supply chain schools looking for ops profile - MSU,, Rice. Energy schools - rice, A&M

They are feeder profiles, but don’t really matter as much with differentiation. The schools expect a good number of those