March 08 - Duke R2 Waiting Room

I am as well. Oz, we met at Duke last wknd. (We had lunch at Subway). Hope you are good!

BDW starts on the 30th of March and runs till the 1st of April. I hope to meet everyone of you there.

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well ...killing time by browsing the forums/blogs or what not.........

I was lucky to run into fellow Gmatclubber, who has an Admit ..Lucky man !!!!

I hope by March 08, u will be in a unique position to choose between Durham and Ann Arbour......

yES, I appreciate that Duke releases its decision early.

Back to BDW (blue devil weekend):

Are partners included? Me cheri has not been down to the area yet. This might be the time....

(I am SO putting the cart before the horse.)

Yes. They have tons of activities planned for partners.

Wow, so I guess I am the only one who has a round 2 admit already?......................Just kidding! I do have to say I am thankful for the MArch 8th decision. I think more schools so release on that day namely, Cornell, UVA and UNC!

I'm in as well.

Wow, less than 3 weeks before decision day.

Don't know about UNC, but Cornell and Virginia release about 2 weeks later.

count me in too.. not too confident though..

I was wondering how many of you guys felt the Duke Team concept was more of a marketing gimmick.. I mean do any of you know of friends/alumni with first hand experience from Duke.. would like to know more while we wait for Duke notification!

I think Duke is more friendly than most schools but the whole Team Fuqua strikes me as more of a gimmick. When I interviewed at the school I asked my interviewer what kinds of examples of "Team Fuqua" he's experienced and he gave me the same damn examples as every fricken school I've ever learned anything about. In fact, his examples reminded me most of what I heard at Columbia...a school perhaps better known as being more cut-throat.

It seems that all of the schools claim to have advantages in the same things. They all say that they are looking for leaders and value teamwork. They have all claim to have great entrepreneurship offerings and have an international focus. When you dig a little deeper, you start to see that some of it is a facade. Among the schools I have researched, it's clear that some really have international reach, while others are just trying to think they do but have superficial influence at best.

good analysis there.. which schools do you think are really good in
entreprenership
finance
international reach

just in top 20 schools.. I mean..

To me, the clear leader in Entrepreneurship is Stanford. As I said in my application essay, for someone like myself who is an entrepreneur and hopes to launch a new business in the future, Stanford's track record for successfully launching businesses is unparalleled. At other schools you might compete in new business competitions and win $50,000 to launch a business, but at Stanford, you skip the BS and have serious thoughts about launching a new venture with high quality VC money and support. I believe Wharton is also very strong, and I have heard Harvard is as well, though I didn't research there myself. I know that MIT has an excellent structured program for starting new businesses. After that, I think Michigan, UCLA & Berkeley are well regarded, but clearly a step back from H/W/S & MIT.

For Finance, I think it is a 3 horse race for the top spot between Wharton, Chicago & Columbia. Wharton probably offers the the broadest range of academic theory and professional influence. Wharton will help you get any finance spot in any organization. Chicago has a reputation for strength on the academic side, especially as finance relates to economics - the common belief is that Chicago places people behind the scenes working with supercomputers & spreadsheets crunching numbers. Columbia is the home of value investing (Graham & Dodd and Warren Buffett) and has an economics Nobel Prize winner currently teaching. Columbia's greatest strength is its connection to the banks and is certainly helped by its location in NY. There are 614 Columbia MBAs and Citigroup, 453 at JPMorgan Chase, 308 at Goldman Sachs and dozens or hundreds at every top bank; and access to alumni requires only a cab ride.

I think that NYU offers great access to the top banks, but is clearly not regarded in the same league as the above 3. Of course, Harvard & Stanford, along with Wharton, are the keys to some of the most selective jobs in PE/VC and investment management. UCLA and Berkeley are pretty well regarded on the west coast but I don't think they have much pull in NY.

For international reach, Harvard obviously has the brand that really travels the best. Stanford is a close second, and in finance circles the Wharton name is tough to beat. Needless to say, there is a reason why everyone wishes they could go to H/W/S, no matter what field they hope to join. I think that Columbia has a very well-defined and well-connected international base for finance issues. I think that Berkeley has a good program for the Asia Pacific region. Wharton's Lauder program is probably the benchmark for all other international travel programs.

These opinions are just based on my personal research and interactions with schools that I had some interest in. There are definitely other strong programs, but I think that people should generally try to stick with the best possible cluster, and then use specialty data to decide between them. For example US News ranks Babson College #1 in Entrepreneurship, followed by Stanford, Wharton & Harvard. Seriously, does that even make sense?

Thanks Pelihu for the informative post, particularly reminding me that the Nobel Prize econ professor currently teaching at Columbia is my college buddy's dad. We all celebrated together when the announcements were made and his subsequent trip to Oslo with his sister who was also a student at our school. Jeez, I should have thought of alerting when filling out my app. At our graduation, his dad was among the speakers. I've met Dr. Stiglitz numerous times when he visited his son and took all of us out to dinner.

15 more days to go? I am going crazy waiting!

I know a few alumni, and they really do believe in this "Team Fuqua" that everyone throws around. From what I can tell, it largely stems from demographics. Everyone moves to a small city with no existing friends, and as a result tend to spend more time and be closer friends with other students. For example, if I go to Chicago I'll have a lot of existing friends and spend time with them. At Fuqua, the vast majority of my time will be spent with people I meet at the school.

Hope that helps.