Fuqua (Duke) Class of 2016: Calling all applicants!

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

I'll give a debrief when I have some time but there is one thing I did notice. If you can, make SURE to attend Duke information sessions in nearby cities and TALK with the admissions representative. The representative for the Chicago region was also my admissions director who essentially has the power to say "yay or nay" on me.

The interesting thing she implied is that IF the admissions committee did NOT think I was Fuqua material, she would have argued on my behalf which really made me extremely grateful for all her help.

Remember, the whole MBA approval process is done by people at the end of the day. I was very honest about my passion for Fuqua and my admissions director sensed that and she became my advocate which I think speaks volumes about the program. There is no secret formula or hidden key code to get into Duke. If you research Duke enough, you will see what they are looking for and at that point, it's about execution.

whoa.. thank you fuzzy buzzard and kple12.

Your descriptive response is highly appreciated.

Duke MBA 2016 FB group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/dukemba2016/?fref=ts

I'm new to the GC forum and found out yesterday that I have been waitlisted. I would definitely love to hear your strategy hailmary and anyone else's strategy for that matter. Not sure how to approach this. For anyone else that was waitlisted, I accepted the waitlist offer on SISS. Is there anything else we need to do to make sure we are on the list?

I think that should do it. I did the same and received an email shortly thereafter confirming that I have chosen to remain ACTIVE on the waitlist.

FuzzyBuzzard and kple12 have done an awesome job of describing how to approach Duke’s application and essays and I have had several individuals contact me regarding the waitlist process so in this post I will try to focus more on the waitlist niche.

I understand the waitlist process can be frustrating as some of us here can attest to it but the good thing is that there is something the adcom DID like in your application and that you are Duke material but maybe there was a glaring gap which the applicant failed to address, some common examples: Low GPA, LOW GMAT, not enough leadership experience, did not show enough passion for Duke, interview went badly etc.

I will be happy to lay out a general outline of how I approached the waitlist process. You will not be able to get specific feedback on your application from the adcom so you need to figure out yourself on what went wrong. The process I followed was:

STEP 1 - I would sum up, in my mind, how I would describe myself i.e. my strengths, weaknesses and personality.
STEP 2 - I would re-read my entire application and see if it truly reflects the summed up image I had of myself.
STEP 3 - Concentrate on strengths - After the re-read I found that I had missed some areas of my community service, leadership and mentoring abilities and accidentally left them completely out of the application. For you this might be different - it could be that you forgot to show them all the in-depth research you did on Duke etc.
STEP 4 - Concentrate on weaknesses - re-read the application again but this time concentrate on what potential gaps you might have that you failed to address.
STEP 5 - Pick 1 biggest/most impactful strength you missed and 1 biggest/most impactful weakness you missed and write up a 1 page waitlist update incorporating those two things in it.
STEP 6 - have someone read you application and then read the waitlist update to make sure it’s not redundant and is presenting new information
STEP 7 - send to Duke’s adcom

The other major impact you can have it to start building on a relationship you have with a alumni or a current student. After you have reached a certain level of camaraderie and if you have managed to convince them that you are a good fit for Duke, if all has gone well, they might offer to submit a recommendation on your behalf, which is the best case scenario. This recommendation letter from an alumni or student is a big deal as Duke is HUGE on fit. This helped make my application that much stronger.

Another reason for you to be waitlisted could be not that you have a major weakness but that you belong to a highly prescribed group like consulting, finance, indian IT male in tech etc. and there are just better options for the adcom to pick from. You could follow the above startegy for this as well but at the same time you need to try very hard to separate yourself from the herd and stand out. There are several ways to do this and I can write up a strategy for this if anyone needs it.

The most important thing at this stage is to not lose hope, you are still in the game. Feel free to PM me with specific questions.

DUUUUKE!! Congrats, man Go celebrate!

Thanks buddy! It was well worth the wait.

Hi,
I was admitted in early action. I have one quick question:
The acceptance letter states that any information on the merit based scholarship will be there in the "acceptance packet". The Fuqua welcome video says that your packet is in the mail. My question is - does anyone know how long it takes to receive the packet? I am located in US.

@bhavik12345 - I think you should be able to email your contact point at Fuqua to get this information. If you Indian, probably Jake is your contact point too? I was told to expect the packet in snail mail in 3 weeks or so. I am based in Singapore. I'd imagine you'd get it faster.

Also, here's a shout to anyone based in Singapore who also got in. Would love to meet.

I was pretty excited/delirious during my acceptance call with the admissions director, but I think it was mentioned that the admissions packets will be sent out on Friday. Not sure how long it will take for them to get to you though.

Hey everyone, current FY student here. If you have any questions shoot me a private message.
Also, my background is European (Balkans) so if anyone has any specific questions regarding transition to US feel free to ask.

Hi Everyone , just joined GMATclub. Submitted application in R-1 . Any idea about tentative dates for interview for international applicants

If you applied R1 and interviewed during the open interview period, does that change the timeline at all for when you will be notified?

Nope. You still find out on December 20th.

It is a looooong wait

EA admits: Did you guys share Duke's name when emailing other schools to withdraw your application? Not sure what the optimal method of withdrawing is.