Calling all Duke-Fuqua Applicants(2015 Intake) Class of 2017

Someone in the chatroom yesterday said that he/she'd talked to an admin officer. Apparently the yield was ridiculously high from R1/R2, hence why things turned out poorly for many R3/WL people. Obviously, I don't know if this information is accurate or not, but it does make sense given the unprecedented Businessweek rating jump. That being said, I'm somewhat glad in a way to not be in the incoming class if it's true that a large number of students truly only chose to go to Fuqua because of a ranking. That mentality seems to go against what the school and Team Fuqua stands for in my mind and hopefully doesn't damage the culture. Does this make sense to anyone else, or am I overreacting?

I think you are on to something. There will always be those people who just go to the best-ranked school they can get into, regardless of fit or anything like that. I'm sure a number of us are guilty of applying to a school where the fit isn't there, just because of the ranking. One of the things that turned me off of a couple schools I visited was when I talked to students and asked why they chose that school and they replied "because I didn't get in anywhere better." That's not really the atmosphere I want to be in. The current students I talked to were very enthusiastic about Team Fuqua because of what it does and what it stands for. I agree with you, and really hope the Businessweek ranking doesn't erode that.

Not sure if anyone cared to look elsewhere about admit info, but a couple admits were shown on ClearAdmit. One person with a 650 GMAT and another with a 750.

Also, applications at several schools were 30% higher this year, not just Fuqua. It's possible Duke could still have ridiculously high yield for the next couple years if the Businessweek ranking is a major reason for the high yield this year. People want to continue saying they went to a #1 school. But I find it odd that people actually care about the BW ranking since the methodology was out of whack. Recruiters sure know that ranking doesn't mean anything. USNews is THE ranking to follow.

FROM Fuqua Current Student Blogs: Transitioning from Public Relations to Fuqua and What I Learned Along the Way

Before starting my last six-week term as a first year student at Fuqua, I had an opportunity to catch my breath during the two-week spring break and reflect on my experience over the last year. As I enjoyed a once-in-a-lifetime experience during a phenomenal Fuqua GATE trip to South Africa, I couldn’t help but think that just a couple years ago while working in public relations (PR), I wondered if any of it was possible for me. I was convinced the MBA was the right jump in order to move into a more central marketing role with business ownership, but I had no idea if I had the right type of experience and skills to cut it in a competitive MBA applicant pool and furthermore, what I could contribute once there. After speaking with my friends and classmates, I now know this trepidation is not unusual. If you are like I was and in PR considering an MBA, or just have similar questions within your own field, I want to share some tips I wish I knew back when I started my research and the application process. Before You Apply Be laser-focused about your goals: Typically, MBA grads do not go into (or back into) PR. So, while I know you’ve heard it a million times, we need to start here: the MBA is a significant time, financial and (yes) emotional investment. Even before the MBA itself, you will sink a lot of time, energy and heart into your applications, and it will quickly (and rightfully) become the most important thing on your mind. So it may seem obvious, but given that you are likely leaving a very successful and/or promising PR career behind, make sure you are crystal-clear on why you want to hit that reset button in the first place. Look for opportunities to work with data: One of my biggest worries was a lack of professional experience with data, especially compared to my classmates with more “hard skill” backgrounds. As you work towards getting into a top MBA program (Fuqua, obviously!), push for opportunities to work with client (or your organization’s) data and/or conduct surveys to uncover trends and build stories around them. Your organization might be willing to train you and you’ll likely do better, quantitatively-informed work in the short term while adding skills and experiences that will benefit you from day one of your MBA. While Working on Applications Do your own PR: Talk to people in your network or old colleagues who have transitioned from PR to an MBA, or ask admissions at your target schools to put you in touch with current students and/or alumni in your field. These two groups were enormously helpful for me and can give you valuable feedback on your goals and post-MBA plans, while building your “brand” at the schools in the process. Get comfortable in the “unknown”: As mentioned at the outset, the jump from PR to an MBA is not typical. Because of that, it might be hard to get solid advice from those immediately around you on the challenging application process. I hope I can provide some advice by listing these resources that I uncovered and found immensely helpful during my process: People: This is similar to the tip before you apply, but it is worth repeating: if there is only one thing you do to get more comfortable in the admissions process, make sure it is talking to students that actually go to the schools you are applying to! Books: There are a plethora of admissions guides out there, all claiming to offer the same thing. However, one really stood out for me: “MBA Admissions Strategy: From Profile Building to Essay Writing.” The book offers a fantastic overview of the process and great insight into how to build your story without being overly formulaic while empowering your own personality and experiences to fuel your applications. One thing I do not advise in this category is purchasing, requesting or looking too much at past essays from other applicants. While it is helpful to understand how to write an admissions essay (the book above will help with that) overly relying on the successful work others have done will, at best, make you sound like them and at worst, deflate your confidence if you worry your experience, background, etc. does not “sound like theirs.” Online: As with books, there are a ton of these out there, but there are three where I spent the majority of my time. All of these served as resources for current MBA news, communities where I found fellow applicants with PR backgrounds, and or admissions advice: Poets & Quants GMAT Club EssaySnark There is truly no “right” or “wrong” experience to highlight in your application: Instead of worrying about whether or not you closed million-dollar deals or how much budget you were responsible for, think instead about the skills you worked hard to develop. Teamwork, presentation, written communication and navigating people and client dynamics are all skills I developed in PR that help me every day at Fuqua. Stories and experiences that demonstrate those skills are what I honed in on. When You Get to Campus Use your PR “sixth sense”: A unique aspect of PR professionals is that we are responsible for managing and handling the appearance of actions by so many parties—ourselves, clients, organizations and all those affiliated with them. As such, we get used to thinking about and developing a gut sense around perception or “optics” (a more popular word these days). Use that to your advantage in the classroom. At Fuqua, I use this perspective every class to (hopefully) improve discussions and the assignments I produce. Warren Buffet once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Use that “difference” to your advantage in your MBA journey—PR can and should be a wonderful asset in it. If you work in PR and have questions about what I’ve seen during my transition, I’m happy to help!

Hey all,

Has anyone on the waitlist been assigned to a waitlist counselor? I was under the impression that, if you survive round 3 on the waitlist, you'd be assigned a personal WL counselor.

Thanks.

I haven't yet. I read over some of the Class of 2016 posts and it might be around June when we do hear about that, since end of May is the deadline for Round 3 deposits.

^^

As far as I know, the admission process is still on going until late June.

Also June 15 is the date for the 2nd deposit for accepted students from all rounds, so maybe some will drop out leaving space for WL candidates

SC29... Amazing blog! I just checked it out. Keep it up girl!

The whole waitlist system over at Fuqua leaves a lot to be desired. I'm a Round 2 waitlister and haven't heard a peep (more than 2 months). I'm not even sure if I'm on it still.

I want to rescind my position on the waitlist, but I think they'll have trouble taking me off.

Have you been accepted at another school? Or are you planning to apply next year? I'm in a similar situation. Fuqua is hands down my #1 choice, but I'm also getting the impression that they have had a very high yield this year and they haven't admitted many people off the waitlist.

Yeah I was accepted to a few schools comparable to Fuqua but couldn't pull the trigger to enroll. Like you, Fuqua was my top choice. I'm over it though. Going to skip school and go straight into a start-up internship that I received last week. Disappointing how they handled the situation.

Yeah, it seems like there is no real incentive to take people off the waitlist until day 1 of classes. They can just maintain a long list of potential candidates they like and then select the ones that meet their needs. It's super frustrating for us, but they have all the cards. Good luck in the start up world!

Thanks. I will call their office to see if I can get off the waitlist. One less guy to worry about.

Bored and want to pass some time? Come here and let us talk about Durham for a while. All are welcome!

https://gmatclub.com/forum/let-s-talk-durham-everyone-invited-198431.html

Come and give life to the thread!

By Paul Lanzillotti, Amerasia Consulting Group
OUR RANKING OF BUSINESS SCHOOL PROGRAMS BY PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATES ENTERING THE TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN 2014.
Today's blog post is a follow up to our Top MBA Programs in Finance ranking. It's also our continued attempt at ranking top MBA programs by industry and based on publicly available data.

UC Berkeley Haas comes out on top when it comes to sending graduates (as a percentage of all graduates in 2014) back into the technology industry. UCLA Anderson is second, but it's not even close. Hands down, Haas is the place to be if you're into technology and want to work for a related firm in the industry.


BUYER BEWARE
Now before you get too far into interpreting the numbers, a few words of caution. What we have done is an inaugural attempt at a numerically based ranking and its not perfect. It's based on our interpretation of the numbers put forth by top business schools.

• Let us explain. Most MBA career centers report employment numbers according to the categories that we use in our rankings. Some schools break "industry" categories into further sub-categories. Other programs - i.e. Michigan Ross - roll up their industry categories under more general headers like "manufacturing". So you could be a "marketing" professional but be within the manufacturing industry. To be forthright, it's a little confusing. (This is why we have decided to exclude Michigan Ross from some categories until we gather a little more insight into their self-reported numbers.)

None-the-less, we have tried to make sense of it all and to do this we did combine some categories in order to get an apples-to-apples comparison across schools. Clear as mud?
WHY WE USE EMPLOYMENT DATA TO RANK SCHOOLS
Our opinion is that recruiting (i.e. who's hiring) drives most programs "investment" decisions - in students, faculty, courses, experiential initiatives, alumni outreach, etc.  So to know to what a specific MBA program is really all about, you need to see the end result. In other words, what industries are hiring MBA graduates and from what schools?

We compiled this ranking based on information taken directly from the following MBA employment reports.

Haas https://haas.berkeley.edu/groups/careercenter/reports/14-15ReportSummary.pdf

UCLA Anderson https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/Documents/areas/adm/cmc/2014%20PARKER%20CMC%20Employment%20Report%2002.10.15%20LR.pdf

Stanford GSB https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Stanford%20GSB%20Employment%20Report%202013-14.pdf

MIT Sloan https://mitsloan.mit.edu/pdf/Class_of_2014-intern_employment_report.pdf

HBS https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/mba/data-and-statistics/employment-statistics.html

Wharton https://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mba/your-career/career-statistics.cfm

Kellogg https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/career_employer/employment_statistics.aspx

Chicago Booth https://www.chicagobooth.edu/employmentreport/

Columbia https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/recruiters/employmentreport

NYU Stern https://www.stern.nyu.edu/programs-admissions/full-time-mba/career/employment-statistics

Tuck https://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/careers/employment-statistics

Yale SOM https://som.yale.edu/yale-som-connect/recruiting/employment-statistics

Michigan Ross https://michiganross.umich.edu/our-community/recruiters

Duke Fuqua https://www.fuqua.duke.edu/mba_recruiting/recruiting_duke/employment_statistics/

Cornell Johnson https://www.johnson.cornell.edu/Career-Management/Employment-Report-for-Two-Year-MBAs

UVA Darden https://www.darden.virginia.edu/recruiters-companies/hire-an-mba/employment-reports/
FINALLY, DOES THE WORLD REALLY NEED ANOTHER BUSINESS SCHOOL RANKING?
We think "yes". We've never felt completely comfortable with the rankings because (to our knowledge) the raw data that drives the US News and Businessweek rankings has never been fully disclosed. So we decided to start over and with the very numbers that the school's career centers are reporting via their respective employment reporting.

That being said, we welcome any constructive feedback you may have. Email us at MBA@amerasiaconsulting.com with comments or if you're looking for an expert admissions consultant to lead you through the application process.

anyone staying on WL? what odds of getting off at this point?