Duke / Fuqua MBA News
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Published: February 23, 2016
The Business of Healthcare: MBA Programs that Best Prepare Students to Tackle a Challenging Industry
Shaan Patel’s path to business school was a little different than most. With three years of medical school under his belt, the Las Vegas native traded the University of Southern California (USC) for Yale School of Management (SOM), where he’ll complete his MBA before returning to USC for his final year of med school.
“As a medical student, I wanted to learn more about healthcare management,” he says. Yale SOM has been great, he continues, offering plenty of healthcare electives as well as opportunities to collaborate with the Yale School of Medicine. “One of the problems with medical school is that you become so focused on the pathophysiology of disease and clinical medicine that there’s not much exposure to the business side of medicine, healthcare administration, insurance,” he says. One Yale SOM class in particular—“Healthcare, Economics, Finance and Policy”—helped him learn about things like Medicare, Medicaid and the roles played by pharmaceutical and insurance companies. “Most medical students have to learn those things on the job after they are in practice,” Patel notes.
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Published: February 23, 2016
MBA Admissions Mashup: Diversity & Inclusion
Every Wednesday, we share a round-up of the latest news from admissions blogs at the top business schools. This week’s MBA Admissions Mashup takes a look at what business schools and MBAs are doing to promote diversity and inclusion on campus and we’ve sprinkled in several admissions tips...just in time for your MBA interview or a Round 3 target deadline.
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Published: February 11, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: An MBALauncher Shares Her Round 2 Application Process
Today’s Friday from the Frontline features an interview with Lisa Atufunwa, a 29-year-old Denver native who submitted applications to five schools as part of Round 2. Business school has always been a part of her plan, and she’s hoping the MBA will help her pivot her career.
Currently working in communications for a range of tech companies, startups and public holding companies, Atufunwa is targeting schools with strong programs in marketing. Her post-MBA goal is to become an assistant brand manager in the personal beauty sector, working for a company like L'Oréal, Sephora or Estée Lauder. “That’s always been a personal passion of mine,” she says.
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Published: February 10, 2016
Business School Deposit Deadlines: Decisions? Dilemmas? Do Tell!
The time has come for many Round 1 applicants to make a decision about where they will attend business school in the fall. Monday was the Round 1 deposit deadline at Harvard Business School (HBS), and tomorrow deposits are due at Chicago Booth, Duke’s Fuqua School, Northwestern’s Kellogg School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Yale School of Management.
For many, plunking down the cash to indicate to a school that you can’t wait to join their MBA class is as straightforward as it can be. No doubt there are quite a few triumphant applicants to HBS who sent in their $1,000 payments on Monday—or before—with glee. If you were gunning for HBS all along, getting the news you’d been accepted was possibly one of the happiest days of your life, and making your first payment felt like an unequivocal investment in your future.
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Published: January 17, 2016
Admissions Tip: 4-Part Comprehensive MBA Interview Series
Interview season for Round 2 candidates will soon be in full swing. In fact, some candidates have already interviewed with schools that offer ‘open’ interviews, such as Dartmouth / Tuck and Northwestern / Kellogg. Soon enough, schools that interview via invitation only (like Harvard Business School, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton, and more) will begin doling out those coveted invites. While we know that many of you won’t give the interview a second thought until you have an invitation in hand (or start seeing invites crop up on MBA LiveWire), we think it’s
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Published: October 15, 2015
Fridays from the Frontline: Duke / Fuqua Alum on How Team Fuqua is Central to Duke Culture
Happy Friday! We’re back again this week with another edition of Fridays From the Frontlines. This week we bring you Steven Ma, Duke / Fuqua Alum (Class of 2015). Prior to Fuqua, Steven graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in Biology – not your traditional MBA applicant. When Steven made the leap into the MBA world, he found that the resources just weren’t there for him. His blog, From Bench to Board, aims to chronicle his experiences and learnings with the aim of helping those who are interested in earning an MBA without the
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Published: August 24, 2015
MBA Interview Jitters? Don’t Miss Clear Admit’s Latest Interview Guides
We know. The interview can be one of the most nerve-wracking components of the entire MBA application process. But it doesn’t have to be. Clear Admit’s in-depth Interview Guide Series provides expert advice and insider tips on what to expect and how to prepare—helping you quash the MBA interview jitters and ace the interview.
A sample page from one of the guides.
With interview invites already rolling out at schools like Columbia Business School and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, now’s the time to check out these valuable guides. Five in the series have just been updated for the 2015-16 application season: CBS, Tuck, INSEAD, HBS and Fuqua.
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Seven Schools Join Forces for Events Focused on Women in Business School
Starting next week, seven leading business schools will host a series of events around the country designed to showcase the value of the MBA for women and the experiences of women in business school. Participating schools include Michigan’s Ross School, the Haas School at UC Berkeley, Cornell Johnson, UVA’s Darden School, Duke’s Fuqua School, NYU Stern and the Yale School of Management.
Admissions representatives and alumnae from all the schools will gather for each of five events, scheduled for Chicago, Washington, DC; New York City, Boston and San Francisco. The events will each feature a panel discussion in which female alums from each school will discuss the implications and value of an MBA degree for women in business today. Participants will also have an opportunity to meet fellow prospective applicants, network with alumnae, get tips on the application process and learn more about life on campus and recruiting.
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MBA Applicants Say Fuqua, Chicago Booth Get to Know Them Best, Survey Finds
Applicants who applied to leading business schools in the 2014-15 admissions cycle felt that Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business got to know them better than others, according to survey results released today by the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC). Notably, scores for how well schools got to know applicants fell this year over last for every school except Chicago Booth—and more so at schools that reduced the number of essays applicants could reply to in the 2014-15 application cycle.
AIGAC, which was co-founded in 2006 to set and promote high ethical standards and professional development among graduation admissions consultants, has been conducting an annual survey of MBA applicants for the past six years. Survey questions are designed to solicit feedback from applicants on everything from the tools they use to research programs to where and why they ultimately enroll to how they expect an MBA will impact their future careers and salaries.
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Choosing an MBA Program Based on Where You Want to Work
With some lucky applicants now having been accepted to multiple top-tier business schools, a new challenge faces them: choosing where to go. A New York Times article decided to look at that question in an interesting way, offering suggestions for what school to attend based on the specific company you hope to work for upon graduation.
According to the Times analysis, the best school to choose if you want to land at Amazon is the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Amazon last year hired 27 Ross MBAs, displacing the school’s historical No. 1 recruiter, Deloitte, according to the Times. Another 37 Ross grads headed to the e-commerce giant in the two years before that.
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Published: November 11, 2014
Demystifying the Mysterious World of Business School Rankings
It’s not every day that MBA rankings end up trending on Facebook, and yet yesterday that’s exactly what happened. When Bloomberg BusinessWeek released its biennial ranking of full-time MBA programs, the results shocked many and created quite a buzz. According to Bloomberg BW’s most recent calculations, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business has stolen the number one spot, knocking Harvard Business School out of the top five for the first time in history.
Just how did Bloomberg BW decide which programs rose to the top and which fell from grace? As it turns out, the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University just a few weeks ago released an infographic that provides a clear and concise overview showcasing the rankings methodologies employed by five major publications: Bloomberg BW, along with U.S. News & World Report, the Financial Times, the Economist and Forbes.
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Published: November 10, 2014
Duke’s Fuqua School of Business Tops Latest Bloomberg BusinessWeek Ranking
Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business shot to the top of Bloomberg Businessweek’s biennial ranking of full-time MBA programs, released today, up from No. 6 two years ago. In the process, the North Carolina school unseated the reigning University of Chicago Booth School of Business and pushed Harvard Business School (HBS) out of the top five for the first time in the history of the rankings.
The formula Bloomberg BW employs to arrive at its rankings is as follows: 45 percent of the score is based on how recruiters rate MBA hires from the school, another 45 percent is determined by how graduating MBAs judge their program and the remaining 10 percent is based on faculty productivity, as measured by a tally of research published in leading journals.
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Published: November 9, 2014
U.S. GMAT Percentile Scores Drop as Asia-Pacific Test Takers Dominate Quant Section
Increasing numbers of prospective business school applicants from Asia-Pacific countries such as India and China are taking the GMAT and outperforming U.S. students on the quantitative portion of the exam, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. As a result, though U.S. students’ raw scores have remained consistent over the past several years, their percentile ranking has slipped as more higher-scoring international applicants take the exam.
The lower percentile rankings can seem to suggest that U.S. student aptitude is declining, GMAC CEO Sangeet Chowfla told the Journal. Ten years ago, a raw score of 48 on the quantitative section (for which scores typically range between 0 and 51) would have yielded a ranking in the 86th percentile, whereas today the same raw score places a test-taker in just the 74th percentile.
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Published: October 22, 2014
U.S. News & World Report Ranks Business Schools by Graduates’ Indebtedness
Rankings of graduate management education programs abound, each with their own particular criteria for assessing which business schools ultimately come out on top. Separate from its overall business school rankings, U.S. News & World Report recently used data collected from schools to determine the top 10 programs from which MBA students graduate with the most debt.
The number one spot goes to Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, where full-time MBA students from the 2013 class who borrowed for business school had an average indebtedness of $108,186. Fuqua’s full-time MBA students had more debt than any of the other 86 ranked institutions, according to data submitted to U.S. News.
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Published: August 24, 2014
Ice Bucket Challenge Continues Its Ripple Through Top Business Schools
It started last week with one section challenging another at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, ultimately leading to a school-wide dousing and a challenge issued to rival schools UNC Kenan-Flagler School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and UVA’s Darden School. And the ice-cold water just keeps flowing (as do the donations).
The challenge, of course, is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that began going viral in late July and has amassed an incredible $79.7 million in donations to date (as compared to just $2.5 million during the same time period last year [July 29th to August 25th]). The ALS Association reports that it has gained 1.7 million new donors along the way.
Those who are challenged are supposed to have ice water dumped over their heads and then challenge others to do the same—or to make a donation to fight ALS—within 24 hours. In taking up the mantle, business school classes have called upon their peers to both endure the icy shower AND donate.
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Published: August 19, 2014
Business School Students Accept ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Pass It On
With the likes of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and former President George W. Bush pouring buckets of ice over their heads in support of ALS awareness, surely top business schools are getting in on the action as well, right?
At Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, it began with one section (Section 4) challenging another (Section 5). That section upped the ante, challenging the entire rest of the class, as well as all of Fuqua’s MMS Cross Continent students. So on August 13th, Team Fuqua did the #ALSIceBucketChallenge as one.
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MBA Students from Leading Global Business Schools to Help Child Cancer Charity
A United Kingdom charity focused on helping children with cancer in developing countries will receive an infusion of expertise and energy this summer as more than 40 students from top business schools in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas develop plans to tackle business problems faced by the organization.
The students, working in teams as part of the Financial Times MBA Challenge, will assist the FT’s seasonal appeal partner, which this year is World Child Cancer (WCC). Seven teams of students – who hail from schools including Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Oxford Saïd Business School, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, London Business School, ESADE and IE Business School, among others – will each be partnered with a mentor and required to submit a business plan in September on a set topic.
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Some Business Schools Adopt Tracking Software in a Bid to Increase Yield
A number of top-tier business schools have begun to use software to track prospective applicants’ interactions with their school in an effort to gauge how interested they are in attending, according to a recent article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The data points – which can include whether a student has emailed admissions staff, how many admissions events they’ve attended and whether they requested program information – are now included in candidate profiles alongside test scores and essay responses, Bloomberg BW adds.
Most schools report that student interest isn’t a main factor in admissions decisions, but the fact that increasing numbers of schools are using the tracking programs suggest that the data gathered counts for something.
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Fridays From the Frontline
Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly roundup of the ruminations of the b-school blogosphere. This week, several of our 2016 applicants weigh in with recommendations, from audio books to MBA programs, while current students take stock of the MBA experience, including the challenges and rewards of transitioning from the military to pursuing an MBA.
MBATheNonProfitWay has made a resolution to switch her audio-book listening habit away from fiction to various business related books. The first selection, "The McKinsey Mind" did not fare so well in review. JourneyOfaGMATer took some time to share insights on the definition of 'problem', while Sarah'sMBAJourney hasn't given up on the idea of pursuing the MBA, and is now looking at a Cranfield MBA, although she does have some concerns and is open to other options as well.
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Published: April 16, 2014
Deans of Leading Business Schools Descend on the White House
The deans of more than a dozen leading business schools took leave from their campuses yesterday to head to the White House, where they met with senior advisors preparing for the White House Summit on Working Families. The White House is seeking input from a range of stakeholders to identify best practices to develop workplaces that better meet the needs of women and working families.
“We did not think this goal could be achieved without thinking of the business leaders of tomorrow, and that is why today, we met with a group of deans from our nation’s leading business schools to discuss best practices for business schools that can better prepare their students for the increasing importance of women in the labor force and the prevalence of employees with families where all parents work,” read a post on the White House Blog.
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Published: April 15, 2014
Stanford Tops Forbes Rankings of Most Satisfied MBA Graduates
When it comes to the satisfaction of its MBA alumni, Stanford Graduate School of Business bests all other business schools, according to Forbes most recent biennial ranking. Forbes evaluated responses from 4,600 graduates from the Class of 2008 to arrive at its top 10 list, polling them on salary and ROI, satisfaction with their education and the preparation it gave them and how happy they are in their current job.
Stanford ranked in the top five among schools across all three categories in the 2013 Forbes survey. Its grads reported higher salaries than any others, with median total compensation of $221,000 five years out of school. Stanford grads also gave the school top scores when asked about their education and how prepared they felt relative to graduates from other MBA programs. As far as job satisfaction, Stanford ranked fourth. But when Forbes averaged the satisfaction scores across all three categories for the 50 U.S. schools with the most responses to the survey, Stanford came out on top overall.
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Fridays From the Frontline
Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly ramble through the ruminations of the b-school blogosphere. This week, our stalwart applicants are continuing to filter their impressions of the application process, while contemplating what comes next. Current students are likewise contemplating how their lives have changed since starting business school, whether this year or last, and are looking forward to welcoming the class of 2016.
MBAReapplicant continued his streak of good news with admits from both Tepper and Darden. With a successful end to the reapplication process, MBAReapplicant can finally chose between several exciting options for next year. Timbob, another class of '16 successful applicant to Harvard Business School, took a brief moment away from preparing from his upcoming wedding to share a post-decision publication timeline of events. Much of it involved giddy celebration, and skillful procrastination. Another across-the-pond blogger, Sara'sMBAJourney, continued to share impressions of her trip to the States, including her enjoyable visit to Duke, as well as the terrible state of American roads and the terrible drivers on them. Domontron continued his series on elements of an MBA application by addressing ways to research target schools. He highlights students blogs as an excellent way to get a more direct and unfiltered sense of the school's community and opportunities. Your Fridays From the Frontline editor could not agree more!
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Published: March 19, 2014
MBA Tuition Increases Planned at Many Top Business Schools
Numerous top business schools have approved tuition hikes averaging around 4 percent for the class of 2016, increases that come on top of a 37 percent rise in the degree’s cost over the past six years, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports.
The increases, which range from 2.7 percent at Harvard Business School to 4.9 percent at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, bring the average cost for a year of tuition and fees to roughly $60,000 and the total cost of the degree to as much as $150,000, including living expenses and other add-ons. Six of Bloomberg BW’s 10 top-ranked MBA programs recently approved tuition increases, and the remaining top schools are set to make decisions closer to the fall, according to the report.
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Published: February 12, 2014
Harvard Business School, Fuqua School of Business Researchers Examine Modern Matchmaking
Researchers at Harvard Business School (HBS) and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business recently set out to examine what motivates people to act as matchmakers, discovering that they do it because it brings intrinsic happiness.
HBS Associate Professor Michael Norton and Lalin Anik, a postdoctoral fellow at Fuqua, will present the findings of four studies tomorrow at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual conference in Austin, Texas. As part of their studies, Norton and Anik used surveys, computer games and lab-based social interactions to show when and why making matches increases happiness.
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Published: January 2, 2014
Fuqua School of Business MBA Demystifies Week-in-Cities
Advice to prospective MBA students: Be prepared for lots of acronyms. This from Fuqua School of Business first-year MBA student Trevor McKinnon in a recent post to the school’s Daytime MBA Student Blog. “Apparently, MBA students are so busy that we don’t have time to speak in complete sentences and rely on acronyms and abbreviations to save us precious seconds in conversation,” he writes. One such acronym at Fuqua is WIC, which stands for Week-in-Cities.
WIC are mini trips organized by various student clubs to cities across the country during school breaks. Each Week-in-Cities trip is focused on a particular industry and includes scheduled visits for participating students at several companies and firms that might have internships or full-time job opportunities.
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