Meet Duke Fuqua’s MBA Class Of 2021

A SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY

Think being a vegetarian is just for health enthusiasts? In Vidhu Venkatesh’s case, it is a family tradition that stretches back centuries. “Most people do it for health reasons or to prevent the harming of animals, he explains. “My reason is a little unusual. It is an ethnic tradition and an important part of my culture! My parents are vegetarian and so are my grandparents and their parents before them and so on from the beginning of our line. My whole bloodline has never had meat. Most family heirlooms are articles of jewelry or some trinket being passed down the generations. Mine is a way of life called vegetarianism.”

As a whole, Team Fuqua follows a different way of living, one based on a spirit of kindness and openness. Jaz Henry, for one, was struck by how different it was from what she’d encountered in the past. “On the night before orientation,” she recalls, “one of my classmates helped me prepare for a conversation with a company he had just met. In the weeks leading up to orientation, my classmates helped each other move in, planned hikes, barbeques, and soccer games, and drove each other to get groceries and furniture. Put simply, they showed up for each other in so many ways.”

It doesn’t hurt, adds Jyoti Singh, that second-years have set true examples for the Class of 2021 to follow. “They took a break from their internships across the world and came back to campus and put on a great orientation for us, and it overwhelmed me and inspired me to give back to the community. They have the drive and passion to believe in themselves their ability to make a better future and they’re stepping up and taking responsibility for making it so.”

WOMEN UP TO 43% OF THE CLASS

This admissions cycle, the big headline has been a plunge in MBA applications to American business schools. Sure enough, Duke Fuqua hasn’t been immune to the trend, experiencing a 14.6% drop in applications. Despite this, the school maintained its high selectivity, accepting just 22% of applicants again during the 2018-2019 cycle. On top of that, the Class of 2021 come to campus with a 705 average GMAT and 3.5 average GPA – both slight improvements over the previous year.

Overall, the class is 28 years-old on average, with 5.5 years of work experience. 37% of the class are international citizens from 44 countries, though just 29% resided overseas. Among Americans, the largest contingent – 21% — hail from the Northeast. The rest come from the South (17%), Southwest and West (14%), Mid-Atlantic (12%), and Midwest (7%). 17% of the Class of 2021 are underrepresented minorities, again an uptick over the previous class. However, 43% is the number that stands out. This is the percentage of women in the class, inching up a point over last year. It also bests the concentration of women at programs like Harvard Business School, Chicago Booth, MIT Sloan, and Berkeley Haas. At the same time, 16% of the class reports being married.

Professionally, the Class of 2021 boasts an array of backgrounds. In its class profile, for example, Fuqua segments students into 19 distinct categories, with just Financial Services (18%) and Consulting (17%) breaking double-digits in class composition. That represents a 7% and 4% loss in class share for Consulting and Financial Services, respectively. Healthcare professionals account for 9% of the class, following Marketing and PR (7%), Non-Profits and Education (6%), Government (5%), and Energy (5%). The rest of the class worked in industries as diverse as Information Technology, Sports & Entertainment, Energy, Manufacturing, Consumer Goods, and Environment and Sustainability.

A CURRICULUM REVAMP

It has been a busy news cycle for Duke Fuqua in 2019 starting with an upbeat employment report for the Class of 2019. First-year total compensation averaged $161,133 – up from $155,100 the year before. At the same time, 97% of the class received job offers within three months of graduation. One graduate – in private equity, of course – even snagged $325,000 in base pay. That doesn’t count Forbes salary data released in September, which projects Fuqua MBA pay to jump by $71,100 over the next five years. Forget the notion of Fuqua being a school for the south. 25% of the class ended up working on the West Coast, with another 22% re-locating to the East Coast.

Duke Fuqua has also been enjoying some momentum from the annual rankings. In U.S. News, the school broke into the Top 10 this year. It also climbed four spots to 11th globally with The Economist – not bad for a program that once ranked 1st in the world according to Bloomberg Businessweek in 2014. What’s more, business school deans and MBA directors surveyed placed the school’s Marketing program 2nd only to Northwestern Kellogg. This hasn’t stopped the program from enhancing the programming and broadening the scope of the Fuqua brand.

This summer, for example, Fuqua announced it would be revamping its full-time MBA curriculum beginning next fall. Notably, the programming will revolve around three central themes: Creating Common Purpose In A World Of Difference, Leading Technology-Driven Transformation, and Entrepreneurship For A Lifetime. These themes will be introduced at the start of the program through new courses taught by cross-disciplinary teams. Afterward, these themes will serve as foundational elements of courses. Overall, the curriculum will place greater emphasis on how business can partner with the larger society to soften change; instill an entrepreneurial mindset that’s proactive and resilient, and leverage technology to drive growth.

BATTLE TO STAY “RELEVANT”

In a 2019 interview with P&Q, Dean Bill Boulding noted these changes were being implemented to keep the program’s vaunted curriculum keep pace with social change and business innovation. “There is this real sense of urgency that the world is changing so rapidly that if we want to remain relevant we, too, have to evolve rapidly to make sure we are serving the business community…In the last three years, we have seen as much innovation in the business school space as we have seen in the last 21 years. It’s our obligation to look around the corners to see what is going to happen and then be ready for it.”

The school also announced a new one-year MBA program next fall for graduates of its Masters in Management. The best part: MiM graduates can skip all of the core courses and choose from nearly 100 electives in this accelerated MBA. At the same time, the school will be rolling out two online Master’s in Business Analytics degrees, one lasting 19 months and the other going 10 months. Geared to working professionals, the programs further reinforce Dean Boulding’s mantra of relevance.

“We want to make sure we remain relevant in the digital transformation happening in education, but it has two dimensions,” he tells P&Q. “One is that this kind of content has never been more important in the world of business. This is where companies are struggling to find talent at the intersection of business and technical capabilities. But it is also relevant in terms of the format. We are living in a world where access can be very challenging. Online makes this content accessible to a relevant audience. They can remain working and active from any part of the world.”

Those aren’t the only developments, present and future, that MBA students will witness. Recently, P&Q reached out to Russ Morgan, senior associate dean for full-time programs, on the future of Fuqua, along with a deep dive into the school’s emphasis on DQ (Decency Quotient) in selecting students and how students run the operations of much of the MBA program. Here are Morgan’s thoughts…

A Q&A WITH RUSS MORGAN, SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN

P&Q: What are the most exciting new developments at your program?

Morgan: “Fuqua is such an exciting school because we are continually innovating, including in our Daytime MBA program. Our faculty have recently discussed several themes extremely important to the world of business today and students can expect us to push forward new curriculum and content related to entrepreneurship, managing technology and creating and working together toward a common purpose. These themes have always been part of Fuqua’s DNA; however, because of their importance, we believe being more intentional about them makes a lot of sense.

We are now beginning to see some of the benefits to the recently launched Management Science and Technology Management (MSTeM) track in our MBA Program. The 2018 MBA class was the first class that could pursue this track. We’ve been delighted to see the way employers responded in hiring these graduates. The combination of understanding technology and data, but also possessing strong leadership skills to lead and manage innovation, is much in demand. In addition, our international students who completed the track and wanted to work in the U.S. after graduation have been delighted to have three years of work eligibility on their student visa because of the STEM designation. This has also been attractive to employers, who have been eager to hire them.

We have also launched a number of new courses recently that have helped us remain relevant to what business leaders need today. Professor Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji created a popular elective that focuses on the intersection of business and politics. CEOs are increasingly asked to weigh in publically on political protests, mass shootings or state and federal legislation. In this class, students think deeply about such matters, formulating responses and testing their responses with their peers. Without being prescriptive about what to think or how to respond, we hope to help students better operate in a world of differences and learn to have conversations that bring people together toward achieving an organization’s goals.

We are also excited about the “Women in Leadership” course that Professor Ashleigh Rosette launched last year. The course aims to give students an understanding of why diversity in leadership matters. The course examines the obstacles facing women who aspire to lead, and the strategies successful women leaders have used to overcome them. While the course is designed to elevate the idea of women in leadership, it provides a discussion forum for both men and women. The longer-term goal is to leverage that into diversity more generally, inclusive of other important organizational issues such as race, sexual orientation, and religion.”

P&Q: In an age where schools are measuring students by EQ as much as IQ, Fuqua is focusing on DQ – Decency Quotient. What exactly is DQ, how is it different, and how does it bring greater value to the MBA experience?

Morgan: “It is becoming increasingly clear that the world needs strong leadership from the business community. At Fuqua, we have long been emphasizing the need for leaders who are not just focused on extracting value for themselves, but are committed to making companies and society better. EQ certainly is relevant in that pursuit. Dean Bill Boulding has emphasized that we must graduate leaders with EQ who can bring out the best in others. This means being sensitive to emotions and how other people are feeling. EQ also means being emotionally mature and able to regulate one’s own emotions. EQ is essential in being able to connect in an authentic way with others and accomplish something extraordinary as a team.

However, leaders can’t stop with just EQ. At Fuqua, we strongly believe in DQ or Decency Quotient. DQ goes a step further than EQ as it means you are truly trying to do right by others. DQ is what keeps EQ from being used to manipulate others – because DQ means you have someone’s best interest at heart. As Dean Boulding has said, “DQ shows that you’re interested in other people; you’re interested in their success; you’re interested in bringing out their best.  Without decency, people won’t trust you. You won’t be credible. You won’t be respected. People just will not enjoy working with you.”

We believe DQ is essential to being an effective business leader today, and believe those are the types of leaders who improve not only organizations but ultimately the world.”

Go to Page 3 for a dozen in-depth student profiles from the Class of 2021.