Meet Duke Fuqua’s MBA Class Of 2023

LOOKING AT LIFE…FROM INSIDE A VOLCANO

The Class of 2023 also brings plenty of great stories to Durham. Exhibit A: “I got married on Super Bowl Sunday (02/02/2020),” writes DeMontrez Johnson. “I like to think that my wedding is the event that shut down the world instead of COVID. Immediately after the wedding, we went on our honeymoon in Fiji. We left the U.S. without a pandemic and came back to find everyone wearing masks.”

Think that’d be hard to top? Just wait until you read this story from Thomas Louvaris. “As a kid, I almost fell into a crater of lava while climbing the volcano in Santorini. I don’t know how I strayed but fortunately there were no accidents. The unexpected reward: I found the best sunset view in the area.”

And Tatiana Dasso received an early introduction to commerce, thanks to having eight siblings. “When we were young, we used to create a supermarket in our house with our toys and create money with paper. Then, we divided and some of us were the consumers and the others the sellers. It was really fun!”

A RECORD-SETTING CLASS

You’ll find that same celebratory spirit in the admissions offices this summer. The Class of 2023 represents a record-setting year for applications, GMATs, and even diversity. Notably, Fuqua received 3,762 applications during the 2020-2021 applications cycle. It was a 12% bump over the COVID class. Along the same lines, the school’s acceptance rate dropped from to 25% to 19.2%, making the program all the more selective. More impressive, the school’s yield — the percentage of accepted candidates who ultimately enroll — climbed to 61%, an all-time high and a 12 point improvement over the Class of 2022.

Here’s the number that really stands out: The Class of 2023 boasts 447 students, a near record that reverses an enrollment slide that had bottomed out at 395 students two years ago.

Average GMAT scores were another sign of Fuqua’s growing vitality. This year’s class posted a 713 average, up from the 702-705 range reported over the previous three years. A third of the class also submitted GRE scores, whose average came to 317. By the same token, average GPAs came in at 3.48.

Here’s another striking feature of the Class of 2023: Diversity.  Notably, 47% of the class hails from outside the United States, including 54 students with dual citizenship. In addition, there are 54 countries represented in the class, up 10 from the previous year. Domestically, the class consists of students of 33 states. This year, women also make up 48% of the class, representing the fourth consecutive annual improvement in this measure. Minority students also account for 47% of this year’s class, with underrepresented minorities holding 27% of all class seats. Overall, class members average 29 years of age and 5.9 years of work experience.

Academically, the class earned undergraduate degrees at 266 different institutions. 34% of first-years hold undergraduate degrees in Business and Accounting. Engineering and Natural Sciences majors make up 30% of the class, followed by Liberal Arts (22%) and Economics (13%).  In terms of professional experience, the largest segments last worked in Financial Services (14%) and Consulting (13%).  Healthcare accounts for 8% of the class, followed by Non-Profits, Analytics, and Technology at 6% each. The class also includes representatives from Marketing and Sales, Energy, Consumer Goods, Government, Entrepreneurship, Media, and FinTech.

A SCHOOL ON THE MOVE

That admissions momentum also carried into graduation outcomes. Last week, Duke Fuqua released its annual employment report for the Class of 2021. Here, graduates saw their starting base and bonus climb to $141,409, with 98% of the class receiving job offers within 90 days of graduation. At the same time, 94% of international grads had already accepted a job offer during that same 90 day window. The largest consumers of Team Fuqua talent included Amazon, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Deloitte.

“We’re just thrilled,” explains Sherlye Dirks, associate dean for Fuqua’s Career Management Center, in an October interview with Poets&Quants..”I think one of the things we really try to focus on is that for every percentage and every 10th of a percentage, there’s a student behind that, and we want them to be happy with that acceptance and to really feel good about the trajectory of their career. And so I think that’s the part that our coaches get really excited about. And we’re just glad it added up for those numbers to all look so good.”

Those aren’t the only good numbers this year at Fuqua. Consistently ranked as a Top 10 program for Marketing and Managers by business school deans and MBA directors, Fuqua also ranked th in Faculty Research according to the Financial Times’ 2021 ranking. In a 2021 FT survey of MBA students and alumni, Fuqua notched the 5th-highest score, a ranking that has fit with the Class of 2023’s experience.

GAINING AN “EDGE”

“When speaking about their stellar placements, our second-years never fail to mention how much their teams coached and supported them,” notes Devika Mathur. “Similarly, during alumni chats, no matter how senior and successful Fuqua alums are, they are always interested in hearing my perspectives as well. This humility makes for strong teamwork and even stronger personal bonds!”

The program has also remained quite busy. Notably, the school’s Center for Energy, Development and Global Environment (EDGE) launched MBA Edge, where students can access new research and resources on areas like climate change. Such offerings only deepen one of Fuqua’s core programming strengths: social impact and sustainability. It is an area that is only increasing in value says Daniel Vermeer, the executive director for EDGE.

“It’s now about staying focused on your north star of the world’s biggest challenges, because somebody is going to compensate you for making progress on those issues,” Vermeer told P&Q in February. “You may find a company that’s doing revolutionary technology, or a new business model that might take you into government, nonprofits or to other geographies. While it may look like you’re scattered, you’re actually very focused in terms of what you’re trying to accomplish in your career. That’s a different kind of security.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN

What can MBA candidates expect from Fuqua in the coming? That was one question P&Q posed to Russ Morgan, the senior associate dean for full-time programs. From advances in AI to Fuqua Fridays, here are the latest developments and differentiating features of Fuqua according to Morgan.

P&Q: What are the two most exciting developments at your program and how will they enrich the MBA experience for current and future MBAs?

RM: “We are proud of the nimbleness exhibited by our faculty as they continue to innovate to make sure our curriculum remains relevant for the ever-evolving business challenges our students will face when they graduate. As an example, we launched three new courses in our curriculum this past academic year: Creating Common Purpose In A Divided World, Cultivating An Entrepreneurial Mindset and Leading Technological Change And Innovation. Each of these courses equip students to think through business issues critically and ethically, take ownership of their work as if they owned the company, and find ways to bring different perspectives together to work toward a common goal—the key to true and meaningful innovation. In addition to the new curriculum, our faculty is continually updating our courses to make sure we are using relevant examples, sometimes in real time, and reflecting a range of diversity in our cases. We continually hear from companies who hire Fuqua students that our graduates add value almost immediately. I believe the intentionality behind maintaining relevance in our curriculum is a big reason why our graduates enter companies with frameworks that are immediately applicable in helping solve a business challenge or successfully lead a team to a good outcome.

I’m also delighted by the caliber of our experiential opportunities—which continue to become more robust as more companies seek our students’ help in solving pressing challenges they are facing. As such, our students worked on a wide variety of complex business challenges during the past academic year as part of our Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum, Fuqua On Board and Fuqua Volunteer Corps. We aren’t always at liberty to discuss the companies or business problems our students are solving because of confidentiality agreements—but I believe each year the companies participating and the work our students are doing is increasingly impressive. We launched the Fuqua Volunteer Corps during the pandemic as a way to help support non-profits who were struggling—so it’s also been tremendously rewarding to see the impact our students are making during such a difficult time. The value of this experience for our students can’t be overstated, given students are immediately applying their learnings to real business problems. In addition, we are continuing to offer new opportunities to students looking to start a company. This year, our Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation hosted a competition matching investors wanting to support Black-owned or Black-founded businesses with students or recent alumni who own or have founded a company –in addition to offerings like The Innovator’s Spark and our New Ventures courses which allow students to work on their startup during their time at Fuqua.”

P&Q: What are two biggest differentiating features of your MBA program? How do each of these enrich the learning of your MBA students?

RM: “I like how our curriculum is designed to allow a student to learn both the breadth of business fundamentals and leadership and the depth of specialization in their individual interest. We front load the first year of the MBA with core course to ensure a strong foundation of business. The second year is made of up electives so students can go deep in the area of their choosing. We offer 16 concentrations in addition to our certificates and a second major. This really allows our students to customize their experience to fit their interests and career goals.

I’m also proud of the way we teach leadership—in particular the importance of appreciating and valuing difference. We believe a great team will always outperform a great individual. We intentionally recruit students we believe not only share this philosophy, but will thrive in our team-based program. We intentionally structure learning teams with members from different geographies, genders, ethnicities, functions and industries, so that our students are continually learning from each other. We are proud when recruiters tell us stories about how in group job interviews, our students seek to draw strengths from others to solve the problem, versus posturing to their own strength which would be the natural tendency for most people.”

P&Q: In recent years, there have been several areas that have gained increased prominence in business school programming, including STEM, analytics, artificial intelligence and digital disruption. How does your full-time MBA program integrate these concepts across its curriculum?

RM: “We believe it is essential that MBAs understand not only how technology is changing almost every aspect of business, but how to navigate all the changes, and the role human judgment must also play. As I mentioned earlier, we launched a new required class this year on leading and managing technological change and innovation. We also have a second major in Management Science and Technology Management (MSTeM). A large number of our students, about a quarter of the class, take advantage of that second major.  We’ve found the curriculum—which may include courses like Data Analytics for Business, Marketing of Innovation, Value Chain Innovation, and Innovation and Cryptoventures—makes our graduates better able to direct analysis and use data in decision-making in any industry they pursue.”

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