Mr. Digital Marketing Analyst

Mr. Digital Marketing Analyst: It’s Emily, Master Consultant at The MBA Exchange. It sounds like you’ve seen success in your Product Manager role and you have a solid foundation with your degree from UVA and GMAT. With only 7 months of work experience, you profile will look significantly weaker than others in the applicant pools at your target MBA programs. You’ve not yet been promoted or had the chance to work on multiple teams and projects to give you real depth of experience that these schools want so you can bring those experiences to the table in classroom discussions. I also think you need to present your goals post MBA as a story that makes sense with your past. Your experience in Digital Marketing doesn’t obviously flow into working at a hedge fund (even with an MBA) so you need to do some work articulating goals that make sense with your professional experience but are also aspirational enough that you can show you need an MBA. You may want to wait through another year of work experience, see if you can add a promotion or international work experience to your resume and maybe take another shot at the GMAT to further boost your odds. Best of luck!

Hey there, Mr. Digital Marketing Analyst, this is Julie-Anne Heafey with mbaMission. I agree with the other experts that you’re not ready for Fuqua now, and agree with their main points of improving your candidacy: gaining more work experience, upping your GMAT to counteract a low GPA, and clarifying a path that makes sense with your story so far. Since you’re going to have some time, hopefully, before applying, here are some more things I’d suggest: (1) If you’ve got a passion for finance and investing, start taking finance classes now on the side…preferably ones that will grade you so you can also show some A’s in your area of interest when you apply. You can do this online at a top name or locally, just pick a reputable institution that Duke will respect. (2) Get active in finance-related extracurriculars. Are there opportunities to volunteer with a kids investment club initiative somewhere? Are you actively investing your own portfolio or helping others? I notice you have a tax certification, are you doing anything with that? Bottom line – position yourself now for this, and you’ll find success when you hopefully make a real go of it in a couple of years. All the best, Julie-Anne

Mr. Digital Marketing Analyst – Susan Cera, Diretor of MBA Admissions, here. I spent ~10 years evaluating applications at Duke Fuqua. While you have the early foundations of a solid profile, with < 1 year of work experience you just are not competitive at this point in your career. I suggest you likely need 2-3 additional years of work experience to make the most of a top MBA program. During this time, look to develop additional skills and knowledge that will help you to clarify your post-MBA goals. Given that your GPA is on the lower end, you might want to retake the GMAT to bring in a higher score.
All the best.