Mr. O&G Geoscientist

Hi there! It’s Stephanie Horn, Master Consultant with the MBA Exchange and recent Poets and Quants “Top 10 Admissions Consultants”. Mr. Geoscientist, I have worked with many clients who had poor undergraduate GPAs for a variety of reasons. You are correct that showing an upward trend will help combat that, but you should be prepared to explain your transcripts on your application. The good news is that you have a solid GRE score. If you did not take many quantitative classes (or got poor grades), then taking a class or two over the summer will help your profile. I like your work experience, with the increase in responsibility and impact. I’d like to see you step up at your LBGT Meals on Wheels to go beyond driving the car to helping steer the organization by taking a leadership role. If you want to pivot to finance, show me your interest now through your extracurriculars or volunteering for an assignment at work. In addition to Duke, I recommend you look at Kellogg, Ross, Stern, and Cornell.

Hi, it’s Nisha from mbaMission! Props to you for owning your GPA and determining that building an alternative transcript is the way to go to help offset it – definitely go ahead and sign up for a couple of courses. From what I’ve seen with candidates I’ve worked with who have similar profiles, if you get As in these courses, they (in combination with your solid GRE) will provide assurance to the AdCom that you have the academic capabilities of succeeding in the MBA program. Courses I’d suggest (depending on what you didn’t take in undergrad) include Calculus, Statistics, and Accounting. One online course I particularly recommend is UC Berkeley Extension’s Math for Management.

MBA programs will also want to see leadership, so it’s great to see that you’ve had substantial increases in responsibility at work. Great that you’re involved in the community as well – would it be possible for you to take on more of a leadership role at the LGBT organization you mentioned, perhaps as a volunteer coordinator? This would only boost your profile further.

Fuqua GREATLY values engagement with its community, so please make every effort to visit campus, go to events, and speak to students/alumni so that in your applications, you can communicate your fit with the program based on its culture and resources. If you do so effectively and clearly explain the motivations behind your goal of pivoting to a finance-related role, I think you’ll be a solid contender.

Mr. O&G Geoscientist – Susan Cera here – Director of MBA Admissions at Stratus. I spent 10 years with admissions committee at Duke so understand what the program values.

While your 2.9 GPA is well below average, I think your professional experience is incredibly unique. A few years ago I worked with a field geophysicist in the oil & gas industry. There aren’t a lot in the world and even fewer are applying to business schools.

The magic will be to redirect admissions committee’s attention away from your soft GPA towards why Fuqua is the best fit for you – both for interest in energy (they run a fantastic energy conference each year and offer an energy finance concentration) as well as your committment to LGBTQ (be sure to connect with Fuqua Pride).

I encourage you to take a graded math course in the next few months to demonstrate that you are a different student now than you were during undergrad.

I’ve personally worked with a number of LGBTQ clients who ended up at Fuqua. One of them was very concerned about the general climate for LTBTQ people in North Carolina but during Blue Devil Weekend found their place!

Wishing you all the best on this journey!
Go Duke!