Fuqua MBA Optional Essay

If you feel there are circumstances of which the admissions committee should be aware (such as unexplained gaps in work, choice of recommenders, inconsistent or questionable academic performance), please explain them in an optional essay. Please do not upload additional essays or additional recommendations in this area of the application, and limit your response to one page.

Read our team’s complete take on the idea of the optional essay, including a brief (recent) history of b-schools’ relationship with it, and how our recommendations have evolved over the years, right here.

You can also read through our team’s analysis of the rest of Fuqua’s application essays.

Learn more and explore each step of Fuqua’s full-time MBA application process here.

Fuqua prides itself on cultivating a culture of engagement. Our students enjoy a wide range of student-led organizations that provide opportunities for leadership development and personal fulfillment, as well as an outlet for contributing to society. Our student-led government, clubs, centers, and events are an integral part of the student culture and are vital to providing you with a range of experiential learning and individual development experiences.

Based on your understanding of the Fuqua culture, how do you see yourself engaging in and contributing to our community, outside of the classroom? Your response should be no more than 2 pages in length.

Your ultimate goal here? To elicit a reader response that goes something like:

• “Yep, this kid clearly bleeds Duke.”
• “Yep, this kid is gonna light a fire here.”
• “Yep.” {Translation: I believe the commitment behind his/her words here.}

The key to this question is… are you convincing? This is the part, folks, where what you say matters less than how you say it. It is very possible to say all the right things. To indicate that you are going to start Club X, and to engage in Duke Thing Y, and to contribute Awesome Thing Z thing to the Duke community. But how? By doing research, by organizing your arguments so that they are logically sound, seem well considered, etc.

But… if the Adcom thinks that you would probably pick, say, Darden or Ross or Yale SOM over Duke, none of those arguments will weigh much. What you need to achieve is the exact opposite. Let’s take those statements above and ADD another crucial one:

• “If we admit this kid, there is an unbelievably good chance he’s gonna accept, regardless of where else he gets in.”

If you establish THIS as your burden, it will (it should, anyway) focus your approach to this response in an excellent way. Imagine, for example, that your reader does NOT believe that you are sincere in your stated desire to attend Duke. How would you use this essay prompt to convince him/her otherwise? Address the elements in this question, but in reality, prove to the reader that no matter how many acceptance letters you receive, Duke is the place you are going to engage with the most.

Now. How exactly do you do that? Well for starters it helps if that’s actually the case, ha! But let’s suppose your are business-school-agnostic at this stage, and simply want to attend whichever TOP MBA program accepts you. Allow yourself to APPEAR to be that first guy, the one who would rather attend Duke than Harvard. In order to achieve that, you need to demonstrate two things:

1) DEMONSTRATE DEEP KNOWLEDGE FOR WHAT MAKES FUQUA… FUQUA.

In other words, if the Duke experience is supposedly different from the Yale experience, or the Ross experience, how so? (And then map those differences to things you need – THROUGH your explanation for how you will engage in the Duke community.)

2) MAKE AN EMOTIONAL ARGUMENT FOR WHY DUKE REVS YOU UP.

Show how Duke fulfills something inside you that another school doesn’t. Or, why Duke’s version is somehow more appealing to you. This is art, not science. Do you have a girlfriend? Boyfriend? Husband? Wife? Child? Can you explain to someone why you like this person? Try it. Do it on paper. Maybe it starts with “quantifiable” traits. But hopefully, at some point, you reach a moment where you find yourself… unable to quantify the way a loved one makes you feel. Try – like hell – to explain IN WORDS what that thing is. What your emotion is, and how this person elicits that emotion. You won’t be able to, or you may discover a way to. It’s all gold. All of it. Take a look and see what that looks like, and then see if you can adapt it to the Duke community somehow.

When you put all of that stuff together, you should end up with some interesting stuff in your first draft. Here’s one version of an outline that may help kick things off:

1. Establish what you’re looking for in a B-school. Establish the experience you’re hoping for, and how this corresponds to optimizing your personal potential to succeed (and perhaps to help others succeed).
2. Now explain why certain opportunities at Duke afford you the ability to not just experience these things, but quite possibly the best version of them. If you can indicate contrasts to other schools, do it. If it’s just highlighting something unique to Duke, do it. As always, relate each example back to something you specifically need, and be very specific about the ways in which you are going to engage.
3. Lastly, see if you can somehow explain where this sense came from. Give us a taste of the research, the “due diligence” that led to your conclusions. This is also the section where you may wanna “fumble” around those inexplicable reasons that are emotional at their core. Let us see the genuine-ness of your words here.

Organization-wise, it doesn’t necessarily need to follow that order. And to be sure, what we’re calling “Section 3” here is truly something that should be interwoven through the essay. But separating it out this way may at least give you a target for your V1.

You can also read through our team’s analysis of the rest of Fuqua’s application essays.

Learn more and explore each step of Fuqua’s full-time MBA application process here.

Fuqua's 25 Random Things Essay

Fuqua believes different types of people, points of view, and experiences bring out the best in everyone. And above all, we place a premium on succeeding while making a positive impact on businesses, organizations, and the world. These ways of thinking set the Duke MBA experience apart, and this concept extends beyond the student body to include faculty, staff, and administration. When a new person joins the Admissions team, we ask that person to share with everyone in the office a list of "25 Random Things About Yourself." As an Admissions team, we already know the new hire's professional and academic background, so learning these "25 Random Things" helps us get to know someone's personality, background, special talents, and more. In this spirit, the admissions committee also wants to get to know you–beyond the professional and academic achievements listed in your resume and transcript. You can share with us important life experiences, your likes/dislikes, hobbies, achievements, fun facts, or anything that helps us understand what makes you who you are. Share with us your list of "25 Random Things" about YOU.

Present your response in list form, numbered 1 to 25. Some points may be only a few words, while others may be longer. Your complete list should not exceed two pages.

Random, folks. The absolute worst way to play this is to “clearly not have fun with it.” If you take this too seriously, and look at it like an opportunity to impress them with more achievements, you’re going to bore them to tears, and potentially turn them off. To avoid having fun with it will almost GUARANTEE that they conclude that “this is the type of person who is incapable of having fun.” That person is going to be a net negative on campus. We’re looking for “wins.” People who ADD to the community. Those people have personalities. Charm. Wit. Playfulness. Spirit. If this isn’t in you… you’d better get it fast.

Random doesn’t mean “by itself.” It has to tell us something about you. Example:

“A hummingbird flaps its wings about 70 times in a second.”

Great. But… this tells us what about you?

The random thing must give us a key to your coolness, your quirkiness, your… self. Somehow.

“When I was nine years old, in charge of “snacks” for a class camp out, I brought croissants. That was the day I realized I was not only born on the wrong continent, but in the wrong century.”

See the difference? This is revealing. Endearing. Self-deprecating. Tells us something about the author. 25 things like that.

Also, don’t be afraid to get creative. Make up your own conceits to GET you to a place of 25 random things:

“If I had to pick five celebrities to start a brand new civilization, they would be: Person (witty reason), Person 2 (witty reason), etc etc.” Don’t steal that, cuz it’ll look suspicious when several people submit the same thing! But you see the IDEA here, that you can literally invent ANY NUMBER of cool premises to help you reveal something about yourself and your attitudes.

You can also read through our team’s analysis of the rest of Fuqua’s application essays.

Learn more and explore each step of Fuqua’s full-time MBA application process here.