Apr 29, 2014

My interview was conducted by a second year student and was relaxed in tone. It was one hour in duration.

Here were the main questions:

1) Tell me your story/walk me through your resume

2) Why MBA?

3) Why Fuqua?

4) Tell me about a time where we you worked with a team and you did not achieve your objective?

5) Describe a time you worked with a difficult team member. How did you resolve the issue?

6) Greatest success? Failure?

7) You have 2 minutes to pitch yourself to the Admissions Director. Go.

Mar 24, 2014

The interviewer put me at ease quickly. She had lived in the same city as I do prior to attending Fuqua, so we started off chatting about that. Then we launched into the interview. She took copious notes but maintained a conversational tone at the same time.

1. Walk me through your resume.

2. Why an MBA?

3. Why Fuqua?

4. Describe your greatest failure.

5. Describe 5 attributes of an ideal teammate.

6. Now describe a situation when you were on a team and showed at least three of those attributes.

7. Personal and professional development is an important part of the business school experience. What skills do you want to work on at Fuqua?

8. What’s a piece of constructive criticism you’ve received?

9. How would you approach a team member who is not motivated or pulling his/her share?

10. How will you contribute to Fuqua?

11. What do you like to do in your spare time?

12. What accomplishment are you most proud of?

13. Anything else?

The interview was blind and lasted about 45 minutes. I was surprised by a few questions (ideal teammate, how would you approach a team member). It was clear that Fuqua emphasizes teamwork (which should come as no surprise). I think the primary goal is to gauge interest in the school and fit. They planned a nice day of events surrounding the interview (panels, opportunities to chat with current students).

I was admitted with a scholarship.

Mar 20, 2014

The questions were:

Walk me through your resume?

What are your short- and long-term goals?

Why MBA?

Why Duke?

Any failures?

Extracurricular activities ? {This one was good.}

Any questions for me?

Mar 11, 2014

I was fortunate enough to receive an interview and met with a second year MBA student. The interview was very relaxed and when we had strayed too far off topic, he brought the conversation back to the main questions. Truthfully, I was only asked three questions in actual question form as the others were brought up casually during our conversation. Be yourself, that’s what they’re looking for. Good luck!

1. Tell me about yourself.

2. Why MBA? Why Now?

3. Why Fuqua?

4. Tell me about your international experience. Is there any particular thing you have learned from your international exposure?

5. What is your leadership style? Give an example outside of your professional career.

6. How can you contribute to Fuqua?

7. What would you say are the ideal fundamentals of a good team? If you could pick your team, what characteristics would it have?

8. How do you handle a conflict? Give an example

9. Any questions for me?

Mar 7, 2014

My Fuqua interview was very long. She made me feel nervous. Questions asked were basic:

1. Checked resume

2. Asked about previous qualifications

3. Asked about my hobbies

4. Again asked me to go through the resume and asked about the things she was unclear or doubtful about

5. Asked about my professional aims and goals

The interview overall went well and they basically want to know the basic information about students.

Feb 27, 2014

My in-person interview was with a second year student originally from China.

The interviewer asked me:

1. Talk about my resume

2. Why MBA? Why Now?

3. Why Fuqua?

4. Tell about international experience. Any particular thing you learned from your international exposure?

5. What is your leadership style? Give example outside of your professional career.

6. How can you contribute to Fuqua?

7. What are your goals? If your goals are not met, is there any alternate plan?

8. How do you handle a conflict? Give an example

9. Any question for me?

Overall it was straightforward interview, though the interviewer interrogated me on every question.

Feb 24, 2014

My in person interview was cancelled due to bad weather, so I ended up doing a Skype Interview. The interviewer was dressed up casually at his apartment. It only lasted 25 minutes.

The interviewer asked me:
1. To walk him through my resume
2. Why MBA? Why Now?
3. Why Fuqua? What’s something you like?
4. If you had one minute to appeal to the Admission Committee, what would you say?
5. What makes a good leader?
6. Tell me about an experience where you worked in a team?
7. Your proudest achievement
8. One thing you regret in your career
9. How can you contribute to Fuqua?

Feb 18, 2014

The interview was blind (the interviewer has seen my resume only) with a second year student. It was very conversational, and the interviewer did a good job making me feel comfortable by asking some questions about my personal interests.

Question List:
-> Tell me a little about yourself (i.e. Walk me through your resume)
-> Why MBA and why MBA now?
-> Why Fuqua?
-> What are your short-term goals?
-> What are your long-term goals?
-> What motivates you?
-> What do you think of feedback?
-> Tell me about a time that you led a team.
-> How can you contribute to the class?
-> Do you have any questions for me?

Bottom Line: The interview was a pleasant experience and nothing about it caught me off guard. It was very relaxed and it was appropriate to wear business casual attire as it states in the interview email. The school really wants to hear how you can contribute to the class/Team Fuqua and what makes you want to go to Fuqua. The experience tells me that they value the Team Fuqua attitude and want to make sure that whoever they accept is willing to join and contribute.

Feb 18, 2014

The interview at Fuqua was very casual and comfortable. When you set up an interview, you get to choose the timing of your interview and class visit. There were many times when I was with other applicants, and many students would drop in to talk to applicants. I set up my schedule to have lunch with students, attend a class, Q&A with admissions, visit an operations management course, and then conducted my interview.

The questions were fairly standard, and the 2nd year student only had the opportunity to look at my resume. See questions below:

* Tell me about yourself
* Why MBA and why now?
* Why Fuqua?
* Greatest work and personal accomplishment
* Tell me about a time of conflict
* What do you do outside of the classroom?
* Personal weakness you would like to work on

My interviewer did not cover many questions, but we spent a lot time having casual conversation.
Overall I like the very casual atmosphere Fuqua has. None of the questions were surprising and seemed fairly standard.

Feb 17, 2014

Description of visit and interview atmosphere: I visited the school before the early action deadline and had my interview during the visit. I had also scheduled to attend a class in the morning, followed by lunch with current students. My interview was in the afternoon. I had specifically scheduled my interview on Friday so I could attend “Fuqua Friday” and experience the diverse and super friendly Fuqua community firsthand.

The interviews are held in the interview rooms in the admissions lounge. While we, prospective students, waited in the admissions lounge for our interview, I was pleasantly surprised to see how frequently first-year and second-year students stopped by the admissions lounge to chat with us, to discuss their MBA experiences at Fuqua, and to address any questions we had.

Overall, it was an extremely friendly atmosphere throughout my visit. You can truly experience “Team Fuqua” while interacting with students. They were extremely generous in offering their help and addressing my questions.

Type of interview: My interview was with a second-year student, who had not seen my application. At Fuqua, the interviews are typically blind i.e., the interviewers have not read your application before the interview. The interviews are considered as an additional data point in your overall application.

The interviewer started off the conversation by introducing herself followed by handing over her card to me (which was part of the initial formality), so I could reach out to her in case I had any questions later on and couldn’t discuss during the interview (due to time constraints). The interviews are typically 30-40 minutes.

List of interview questions:
1. Walk me through your background/resume.
2. Why MBA?
3. Post-MBA goals.
4. Why Fuqua?
5. Fuqua is proud of the diversity of students. What would you contribute to this diversity? What would you uniquely bring to the Fuqua community?
6. Discuss your recent leadership experience, especially an account of an experience in which you led a project but didn’t reach a desired outcome or had a conflict with a team member. How did you deal with situation or the conflict?
7. Hobbies and activities outside work.
8. Any questions I wanted ask.

Commentary: The interview was very conversational. While the questions were not out of the ordinary, it seemed the interviewer truly wanted to gauge my fit to the school. My overall campus visit and interview experience only accentuated my awesome impression of the school.

Dec 17, 2013

I had to fly to another city, so the usual – the flight was late, made it to the interviewers office just in time. Realized I forgot to get a copy of my resume. Unfortunately the interviewer also forgot to get it, so he had to go back to his office to grab the resume. Started off with casual small talk about my city (which is the party capital of the country) spoke a bit about the nightlife, restaurants, etc.

1) Tell me about your Company.
Some specific Company related questions … then even more specific questions.

2) Tell me about your Work.
Very, very specific work related questions. He was a finance guy and I worked in finance so this was expected.
These questions took us 30 mins

3) So if you have so much going on, Why MBA at DUKE
This one seemed like a stress question … and no matter how much I tried to explain to him, he successfully broke down my argument.
Finally I came to the basics of case based learning, network and brand. Spoke about my role models in the industry with similar backgrounds as me. DUKE for the team based experience etc.
This question took us atleast 45 mins. Surprisingly.

4) Any questions you have for me ?
Some casual talk on the way out.

We kept in touch until the decision day – he called me on DD letting me know I was in .

Dec 10, 2013

It was a resume-based interview, with the interviewer having no exposure to the other portions of my application. In addition to my resume, the interviewer had a sheet of questions with spaces to write answers/notes, and continued to make reference to the need to follow the sheet (my experience was more conversational than most of the other interviewees reported during subsequent discussion) Thus, the questions asked were:

-What is your story?

-What do you want to do, and why do you need an MBA to do it?

-Why does that MBA need to be from Fuqua?

-What will you contribute to the program? (I had spoken previously about Team Fuqua, so the interviewer framed this question as ‘What teams will you contribute to?)

Then, some behavioral questions:

-What is your greatest success, and your greatest failure?

-Tell me how you work as part of a team

Then I got about 5 minutes to ask my questions, and that was it. Fingers crossed!

Nov 4, 2013

I interviewed in his office, which seemed a bit stressful at start but turned out to be fine.
The interview lasted an hour, and the interviewer was very friendly and relaxed, and it felt like a conversation with a friend rather than an interview for a business school. He presented himself, the format of the interview and then we started. Questions:

1) Walk me through your resume (with interim questions and clarifications)

2) Why MBA

3) Why in Fuqua and not other schools

4) How will you contribute

5) Tell me about your greatest achievement and greatest failure

6) My questions to him

This experience really matched what I read here and in other sites about Fuqua’s interviews being very casual, simple and focusing on the “fit” with the school and its community. Overall, it felt good.

2 weeks later I was admitted

Oct 15, 2013

Very friendly interviewer. Ended up chatting for nearly 75min.

Here were the questions from my interview:

1) Walk me through your resume

2) Why MBA? (He cross-questioned and probed me on this part for a good 15 min)

3) Why Fuqua? (When I mentioned ‘Team-Fuqua’, he asked me to state specific examples on how I would contribute to different teams in Fuqua)

4) Who I’ve spoken to and why I think I get the school’s culture?

5) Asked me to detail a situation when I managed a difficult team-member / employee / stakeholder

6) Asked me to tell him about a time at work when I overcame a challenging situation

7) Asked me the ‘Why MBA Now’ question.

8) Shared his own example of graduating in 2009 when the economy wasn’t great and asked me if I had thought through my alternate options if I didn’t land up in my desired role post-mba.

Overall I think the interview went well. We had a two-way conversation for most part of the interview. He told me as much about himself and his job as I did.

Hopefully I’ll get in!!

Mar 4, 2013

I applied to FT MBA in second round. My interview was scheduled on 19th February with Adcom who flew to my country. I saw her only take note on blank paper. It was 40+15 minutes. We started with 1-2 minutes chat and then took off.

Questons are:
- My background. She seemed to be interested in why I chose studying in Engineering, why I chose this school, detail of my internship (which was stated in resume), and why I chose to work with current employer.
- Why MBA?
- Why Duke?
- Explain my role in current position and how I interacted with other members.
- Which 3 words your colleagues would use to describe you?
- Anything I regret and lesson learn
- How do you see your self involve with Duke to support your career plan?
- Which concentration/class/club are you interested in?
- What can you bring to the class?

She was very nice and I was very enjoy talking with her.

Feb 26, 2013

I was interviewed in Tel-Aviv. The interview lasted about 20-25 minutes. The Admissions’ Officer said that she read my application and only has a few questions. The pre-interview email said that the interviewer will not see any other part of the application except for the CV, so I was surprised that she has read all the docs. I waiting for wll me through your CV question, but it did not happen.
She was very nice and polite, no tricky questions.
1. Why Duke?
2. You know, Fuqua’s motto, is team-Fuqua… How can you contribute?
3. If you were to build a team, what is important to you?
4. Tell me what are the 2 things that you most like and dislike at your work?
5. In what areas you think that you need to improve?

She asked some 3-4 very specific questions relevant only to me, so I will not list them here.

Do you have any questions?

I asked 2 questions, she explained about the further process and that’s it…
In panic waiting for the decision…

Feb 20, 2013

I am a domestic applicant who visited Fuqua during the open interview period. My interviewer introduced herself and gave a little on her background. The interview was very conversational. She then asked me to walk me through my resume and asked questions about interesting points such as my my switch from one industry to another as well as more details about a big data analytics project I had just finished managing.

Questions asked:
1. Walk me through your resume.
2. Why are interested in pursuing an MBA now?
3. Why Fuqua?
4. Best Leadership experience.
5. How would your friends describe you?
5. If you face a setback, how will you react to it
6. What does leadership mean to you? (My current position has given me tons of leadership opportunities and I talked about it extensively)
7. How will involve yourself here at Fuqua? (Do your HW on this question!)

All in all, the interview was very conversational and flew by. I never felt that she tried to trip me up or was waiting for me to mess up. She was there to assess fit and I knew that Fuqua was the place for me. I think this came across clearly since I was admitted!

Jan 30, 2013

I am an Indian applicant who visited Fuqua during the open interview period. My interviewer was also an international. My interviewer introduced himself and gave a little on his background. The interview was very conversational. He had few sheets of paper with a set of questions and he carefully wrote down my answers.

Questions asked:
1. Walk me through your resume. I gave my 3 minute pitch. Then there were some cross questions on what I did.
2. Why are interested in pursuing an MBA?
3. Why Fuqua? I spoke about fuqua’s product management concentration and added the things I liked about fuqua from visit.
4. Best Leadership experience.
5. Time when you failed. What did you learn from it
6. If you face a setback, how will you react to it
7. What does leadership mean to you. I answered drawing examples from experiences.
8. How will involve yourself here at Fuqua?

He gave me few minutes for my questions and invited me for “Fuqua Friday.”

I strongly suggest to visit Fuqua on a Friday as you get to experience the close knit community of Fuqua.

I was accepted!

Dec 11, 2012

Second-year student interviewed me. It was very laid back and part of manyother events (info sessions, tour, etc) that were part of the weekend. Exactly as I had heard, my second year was very friendly and tried to make me feel comfortable. Very straight-forward “why Duke” type questions with some behavioral. More emphasis on what I’d bring to Duke than what my post-MBA plans were.

Questions:

• Can you walk me through your resume?
• Why MBA?
• Why Fuqua?
• Tell me about a time you had to overcome a personal conflict?
• What are your 3 greatest strenghts?
• What do you wish that I asked that I haven’t?

Dec 11, 2012

My interviewer was a second year student. She introduced herself, talked about her professional experience and her activities at Fuqua, and we then began the chat. After I introduced myself, and walked her through my resume, we then talked about the following questions:

• Why did I recently switched jobs?
• What do I like most about this new job?
• Why do I want to do an MBA?
• Why Fuqua?
• How do I think that an ideal team should work?
• What would be my role in that team?
• What leadership experience do I have outside work?
• How would I get involve at Fuqua?
• What three things would a friend of mine say about me?
• What skill am I looking forward to develop at Fuqua (what is my weakness)?
• What do I do for fun?
• Anything else that I want to tell Admissions?

After that, I asked some questions… and after 40 minutes, we were done! My impression about the interview is much better than last year’s. I think that I connected really well with my interviewer. Furthermore, I did a better job selling myself, and showing that I am a great fit for the school.

I realized that she was more interested on my personal traits and extracurricular activities than about my professional experience. She was pleased with my answers and seemed to hint that she would provide a positive feedback to Admissions.

I was accepted!

Dec 11, 2012

Interviewed by 2nd year student. Very pleasant asked me to go over my resume. Then the standard Why MBA, Why now, Why Duke.

Afterwards asked about experiences on a team as well as leadership outside of work. Asked about biggest success so far. Very standard no surprises, every other prospective mentioned the same thing about the friendliness of their interviewer and the lack of any “trick” questions. School definitely trained their 2nd years well.

Dec 11, 2012

Interviewed on campus with a 2nd year student. I work in consulting and I was paired with a student who was a consultant before coming to Fuqua. She mentioned when possible they try to pair you with someone who is familiar with your industry/field in order to help candidates become familiar and comfortable with the environment.

1. Tell me about yourself
     2. Why an MBA?
     3. What specifically do you like about Duke?
     4. Why do you want to return to your company?
     5. Short and Long term goals?
     6. If you had a minute with the Director of Admissions, what would you say to him/her?

The interview was more like a conversation than a 1 on 1 interview session. Typically, I know they usually reserve time for questions at the end but throughout the actual interview there were moments in the back and forth where I just naturally asked a few questions. Overall, the interviewer was not only very friendly but also very engaging and attentive. I enjoyed the experience.

Like all schools, Duke really is big on fit, which is why they go out of their way to really get to know students and provide so much information to perspective students. Throughout my visit I found students to be friendly, engaging, and genuinely interested in other people. If that sounds like you, it sounds like you may fit in at Fuqua.