The rivalry between UNC and Duke is not limited to College basketball; the competition as a favorite MBA destination is much fiercer. While the casual researcher favors UNC for the good-looking crowd, serious applicants should consider five factors: ranking, curriculum, location, class profile, and post-MBA jobs.
Ranking
According to US News, Duke is at #14 while UNC is just behind at #19 for the best Business School. The surprise however was with the 2014 BusinessWeek ranking where Duke Fuqua was ranked #1 in the 2-yearly ranking, rising five positions from the 2012 position. In terms of ranking parameters, BusinessWeek considers Student Satisfaction and Employer Survey on equal weightage (45%), validating further on Duke’s edge over UNC, which was ranked #12th in the top 100 rankings.
Curriculum
UNC Kenan-Flagler MBA’s core curriculum is comprised of 13 core courses, majority of which (10) are completed during the first-year fall semester. The spring of second year is mostly devoted to elective courses with students getting the opportunity to pick from over 125 courses every year. The electives are clustered into 10 concentrations: Corporate Finance, Marketing, Management Consulting, Operations Management, Capital Markets and Investments, Real Estate, Energy, Healthcare, Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Enterprise. Two focus areas: Family Business and Business Analytics & Decision-Making are offered to students with Entrepreneurial background and those interested in Strategy, Big Data and Analytics.
Duke Fuqua on the other hand offers 12 Concentrations: Decision Sciences, Leadership & Ethics, Energy & Environment, Management, Energy Finance, Marketing, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Operations Management, Finance, Social Entrepreneurship, Financial Analysis, and Strategy. Each concentration is comprised of four courses related to the concentration and two courses that support the mastery of the concentration.
The UNC MBA class is divided into study groups, and the performance within a team is evaluated. The second credit earning activity is the case competition where the study groups compete against each other in Venture Capital Investment Competition, UNC Kenan-Flagler Real Estate Development Challenge, Fidelity Investments Alpha Challenge, UNC Kenan-Flagler Marketing Case Challenge and Sustainable Venture Capital Investment Competition (SVCIC). Duke Fuqua on the other hand offers Fuqua Case Bowl, Elite 8 Case Competition, Deloitte National Case Competition, Capture the Cup (Head on Competition with UNC) and VCIC Case Competition. It’s a tie when it comes to major case competitions.
The third evaluation in UNC MBA is on leadership development as an MBA. As part of leadership development, students are required to complete two 7-week intensive courses by solving problems for domestic and international clients. The hands-on learning as part of the leadership development is the most interesting aspect of UNC MBA with the S.T.A.R project giving MBAs the chance to experience consulting engagements with corporations, NGOs and other non-profits around the world. MBAs specializing in Healthcare will find the Healthcare Consulting Projects interesting. Duke Fuqua also has a hands-on consulting engagement with the Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum. What makes the engagement interesting is the diversity of the subject matter that it tackles: Accounting Systems/ Business Ratios, Entrepreneurial Business Planning and Implementation, Financial Planning and Control, Growth Management, Human Resources, Inventory and Production Control, IT and Website, Marketing and Sales, Operations and Manufacturing, Risk Analysis, and Strategic Planning.
For UNC, the latest Global Business Projects schedule demonstrates the opportunities for MBAs to practice consulting in Manufacturing, Retail, IT, Infrastructure, Media, Publishing, Aerospace, Hospitality, Healthcare and Oil & Gas Industry; all of which are in developing countries (Argentina, Brazil, China and India). Another focus area, where UNC has an edge, is the Fund Management in Real Estate, Private Equity and Applied Investment Management with students managing real assets worth $14 million. Duke Fuqua, on the other hand, has a much wider spread with the extra-curricular activities: MBA Case Competitions, Conferences and Symposia, and Distinguished Speaker Series (DSS). Some of the distinguished speakers who have shared their wisdom with Fuqua MBAs are Tim Cook (CEO, Apple), Walter Robb (Co-CEO, Whole Foods), N.R. Narayana Murthy (Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Infosys), Bob McDonald (President and CEO, Procter & Gamble) and Ken Chenault (CEO, American Express).
Location
With just 10.9 miles separating Fuqua School of Business and Kenan-Flagler Business School, there isn’t much to choose between the two based on location. Both the schools are located in the beautiful North Carolina with a tolerable winter and a pleasant summer that eludes Chicago, Boston and New York.
Class Profile
UNC has a much smaller class size at 281 vs Duke’s 437, with a median age of 28 for the class against Duke’s 29. Duke has a slightly more diverse class: 35% woman vs UNC’s 26%, 38% international vs 36% in UNC. The average work experience for the both the programs is 5 years with an identical entry criterion when it comes to GMAT scores; mid 80% GMAT range for the classes falls between 640 and 750. The median GPA is 3.4 for both the programs.
Post-MBA Jobs
We compared the 2014 employment report for UNC Kenan-Flagler with Fuqua’s 2013-14 Employment statistics. Top Hiring companies for Duke Fuqua were Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey & Company. The latest class had a mean Salary of $114,109. For those who don’t want a skewed representation of salary data, note that the median salary is $3000 lower than the mean at $111,000. Consulting dominated the post-MBA job function with 34% of the class opting for it while Finance was a distant second with 24% of the class giving it preference over Marketing (21%) and General Management (16%).
UNC has a much lower mean base salary at $104,286 with the median sliding down by $4000 to $100,000. The $11,000 difference in median base salary is a considerable difference and if you evaluate the guaranteed median bonus payments: $16,625 (UNC) against Duke’s $15,000, and the median signing bonus: $25,000 for both UNC and Duke, the total Salary is still nearly $10,000 apart in favor of Duke Fuqua MBA program. Those who are seeking opportunities in Marketing as a job function will find UNC favorable over Duke Fuqua. According to the latest report, 26% of the class favored Marketing function, with Consulting and Finance at a close 2nd and 3rd with 25% and 23% respectively.
Conclusion
Duke Fuqua is a clear winner when it comes to traditional post-MBA opportunities (consulting and Finance), Employer Reputation and Post-MBA Salary but UNC is a favorite for MBA aspirants planning to specialize in Healthcare, Real Estate and Marketing.
About the Author
I am Atul Jose - the Founding Consultant at F1GMAT.
Over the past 15 years, I have helped MBA applicants gain admissions to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Chicago Booth, Kellogg, Columbia, Haas, Yale, NYU Stern, Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, IE, IESE, HEC Paris, McCombs, Tepper, and schools in the top 30 global MBA ranking.
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Contact me for any questions about MBA or Master's application. I would be happy to answer them all
Winning MBA Essay Guide - A Complete Guide for M7 and Top 15 MBA Application Essays
F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay guide will teach you how to transform your essay into a life journey with trials and tribulations that will move the admission team.
+ Over 245 Sample Essays (Read Previews of F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay Guide Sample Essays here)
+ Top 15 MBA Programs (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Booth, MIT, Kellogg, Yale, Haas, Darden, INSEAD, LBS, NYU Stern, Tuck, Duke Fuqua, Ross)
+ The Art of Storytelling
+ Leadership Narratives
+ Review Tips
+ Persuasion Strategies
+ The Secret to "unleashing" your unique voice
+ How to prepare and present for the Video Essay
+ How to write about your Strengths
+ How to write about your Weaknesses
+ Leadership Narratives
+ Review Tips
+ Persuasion Strategies
+ The Secret to "unleashing" your unique voice
+ How to prepare and present for the Video Essay
+ How to write about your Strengths
+ How to write about your Weaknesses
Want to try the individual school Essay Guides before upgrading to the Winning MBA Essay Guide? Try below.
F1GMAT's Essay Guides
Harvard MBA Essay Guide (20 Sample Essays)
Growth-Oriented Essay: Curiosity can be seen in many ways. Please share an example of how you have demonstrated curiosity and how that has influenced your growth. (up to 250 words)Example #1: Persistence Narrative
Background Information: The applicant – a design and music talent, shares her journey through several setbacks. She attributes curiosity to her growth.
Curiosity: Philosophy
Curiosity (Explained): Curiosity as a philosophy is tough to translate into a narrative unless you are from the creative industry or your contributions had an influence on a solution or an initiative.
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to capture the humanity of the applicant and her influence in music instead of just highlighting how she overcame multiple roadblocks to gain attention as a designer.
Theme: Persistence
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Life Starts at NO (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #2: International Community Building
Background Information: The applicant, a Machine Learning (ML) entrepreneur specializing in healthcare diagnostics, shares how his curiosity to learn other ML algorithms’ evolution in diagnosing Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease transformed his platform into a global community.
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to show the applicant’s contributions in diagnostic from 2020 to 2024 by citing two events. Such examples build credibility instead of engagements that were recent. The evolution of the platform from an AI development community to a community for discussing the application of AI in diagnostics is captured through a ‘curiosity’ angle.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Growth through Collaboration (AI in Healthcare) (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #3: Culture
Background Information: The applicant, an Entrepreneur from India narrates his first entrepreneurial experience – facilitating exchange of stamps in the late 1990s.
Theme: Culture
MBA Essay Strategy: Instead of addressing the biases in the investor community that could turn preachy, I wanted to focus on the applicant and his entrepreneurial journey by citing two entrepreneurial experiences – a platform(club) for stamp collection and his Grocery delivery App.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – The American Dream (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #4: Addiction
Background Information: The applicant – a beneficiary of the foster home system, captures the sacrifice his adopted grandparents made to save him from a path of addiction. Paying it back through early intervention among teenagers and community engagement is the curiosity narrative.
Theme: Addiction
MBA Essay Strategy: My strategy is to capture a gratitude narrative in the first one-third of the essay to demonstrate motivation for starting the venture and dedicate the latter part of the essay to the unique solution
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Drug Addiction and Gaming (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #5: Scarcity
Background Information: The applicant, an education major, recognizes that 70% of all students in Kenya don’t have a computer. The curiosity that drives him to pivot from one solution to another is the growth narrative.
Theme: Innovation
MBA Essay Strategy: Often, innovation is captured with a ‘hero’ narrative where the applicant is the sole originator of an idea. I wanted to break that cliché and include a person from whom the applicant learned to use a concept called ‘scaffolding.’
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Scarcity (Growth-Oriented HBS Essay Example)Example #6: FinTech
Background Information: The applicant captures a vulnerable moment of a beneficiary to compare his journey of side hustle before a technology giant noticed his talent. Although cryptocurrency is not a flavor for the year, capture niches where innovation is still happening.
Theme: Education, Child Welfare
MBA Essay Strategy: Empathizing with a techno solution is tough without a strong backstory around the beneficiary. For the essay, I wanted to clearly establish the beneficiary – Rami, before the applicant narrates the similarities to his journey and finally shares the solution that emerged from his curiosity.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – FinTech as a Tool for Good (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #7: Learning from the best
Background Information: The applicant – a Remote Engineer in the Oil and Gas industry, reflects on a value that has helped her learn from the best regardless of her geographical limitations.
Theme: Learning
MBA Essay Strategy: The effectiveness of the case-study method depends on the assumption that peers in a Harvard MBA class will help elevate your learning experience. For the essay, I have highlighted the applicant’s recognition of this value proposition with three examples.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Learning from the Best (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #8: Military & Search for IMPACT
Background Information: The most common narrative for US military applicants is to quote 9/11 and the reaction your immediate family had while watching the events unfold. The horrifying moment is captured as a motivation to join the Military. On digging deeper, most applicants would share that their motivations were diverse.
Theme: Career Choice
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to quickly highlight that the applicant had the choice of entering any industry. One achievement to demonstrate his curiosity that I shared in the first half is the invention of a game. Since the game is mentioned in the resume and verifiable through search, I didn’t quote the name. By clearly highlighting the person’s curiosity and career options, the family legacy is used as a factor in joining the military.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Career Choice after a Military Career (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)Example #9: Small Business Values
Background Information: The applicant - a second-generation Asian American, is familiar with the values of fiscal conservatism, building relationships, and understanding the daily struggles of the community through his family’s department store.
Theme: Customer-Centric
MBA Essay Strategy: The applicant’s role in developing an App for the store is highlighted in the essay at a crucial part of the narrative so that the essay is not all about his father. I have also humanized the journey – by sharing how upset the father was when the revenues fell by 40%. The essay is about the transformation in the applicant’s value from a person chasing productivity and optimization technique to someone who is truly thinking about the customers.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Small Business Values (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #10: Breaking Away from Family Business
Background Information: A unique challenge that applicants whose parents are public figures or CXOs of businesses or entrepreneurs are the pressure to live up to the parent’s standards or milestones. For the leadership narrative, the burden of legacy is established before the narrative addresses his leadership principles.
Theme: Authenticity
MBA Essay Strategy: For the essay, I want to capture an entrepreneur’s journey to rise above his entrepreneur father’s image. But I didn’t want to make the entire essay about this complex dynamics. The narrative is around the applicant’s focus on customers and surrounding with teams who keeps him grounded.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Breaking Away from Family Business(Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #11: Creativity and Communication
Background Information: When the overall percentage of users with internet access is 62% in South Africa and the inequality accentuated by the rural and urban divide, the applicant endured the lack of digital infrastructure, and spending close to 22% of the family income on gaining relevant information on schools, global exams, and financial assistance.
Theme: Creativity, Communication
MBA Essay Strategy: The strategy is to share why the applicant values no distraction in a child’s home for optimum education experience. Then I highlight the many roadblocks the applicant’s non-profit faced in receiving fee waiver for their cooperative run ISP.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Non-Profit (Telecom) (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #12: Mental Health
Background Information: The applicant like most didn’t pay much attention to the mental health epidemic until tragedy hit home.
Theme: Communication, Innovation
MBA Essay Strategy: A question we frequently get from applicants is whether they should cite tragedy in the family as a motivation for a venture or a non-profit initiative. As long as you don’t linger too much on the tragedy and offer a balanced narrative, there are no restrictions on leveraging unique stories from your life.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Mental Health (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #13: Trauma, Healing & Finding Authentic Self
Background Information: The applicant narrates the absurdity of war in the narrative about the duties in Kabul, and the trauma. Instead of wallowing in on the horror, the applicant takes what makes military applicants strong and guides unprivileged children build life and leadership skills.
Theme: Resilience
MBA Essay Strategy: Capturing PTSD in an essay, the healing process, and the cues that helped the applicant are too sacred to be shared in a Harvard MBA application essay. However, with the right motivation and narrative arcs, you can capture the essence of your journey without sharing the darkest secrets. That is what I did by merging two stories – the horrors of the war with a non-profit engagement.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Military & PTSD (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #14: Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra
Background Information: In this narrative, the applicant captures Peru’s Silver mining boom of 2006. The growth experienced in her father’s business shifted the family’s economic status to a new stratosphere. Through the changing economic and family dynamics, the applicant finds her voice in a unique way, initially to record her unheard voice but later as one of the youngest subject matter experts in mining and commodities.
Theme: Failure
MBA Essay Strategy: For the essay, the strategy is to show how life’s unpredictability is a blessing. By narrating two setback events, the essay demonstrates the applicant’s resilience and her acknowledgment of people who made a comeback possible.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #15: War, Immigration and Starting Over Again
Background Information: Despite a raging war in Syria, the family of the applicant was unblemished by the chaos. The strategic government assets near the applicant’s house would have made the region an easy target, but it was not. The calmness of her journey is shattered in one event. From the privileges of a cocooned life, the applicant is forced to think about survival, her sister’s future, and her future in the US. The second half of the narrative captures the change that was forced on her.
Theme: Gratitude, Resilience
MBA Essay Strategy: I consciously chose not to start the essay with a dialogue or trauma. Two lines are allocated to set up the narrative before the trauma event.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – War, Immigration and Starting Over Again (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)
Example #16: Creative or Finance
Background Information: The applicant starts the narrative with the origin of her talents. The unbridled enthusiasm receives a reality check when in high school, the applicant’s father has a conversation with her about academics. While the applicant picked up her quant skills, she was reaching over 50,000 loyal fans, and her videos captured 1 million views.
Theme: Passion, Talent
MBA Essay Strategy: Capturing vulnerability is the toughest part for Harvard MBA applicants. For this essay example, I have captured the applicant’s uncertainty about career choice throughout the essay. Here the goal is to show vulnerability in the career choice essay while for leadership and growth essay, I could capture one example each from creative and PE industry respectively to balance the narrative. So don’t follow this example without a strategy.
Read: Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay – Creative or Finance (Business-Minded HBS MBA Essay Example)- Stanford MBA Essay Guide (24 Sample Essays)
- Columbia MBA Essay Guide (21 Sample Essays)
- Wharton MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
- INSEAD MBA Essay Guide (19 Sample Essays)
- Darden MBA Essay Guide (21 Sample Essays)
- Yale SOM MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
- Tuck MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
- Haas MBA Essay Guide (18 Sample Essays)
- NYU Stern MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays + 6 Examples - Visual Essay)
- LBS MBA Essay Guide (6 Sample Essays)
- MIT Sloan MBA Essay Guide (6 Sample Cover Letters + 3 Sample Video Statement Scripts + 3 Sample Optional Essays)
- Kellogg MBA Essay Guide (11 Sample Essays)
- Chicago Booth MBA Essay Guide (12 Sample Essays)
- Ross MBA Essay Guide (31 Sample Essays)
- Duke Fuqua MBA Essay Guide (10 Sample Essays + Two 25 Random Things Samples)
- Cambridge MBA Essay Guide (12 Sample Essays)
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