Duke MMS Class of 2014

The pain... the rejection! You bastard!

Edit: sorry I think I accidentally threw monkey shit at you. Meant to SB you.

did any of you guys get housing yet?

What career paths are you admits looking to pursue? IT seems like the majority of MMS students are interested in consulting.

Congrats, I'm looking into visiting Duke two weeks from now to check out the MMS program and the campus.

Got waitlisted with no feedback. Not to be arrogant or anything b/c everyone has a great profile at the top, but damn my mind was blowwwnnn. I can't really point to something that would bring my application down and I'm think I'm a pretty normal person when interviewing. Idk

Zero reason Bep should have been dinged. He would have been a great MMS candidate and has the resume and maturity to get a job from the degree. Not sure what is going on over there. I have a bunch of data points with regards to admissions at Duke and he was better than all of them, IMO.

Just sent out my app for R3, my stats are about average for the program and I am coming from a finance/acct background. Im worried about getting waitlisted because i need to get started on housing/internships/knowing where the fuck im going to be next year and the stories above concern me. For those who were interviewed, what was it like? Im assuming its just a typical "fit" interview.."Why Duke?" "Why an MMS" "Name a time when you were a team player..",etc..am i right?

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How do you feel it went? I've got no experience with the interview process [for grad school] so I can't say whether thats wtf or standard op. practice but glad they called back. What were the follow-up ques? Anything penetrative? Do you reckon you might get in after this? Fingers crossed man!

Is anyone going to the accepted student day?

Hey futuredoc, I'm glad I'll be your classmate next year. I've been following your post for awhile now lol. About the admitted student day, I'm not sure I can go, I have a bunch of exams the following week. I don't see anyone on the fb group talking about it though

I noticed that, other than the apartment posts it's dead.

Hey guys, I'm a current MMS student (don't know why I'm awake right now) but I'm happy to answer any questions you guys have.

Placement has been good this year--not very finance heavy, but we've had a few people at various companies--several Oracle hires, some IBM, some Deloitte, Accenture, etc. In terms of IB--that was my goal for this year--I will be starting at a lower BB/upper MM (depending on how you want to define it). Another classmate is going to Morgan Stanley (though he is a genius) and two or three should be at boutiques. The key for recruiting with this program is that it's not going to necessarily give you the Duke brand--if that's what you're seeking--but if you came from a decent undergrad, or do well at the MMS, and network your ass off--you can get interviews.

Don't count on OCR, but through networking (and 2 OCR interviews) I was able to interview with DB, HW, Jef, WF, and a few others. The MMS has the resources and as a new program you can spin it in a positive light--but it is still a make your own luck kind of situation to some degree.

What is good about the MMS is that because it's broad, you're not screwed if you can't get a finance job. Feel free to PM for more info.

Did you have previous IB experience?

I had an IB internship the summer before the program started. I got it through the school.

A bit of both. There are certainly people who come into the program assuming they want to do finance, and then find out a bit more and go another direction. A lot choose the consulting route, others general management. And of course recruiting was tough this year--in most grad programs (at least from what I have heard), students coming in don't have relevant internships for finance. Some do, but a lot of times these internships are tangentially related (F500 finance or financial analytics) versus plausible for recruitment (Boutique IB, MM, BB).

If I remember correctly, only about 4 or so banks came to Duke to recruit full time this year. Most of the banks, as you can imagine, recruit from their intern classes. On-campus for this year were Peter J Solomon, Edgeview Partners, BlackArch, and maybe one or two others. The big banks still come to recruit for interns, but MMSers generally aren't a part of that.

I will say this--what I've said here probably applies for most grad programs of this sort (broad business), so there's a bit of a tradeoff. If you go for a MSF, recruitment for banking, AM, etc. might be stronger. But you're going to have more people gunning for these roles, and you can expect a lot of candidates from your program alone with stacked resumes. Part of the reason I didn't go the MSF route was out of concern that if I couldn't break in, I'd be stuck with a degree that had fairly limited use. A management degree, on the other hand, can be applied towards a lot of professions.

One thing I should add--if you choose to come to Duke, do not expect any BB or MM to come for on campus fulltime recruiting. That's not a condemnation of the MMS--it's just not going to happen at any institution these days. I should definitely emphasize one point about MMS that is very nice--given Duke's position as a target, you're in a pretty good spot at Duke when you have full access to undergrad recruiting as well as access to both MBA and undergrad alums (and any other Duke-affiliated alums you would want). The base is huge, there's a lot of finance representation, and that's key to getting the first round. That said, I cannot emphasize enough how important that first semester is for establishing a strong GPA going into Fall. Especially if you didn't have the best finance background or best academics, a strong GPA and some summer banking experience will be crucial.

I got in round 3! Is there a fb page for housing or anything? The discussion board is looking pretty empty.

You can just email her your user name. Did you decide on housing? I'm going to belmont.

MMS '12 alum here, and I just wanted to provide some feedback on the living situation.

If you're going to live at West Village, make sure to get one of the newer apartments. I had one of the older ones, and it was a dark, nearly windowless place (although I was never home). However, be warned that the newer apartments have thin walls. I remember we would be partying or playing music at a friend's place there and someone would always call the cops on us. Biggest benefit of living in the West Village is that you're close to the bars/restaurants downtown, which is great for when you're stumbling home from Shooters at 2 AM.

Trinity and the Lofts are really nice, brand new, and close to campus but they cost a little bit more and they are not close to the bars/restaurants.

Station 9 is where most of the MBAs stay. I have not spent much time there.

Belmont is not a place I would live personally, but quite a few of my friends stayed there. They did have some burglaries during the early part of the year, but I think since then it's all been sorted out.

Good luck!

yeah driving to Fuqua is not bad at all. Oh how I miss that place. I will be there next weekend for the Fuqua reunions. I look forward to Shooters hahah

yup, though i had cold emailed and received offers to intern at other boutiques. Where u intern is somewhat irrelevant--but the key is to just get a lot of solid deal and modeling experience out of it. Coming from a boutique, it's key that you demonstrate some technical capability (modeling-wise) during the interview. You should be able to crush the generic technicals and speak in-depth to your experiences and responsibilities on the deal.

Can any MMS alums speak more about recruiting? I was looking through the employment report on their website and it just seemed to have a total lack of major F500 recruitment. I know the Duke name doesn't automatically buy one a perfect job, but I was still a bit surprised by the lack of big names on the report.