MBA Quant Experience

I went to New York on Friday after finishing the first week of my Tuck second-year decision consulting course to participate in an event hosted by The MBA Tour for prospective MBAs.  I spoke with school representatives with whom I have previously only communicated electronically or on the phone, and with others in the MBA support community, such as Janet Nakano of MBAPodcaster and Andrew Yang of Manhattan GMAT.

My role at the event was to provide 30-minute overviews of the quantitative demands of the first year MBA core curriculum and, in the evening, to lead a 3-hour workshop attended by 45 or so prospective MBAs that covered quantitative foundations in finance, accounting, and economics, with applications to current events in business such as the subprime mortgage lending crisis and Apple's iPhone price discounts. 

The key messages are that the basic quantitative foundations of the MBA first year core provide powerful insights into a wide variety of business issues and that, for students with quantitative gaps or weakness, coming up to speed on these foundations before starting the MBA first year can help them to make the best of their investment of time and money once they arrive on campus.