MBA Quant Experience

Interactions with a leading MBA program revising its core curriculum and pre-term quantitative skills prep crystallized the following recommendations for MBA administrators, which might also be of interest to prospective students:

In my opinion, the best practice for online-only quant prep is to set a proficiency threshold for all MBA Math lessons, excepting only those topics not needed for a given program (e.g., calculus for marginal analysis in econ). The top third can breeze through the lesson-specific quizzes, digging into the learning material only when they encounter proficiency gaps. The bottom third can start from scratch with the narrated lectures, proceeding to drill exercises and detailed solutions, and continuing to post-quizzes only when ready. The middle third can use pre-quizzes as diagnostics to determine their path through each lesson.

My recommended best practice for blending online pre-work with live workshops is to designate a core subset of MBA Math lessons as required with the rest optional, design live workshops to build on the mandatory online lessons, and restrict live workshop attendance to the bottom third, directing other students to use the optional online lessons as needed. Requiring some online pre-work of all students helps those who confuse familiarity with proficiency to realize their mistake while time remains to take corrective action before arriving on campus.