MBA Quant Experience

I'll be teaching a morning quantitative skills workshop at the Forté Foundation MBA Women's Conference in New York on June 27.  Students admitted to Forté Sponsor schools are welcome to attend.  As of yesterday, approximately 140 women are pre-registered for the workshop.

Here's a workshop description:

This two-hour workshop will build on the pre-work coverage of finance and accounting basics to develop insight into the ongoing credit market crisis. Rather than do a broad but shallow survey of quant skills needed in the MBA first year, I've picked a few tools and a relevant topic from the current business press. We'll dig into the basics of bond valuation and balance sheet leverage with two goals in mind:

1. Whet your appetite for your upcoming MBA coursework
2. Provide a status check on your quantitative proficiency.

To learn more about the broader conference and to register, visit the Forté conference site.

To learn more about the workshop or to take a look at the pre-work material on finance and accounting as an example of the MBA Math lecture material, visit the MBA Math workshop site.

Wharton kindly provided a classroom on August 17 to give prospective students a taste of the MBA experience to kick off the MBADiversity Symposium in Philadelphia.  I taught a 3-hour financial math module drawn from the MBA Math lessons that walked students through concepts and sample problems in time value of money, annuities, bonds, and net present value.  Just after lunch, Prof. Jeff Sandefer from the Acton MBA in Entrepreneurship led a lively case discussion for which students had prepared in advance.  Outside the Huntsman Hall classroom the MBADiversity event participants encountered Wharton first years in the midst of their pre-term experience.

Motivated by that taste of the MBA life, the MBADiversity symposium attendees then returned to the Hyatt hotel for a weekend of networking, powerful speakers, and interactions with representatives from many top MBA programs.  I enjoyed talking with the participants and providing information to help shape their path to b-school.

The experience reminded me of the tentative time when I was charting my own course to graduate school, typing out essays on a borrowed typewriter (yes, it was that long ago!).  I spend most of my time teaching admitted students and it is helpful to be reminded that students go through a very challenging admissions process.

I was also struck by the collegiality among the admissions officers from various schools.  I didn't hear a single negative word the entire time.  Instead, schools explain their programs' features, listen to prospective students' goals, and strongly suggest visiting target schools to gauge "fit".

Away from the symposium, Philadelphia was a great place to visit.  A highlight was a tour of Penn's campus and the opportunity to visit Monk's Cafe and try some Belgian beers with a pot of Ghent-style mussels.  The Rodenbach Grand Cru was my favorite.