MBA Quant Experience

Most programs have quant prep information on incoming first-year class website pages but such pages are not always easy to navigate to from MBA program websites.  I'll be reaching out to MBA program offices to gather summary information but I would welcome comments or e-mails directing me to such information.  Raw information is fine; I'll organize and summarize.

I'll be excerpting posts from existing MBA student blogs, highlighting material about pre-MBA quant prep (e.g., on-campus math camps) and first-year quantitative demands.  I welcome comments or e-mails directing me to such material.

I've started the blog with my thoughts on the quantitative demands of the MBA first-year curriculum.  Now I'll be extending invitations to student, administrator, and faculty bloggers to join the conversation and offer their perspectives.  With modest contributions from each of a group of individuals out there living the MBA experience, prospective students should be better informed about what to expect.

Quantitative courses are highly rational, right?  So difficulties in quant courses must just be a matter of figuring out how to solve problems correctly and moving through the material.  But that is often not my experience working with students.  Because of the self-confidence, high-stakes, and time-pressure issues mentioned in earlier posts, MBA student academic breakdowns can be highly emotional.  Regaining one's bearings in the midst of an academic meltdown can be very tricky.  Fortunately, schools have lots of resources to help.  But an ounce of prevention would be better than that pound of cure.

The first-year MBA experience is one big time-management challenge.  Appropriate quantitative preparation is important not because your quant courses are the most important.  They are not; they are parts of an integrated whole.  But quant courses often are the most time-consuming.  Because your quant courses have such tangible outputs, lack of preparation will suck time away from your other classes. 

Even if you are most interested in business strategy, marketing, or other relatively less quantitative areas, appropriate quantitative preparation is warranted to ensure that you are not constantly stealing time from your non-quant courses to produce results in your quant courses.

Top schools have excellent remedial help options such as office hours, teaching assistant sessions, and second-year tutors.  But who has the time?  As busy as you feel in your pre-MBA work life or transitioning to school over the summer, it is almost certain that you will be blown away by the lack of discretionary time (and sleep) in the MBA first year.

Not everyone needs to do quantitative preparation before their first year.  Many students, perhaps even most, have sufficient quantitative experience in their academic and professional background to start business school and learn on the way.  But those who don't should keep in mind that they'll be sitting down in finance classes with bankers and in accounting classes with CPAs.  Professors have to manage a serious tension between supporting those students with limited prior experience and pushing those with significant prior expertise.  Make sure that you clarify expectations with your MBA program office as the start of your program approaches so that you can plan and prepare accordingly.

First-year MBA quant courses require students to learn how to crank out answers correctly.  Knowing about spreadsheets, finance, accounting, economics, or statistics in a conversational sense is not the same as knowing how to solve problems.  Knowing about business will help with some aspects of business school--understanding cases, considering strategies, making connections in class discussions--but much of the first-year curriculum consists of computing correct numerical answers rather than answering essay questions.

The best-laid plans of summer preparation can be swept away by the chaos of transitioning from work, taking that well-deserved vacation, and moving to a new place.  Coupled with the afterglow of invincibility from winning the admissions lottery, the summer frenzy is a frequent reason for arriving on campus less prepared than planned.

The students who have the roughest time with the first-year MBA curriculum are not necessarily those with the least proficiency.  The ones who struggle most are those who lose their self-confidence.  Self-confidence, once shattered, is extremely difficult to regain. 

I often talk with students who are being raked over the coals, working to all hours of the night, over and over, but they have a smile on their face and a jump to their step.  "That's what I'm here for," they'll say.  They've still got their self-confidence.  They're working hard, bumping up against their limitations, but moving forward, learning and growing.

Other students, with similar proficiency (or lack thereof), are in a tangibly different space, sick with fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

People respond in different ways to the experience of being in the middle or the bottom of the pack for certain subjects.  Maintaining your self-confidence is a key success factor in business school.  Know your own temperament and prepare accordingly.

"What were they thinking?" is what crosses my mind when I talk with or hear from faculty colleagues about students in the midst of fall-term meltdowns who did little or no advance preparation before arriving on campus.  It's one thing to pay $100K+ for the privilege of being put through the wringer at b-school, building skills, experiences, and a network to accelerate and sustain your career.  But to experience the first-year of your MBA in a state of intellectual and emotional freefall from the outset due to a lack of adequate preparation seems so unnecessary.

Students are understandably proud of their acceptance letters, coming at the end of a long and grueling application process.  But don't let that pride blind you to your preparation needs.  Your acceptance does not mean that you won't struggle with the quantitative demands of the first-year curriculum.  Everyone struggles with the first-year curriculum; that's the whole point of getting an MBA.  The three-part question for each student is:

1. How much of that struggle will be in the quantitative area?
2. How will you respond to struggling?
3. What are you willing and able to do to prepare yourself before arriving on campus?

Before going any further with this blog, let me address the potential conflict of interest about my live and online courses.  I don't see any conflict in the live math camp at Tuck.  Tuck's admissions and program office staff decide who attends the course and I teach the students who walk in the door to the best of my ability.   The real potential issue is the fact that I created and run an online MBA quantitative prep course at www.mbamath.com. 

My efforts here on this blog could be motivated by spreading anxiety and then selling a solution in the form of subscriptions to the course.  Whether this would be a bad or good thing for prospective students depends on the nature of the anxiety (false would be bad) and the quality of the solution (poor would be bad). 

I want prospective students to have sufficient information about their own proficiency and the quantitative demands of the first-year MBA curriculum in general, and of their MBA program in particular, so that they can make good choices about how much pre-MBA quantitative preparation is appropriate.  I'll invite input from other faculty, administrators, and students to broaden the coverage.

If students make a choice to use the MBA Math online course as part of their preparation then good for them and good for me.  I have committed myself to making the course the best learning resource I can, incorporating my best understanding of what skills students need and how they can best attain them.

Ultimately, bright prospective MBAs will be very effective BS detectors.  Keep the potential conflict in mind, contribute to the debate, and make the best choices for your situation.

I'll start with some of my thoughts about students' experience of the quantitative demands of the first-year MBA curriculum.  This is the mental landscape that motivates and orients my MBA Math work in the classroom and on www.mbamath.com.  My hope is that laying these ideas out and then asking for perspectives from other faculty, administrators, as well as enrolled, admitted, and prospective MBA students will help me to broaden my views, resulting in improved live and online teaching.

Here's my list:

1. Getting In is the First Foothill, Not the Mountain
2. Protect Your Investment by Arriving Prepared
3. Know Thyself: Confidence is King
4. Summer Before B-School is Chaotic
5. "Knowing About" Is Not "Knowing How"
6. Bankers, Engineers, and CPAs, Oh My!
7. (Limited) Time is of the Essence
8. Quant Struggles are Emotional

I'll expand on each of these themes in subsequent posts.

Welcome to the MBA Quant Experience Blog — This blog will feature perspectives from faculty, administrators, current and prospective students on the quantitative demands of the first-year MBA curriculum at top MBA programs.

I see a lot of online information about the admissions process, and a fair bit about interviewing for summer internships and post-MBA dream jobs.  But I don't see all that much about navigating the day-to-day quantitative demands of the MBA experience.

Students

What is it like as a student in various MBA programs? Is there a time-management challenge balancing the demands of  more quantitative and less quantitative courses?  If so, what lessons can enrolled students pass back to prospective students?

Administrators

What is it like as an administrator supporting students through the first year?  What are the risk factors for academic trouble?  What suggestions about quantitative preparation would you offer to prospective students?

Professors

What is it like as a core course professor teaching first-year students with a wide range of proficiency?  What words of wisdom can profs offer to prospective students about arriving prepared to make the most of the first-year curriculum?