MBA Quant Experience

Tuck School of Business purchased MBA Math subscriptions for all participants in the Back in Business program. Participants will focus on spreadsheets, finance, and accounting to reinforce their quantitative foundation before starting the Back in Business program whose goal is to facilitate reentry of professionals into the workforce.

McCombs School of Business purchased MBA Math subscriptions for all incoming Houston, Dallas, and Evening MBA program students.

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.

I'll be teaching my second-year decision consulting and valuation course Professional Decision Modeling at Fuqua during their Term 3 in January and February.  The fall term Professional Decision Modeling course at Tuck starts next week and I am deep in preparation. 

I look forward to working with students and faculty at Duke as well as spending some time in the Research Triangle area during college basketball season.

I returned to my MBA home base at Tuck to teach the 5-day Pre-Enrollment Program, affectionately known as math camp, to 55 incoming first years.  The coverage is similar to the online MBA Math course, with lessons in finance, accounting, economics, statistics, and spreadsheets.  In each of 4 or 5 sessions each day, I introduce some concepts and lead students through sample problems before students then work individually through similar problems.  Second year teaching assistants and I roam the room to assist with questions.  The "watch-a-few then do-a-few" approach highlights areas of confusion and boosts confidence incrementally as students eventually can generate correct answers.

The second year TAs Jason, Alasdair, and Lindsay did a fantastic job grounding the week in what first year students will really need most and also in keeping the summer in math camp with some fun had-to-be-there performances.

Away from the classroom, many students explored the campus and surrounding area, including some canoeing and kayaking on the Connecticut River just a few minutes' walk from Tuck.  International students were having an orientation course across the hall, an Outward Bound group was sailing in coastal Maine, and a Tuck Builds group was doing some construction projects in the Upper Valley area. 

They're all in the midst of Decision Science and Accounting right now with summer most definitely over.

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.