<p>How much and when does the AWA matter?</p>
<p>Of course, I got a perfect score on what is apperantly the most useless part of the whole damn test.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>It's worthless.</p>
<p>It seems so stupid to me. I am exceptional at everything except for math. I am routinely practice testing between 169 and 172 on the LSAT. I am being kept out of the top schools because I have always had little interest in math. My career says very plainly that I am very good at what I do, but because I can't find the volume of a triangle inside of a cylinder I'm not a good manager?</p>
<p>They could just as arbitrarily not care about high math functions and care more about your ability to write (which, I think is more important) and then I would have a near perfect score and be going to Harvard, Stanford etc. etc. </p>
<p>I don't want to be an engineer ... it is quite frustrating.</p>
<p>The math on the GMAT is important. Almost all of b-school is quant-based. If you can't handle the math, then you'll be in trouble.</p>
<p>I can handle math just fine ... my issue is 2 minutes per problem. Still, how often are you going to be factoring quadratic trinomials in business school?</p>
<p>Although you won't be factoring quadratic trinomials too often, a lot of people really struggle with the math in b-school. In school, you gotta be able to do the exams in the allotted time, so you gotta do it on the GMAT too. Even when you have excel to do things for you, you have to be able to recognize how to manipulate numbers. It's just something you gotta deal with. That's the way the system is set up, and it's not gonna change in the near future.</p>
<p>Give me an example of the tyipcal math I can expect to be doing. </p>
<p>Regarding Excel, I'm not a bad comp programmer ... so I'm not too worried about using some of the basic functions in excel.</p>
<p>Well, in finance you'll use the Black Scholes formula every once in a while, especially in investments class. I'm doing corporate finance right now, and when you're doing PV and NPV stuff, you are doing a lot of algebra that can get hairy if you're not careful. In fact, we're having a midterm on Tuesday where our prof is not letting us use calculators. I can't think of any problems off the top of my head, but you do use it. And in marketing, when you're studying from a case, you have to actually find numbers buried in the case and turn it into meaningful data. Sometimes things don't work and you actually will have to know when to use logs and when to do partworths and importance weights and how they are drived and fun stuff like that.</p>
<p>By the way, I noticed you signed up at the b-week forums. Hopefully you'll find some more Marshall applicants there that you can compare notes with. Good luck to you!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Almost all of b-school is quant-based. If you can't handle the math, then you'll be in trouble
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think this statement is too strong. It really depends on what sort of B-school you go to and what kind of classes you do. There are plenty of B-schools, like HBS, that are notoriously unquantitative, where many of the graduates, by their own admission, are bad at math. HBS is best known for strategy and general management, areas that don't require a lot of math knowledge. Even at the highly intensive quant-intensive schools, you can often times get away with doing very little math. There is probably no more quant-intensive B-school in the world than MITSloan, yet I know some Sloan graduates who have admitted that their math skills are absolutely terrible. They didn't do so well in the required quant-heavy core classes, but that's just the core. After the core, you can do whatever you want, and they ended up spending the rest of their time taking classes in marketing, organizational processes (which is basically managerial sociology and psychology), strategy, leadership, and those sorts of non-quantitative subjects. So you have these people who, by their own admission, are terrible at math, yet are graduates of MIT. </p>
<p>So I think the statement that 'almost all of b-school is quant-based' is inaccurate. I think it's more accurate to say that B-school can be extremely quant-based if you want it to be. But if you don't want it to be, then you just avoid the quant classes. I agree that it's highly useful to have top math skills, as it will open up possibilities in the fields of operations, finance, economics, etc. But I disagree that you need strong math skills just to graduate. Practically nobody ever flunks out of B-school. If your math skills are weak, you may not get top grades, but you'll still graduate, even from a quant-jock school like the MIT Sloan School.</p>
<p>Okay, let me amend my statement. In my two quarters of business school, ALL of my classes have been quant-based, even marketing. But since I've only taken two quarters of core, I really can't say much more about the entire curriculum yet.</p>
<p>But if you can't get through core, you can't get the MBA.</p>
<p>I'm not exactly a dummy - my scores are all cold with about 5 hours of study on the math. The AWA and Verbal are my natural ability without study. If I don't get in this time, then God help everyone as I will study for several months and shoot for a 720+ plus. </p>
<p>The business math I have see is fairly easy and I do not want to be an accountant etc. I want to MANAGE people. That shouldn't be too much of a problem I hope. </p>
<p>Yes, I have already started comparing notes with others applying for the MBA.PM program. Also, I have a hunch that the part time programs are less quant based.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But if you can't get through core, you can't get the MBA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, but you have to aks yourself how likely that is?</p>
<p>Again, I know at MITSloan, practically everybody makes it through the core. Maybe not with great grades, but they make it. Once you're past the core, you can do whatever you want to do. You can choose to never take another quant-oriented class ever again, and some do exactly that. It's practically impossible to actually flunk out of the Sloan core. </p>
<p>I don't know specifics about UCLA, but I would ask - how common is it for anybody who actually puts in effort to flunk out of Anderson? I would suspect that it is probably almost never. Again, I say that because of the reputation of rigor. MITSloan is arguably one of the most rigorous B-schools in the nation, yet the fact is, practically nobody ever flunks out, except if they are caught cheating. You may get poor grades, but you're not actually going to flunk out.</p>