Hi all! I'm Sara, first year part-time student (FlexTime) at Tepper. I'll try to answer some of your questions as best I can.
mirantdon - Your profile is impressive. Definitely mention your interest in operations when applying. Tepper is a fantastic operations school.
worldisflat84 - You asked about the management science method versus the case study method. Since I haven't attended any other MBA program, I couldn't tell you exactly how it's different, but this I know: everything we learn in this school has a ton of research and data to back it up. Case studies may be a more holistic way of learning, but it appears that Tepper wants us all to have a solid understanding of the quant side of just about everything before jumping into case studies. One of our first classes is optimization and decision making, and just about everyone is extremely challenged by the content of the class. It's a Tepper rite of passage. As someone who isn't an engineer, I can see how our first few classes are a bit boring for the engineers - but since I'm not a mathy person, it's challenging but also very interesting.
p.s. - I'm from a liberal arts background, and we non-engineers exist (and succeed) here at Tepper, contrary to what you might believe!