The Application Process

Hello BTG Community Members --

If possible, I've love some insights from anyone that can share.

I'm a communications person that needs to take some math classes prior to submitting my MBA applications to strengthen and demonstrate my quant skills. I recently heard about the courses offered by Harvard Business Review. Link: https://hbr.org/store/landing/courses

Does anyone know if these classes are any good? Do you think they'll help me in strengthening my application. I love that they're reasonably priced and self-paced, but I want to make sure it's worth my time.

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

Hi ETBX! Let's see if we can help.

You'd think that a "Harvard" class would be a good choice to boost your academic credentials for a bschool app... but in this case, we're gonna suggest that maybe it's not.

We strongly recommend going with an accredited school (Harvard is of course - but HBR is a magazine, and thus we believe it's probably not), and a class that gives a grade and issues a transcript.

If you take a class like this or one of the many MBA math preparatory courses offered by private companies, sure you could mention it in your apps and it could count for something, but it won't carry quite the same weight as if you actually went out and took a "regular" university class.

We've got a discussion of this on the EssaySnark blahg: https://www.essaysnark.com/2011/09/the-b ... a-low-gpa/ and https://www.essaysnark.com/2012/06/tackl ... ich-class/

You're lucky in that you're asking this question early enough to take action on it - good job in being aware of your weaknesses and motivated enough to do something about them!! Always best to do everything in one's power ahead of time, BEFORE submitting, rather than feeling the regret later that "maybe I coulda done more..."

If we can help further just let us know!!
EssaySnark

Essay Snark - Thanks so much for your response. I'm going to re-think my approach and look for a local school in the Atlanta area since that's where I'm located. I appreciate your insights!

All the best,
ETBX

Snark has the right response as far as taking the class for your application. However, HBR is the best business publication I know of. Therefore, its classes are probably very high quality as well.