Test Your B-School Knowledge: MBA History Quiz

by Knewton, May 6, 2011

If youre planning on getting an MBA, dont you think you should know a bit about the illustrious history of the degree?

Take this MBA history quiz to test your knowledge of b-schools bygone past, then check out the answers at the bottom of the post.

1. What university established the world's first collegiate business school?

A) Harvard

B) Dartmouth

C) Oxford

D) U. Chicago

E) U. Penn

2. What b-school was the first to offer an Executive MBA program?

A) Harvard Business School

B) Stanford Graduate School of Business

C) University of Chicago-Booth

D) Columbia Business School

E) MIT-Sloan

3. Two major reports condemning business school were published in 1959. Which of the following was not among the reports complaints?

A) The curriculum is too narrow

B) The professors are second-rate

C) The GMAT isnt comprehensive enough

D) There isnt enough good research being done

E) There isnt enough focus on ethics

4. What was the original name and acronym of the GMAT?

A) Standardized Admissions Test for Business Administration Studies (SATBAS)

B) Admissions Test for Graduate Study in Business (ATGSB)

C) Business School Admissions Test (BSAT)

D) The Hardest Exam Ever (THEE)

E) Its always been the GMAT

5. What university offered the first accredited online MBA program?

A) Aspen University Online

B) University of Phoenix

C) Monroe College

D) Penn State

E) Kaplan University

Answers and Explanations:

1. What university established the world's first collegiate business school?

E) U. Penn.

The Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1881, was the first collegiate business school in the world. Wharton was followed closely by U. Chicago's Booth (1898), Dartmouth's Tuck (1900), and Harvard Business School (1908).

2. What university was the first to offer an Executive MBA program?

C) U. Chicago

While Executive MBA's are commonplace now, U. Chicago's program was revolutionary in 1943.

3. Which of the following was not among the 1959 reports' complaints?

C) The GMAT isn't comprehensive enough.

Think criticisms of b-school are merely a product of our cynical age? Think again. Back in 1959, two big reports condemning MBA programs were published: the Higher Education for Business by Robert Aaron Gordon and James Edwin Howell and the Carnegie Foundation's The Education of American Businessmen: A Study of University-College Programmes in Business Administration, by Frank Pierson. The "Gordon-Howell" report, as it came to be known, was especially scathing. Read this Economist article for more details on their criticisms, and the ways in which b-schools went on to change. The reports didn't mention the GMAT, but that was probably because it wasn't called the GMAT back then (spoiler alert for next answer) and because the test wasn't nearly as widespread as it is now.

4. What was the original name and acronym of the GMAT?

B) Admissions Test for Graduate Study in Business (ATGSB)

The ATGSB was developed by the Education Testing Service (ETS) and first offered in 1954. In 1976 the test was renamed as the GMAT, a slightly easier acronym -- but still not quite as good as The Hardest Exam Ever!

5. What university offered the first accredited online MBA program?

A) Aspen University Online

Way back in 1987, Aspen University Online led the way with the first accredited online MBA program. Now, of course, there are a plethora of nationally and regionally accredited online MBA programs to choose from.

This post was written by Meghan Daniels.