MBA applicants often ask us if they should create an “alternative transcript” to bolster their profiles for admissions purposes. Every top MBA program expects evidence that the applicant can handle the analytical coursework of the business degree. At the same time, “not every candidate is going to be a quant god.” says Bill, a Senior Consultant on the Stacy Blackman Consulting team.
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t a fabulous MBA candidate,” he adds. “Any case study team in the business school student class requires a variety of perspectives and problem solving approaches to provide the kind of holistic learning environment that makes the MBA so useful.”
Can taking an additional math course, such as HBS CORe or MBAMath, be a way to demonstrate to the admissions committee that the applicant can do the work in the program?
We explore that question here.
“Applicants should make the maximum effort when competing for seats in top business schools, because you know for sure your competition is,” explains Margaret, a Senior Consultant on the Stacy Blackman Consulting team. Sherry, who comes from Duke Admissions and is also a tenured consultant on our team, adds, “I agree and always think it’s better to do more than less, whenever possible, to demonstrate a willingness to make oneself the most competitive candidate, especially for the most elite programs.”
Like any facet of the MBA admissions process, deciding whether and what type of ancillary course to take is strategic. “Different things are right for different people,” notes Beth, a former Kellogg Admissions Officer and current Senior Consultant on the Stacy Blackman Consulting team.
When to consider HBS CORe or MBA Math
An MBA applicant has a lot to juggle all at once: applications, testing, and professional work. We don’t recommend taking ancillary courses just because you have time or money to burn because there’s always an opportunity cost. For example, we want our clients to focus on quality essays, career progression, and other priority areas. You do not want to unnecessarily burn through dozens of hours of studying and tedious coursework; there is an efficient path for each candidate.
Applicants should consider taking an ancillary course only when absolutely necessary. We often recommend the right-fit course if a combination of the following apply:
- Low GPA from college, such as under 3.2
- Low quantitative score, about 70% or lower, on the GRE or GMAT
- Fundamental math classes such as Calculus or Statistics from college were lower grades, such as Bs or worse
- Humanities or liberal arts majors with no or little high-level math exposure in college
- Only took calculus and statistics in high school but not since then
- Work in nontraditional fields outside of finance or without quant-heavy work responsibilities
- On a waitlist and need every little push to get off of it
- Any of the above apply and also aiming for a top 25 MBA program
Here’s a snapshot of the caliber of expertise on our SBC team.
Ashley
Ashley is a former MBA Admissions Board Member for Harvard Business School (HBS), where she interviewed and evaluated thousands of business school applicants for over a six year tenure. Ashley holds an MBA from HBS. During her HBS years, Ashley was the Sports Editor for the Harbus and a member of the B-School Blades Ice Hockey Team. After HBS, she worked in Marketing at the Gillette Company on Male and Female shaving ...
×Pauline
A former associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School, Pauline served on the HBS MBA Admissions Board full-time for four years. She evaluated and interviewed HBS applicants, both on-campus and globally. Pauline's career has included sales and marketing management roles with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and IBM. For over 10 years, Pauline has expertly guided MBA applicants, and her clients h ...
×Laura
Laura comes from the MBA Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS) and is an HBS MBA alumnus. In her HBS Admissions role, she evaluated and interviewed hundreds of business school candidates, including internationals, women, military and other applicant pools, for five years. Prior to her time as a student at HBS, Laura began her career in advertising and marketing in Chicago at Leo Burnett where she worked on th ...
×Andrea
Andrea served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years. In this role, she provided strategic direction for student yield-management activities and also served as a full member of the admissions committee. In 2007, Andrea launched the new 2+2 Program at Harvard Business School – a program targeted at college junior applicants to Harvard Business School. Andrea has also served as a Career Coach for Harvard Business School for both cu ...
×Jennifer
Jennifer served as Admissions Officer at the Stanford (GSB) for five years. She holds an MBA from Stanford (GSB) and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Jennifer has over 15 years experience in guiding applicants through the increasingly competitive admissions process into top MBA programs. Having read thousands and thousands of essays and applications while at Stanford (GSB) Admiss ...
×Erin K.
Erin served in key roles in MBA Admissions--as Director at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Assistant Director at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB). Erin served on the admissions committee at each school and has read thousands of applications in her career. At Haas, she served for seven years in roles that encompassed evaluation, outreach, and diversity and inclusion. During her tenure in Admissions at GSB, she was responsible for candidate evaluation, applicant outreach, ...
×Susie
Susie comes from the Admissions Office of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she reviewed and evaluated hundreds of prospective students’ applications. She holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB and a BA from Stanford in Economics. Prior to advising MBA applicants, Susie held a variety of roles over a 15-year period in capital markets, finance, and real estate, including as partner in one of the nation’s most innovative finance and real estate investment organizations. In that r ...
×Dione
Dione holds an MBA degree from Stanford Business School (GSB) and a BA degree from Stanford University, where she double majored in Economics and Communication with concentrations in journalism and sociology. Dione has served as an Admissions reader and member of the Minority Admissions Advisory Committee at Stanford. Dione is an accomplished and respected advocate and thought leader on education and diversity. She is ...
×Anthony
Anthony served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he dedicated over 10 years of expertise. During his time as a Wharton Admissions Officer, he read and reviewed thousands of applications and helped bring in a class of 800+ students a year. Anthony has traveled both domestically and internationally to recruit a ...
×Meghan
Meghan served as the Associate Director of Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute, a joint degree program combining the Wharton MBA with an MA in International Studies. In her role on the Wharton MBA admissions committee, Meghan advised domestic and international applicants; conducted interviews and information sessions domestically and overseas in Asia, Central and South America, and Europe; and evaluated applicants for admission to the program. Meghan also managed ...
×Amy
Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team. During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students. She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions ...
×Ally
Ally brings six years of admissions experience to the SBC team, most recently as an Assistant Director of Admission for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School (CBS). During her time at Columbia, Ally was responsible for reviewing applications, planning recruitment events, and interviewing candidates for both the full-time MBA program and the Executive MBA program. She traveled both internationally and dome ...
×Erin B.
Erin has over seven years of experience working across major institutions, including University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School, and NYU's Stern School of Business. At Columbia Business School, Erin was an Assistant Director of Admissions where she evaluated applications for both the full time and executive MBA programs, sat on the admissions and merit scholarship committees and advised applicants on which program might be the best fit for them based on their work experience and pro ...
×Emma
Emma comes from the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School (CBS), where she was Associate Director. Emma conducted dozens of interviews each cycle for the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as coordinating the alumni ambassador interview program. She read and evaluated hundreds of applications each cycle, delivered information sessions to audiences across the globe, and advised countless waitlisted applicants. ×
Kate
Kate served in the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School for over five years. In her capacity as an Associate Director, Kate advised applicants daily and reviewed hundreds of applications per cycle. She was also an applicant interviewer, a liaison to other offices within the School, and a CBS representative at events around the world. Kate managed several recruiting and operational projects for the Admissions Committee. After Columbia Business School, Kate transitioned into cam ...
×Holly
Holly worked as a member of the NYU Stern MBA Admissions team for seven years and holds an MBA from NYU Stern. In her tenure as Director of NYU MBA Admissions, Holly worked closely with admissions teams from Columbia, Michigan Ross, UVA Darden, Cornell Johnson, Berkeley Haas, Yale SOM, and Duke Fuqua on recruiting events domestically and internationally. On the NYU Stern admissions committee, Holly conducted interviews, planned and hosted events, and trained staff on reading and interviewi ...
×Here, we outline factors to consider:
HBS CORe | MBA Math | University Extension/ Accredited Program Courses | |
Graded (yes/ no) | No | No | Yes |
Application required | Yes, but almost all get accepted | No | No |
Grading equivalent | High Honors (best 15%), Honors (second 15%), Pass, Fail | Report exam scores as a proxy for grades | Actual grades are shown on transcript |
Grading criteria | Scores and participation: 75% quiz/ exam scoring and 25% participation and peer help | The MBA Math transcript lists lesson scores but does not combine them into an overall grade. Combine the lesson scores to compute an overall average. | Exams & homework |
Time commitment | 7–20 hours per week, 150 hours total | 20-40 hours | 75 hours |
Cost | $2,250* | $149 | $800-$1000 |
Difficulty | Hard | Easy | Medium |
Duration | 8 to 12 weeks | Flexible | 1-3 months |
Curriculum Focus | Interactive, case study based, covering business analytics, economics, financial accounting | Self-paced lessons in finance, accounting, economics, statistics, and spreadsheets | Pre-MBA mathematics includes linear and matrix algebra and differential calculus |
Best known for | Gain a basic understanding of business concepts or as a taste of the MBA | Easy, quick, cost-effective | Credible & graded with transcript |
Not ideal for | Proving analytical readiness to top MBA program admissions | Showing advanced analytical readiness | Limited time scenarios |
Fun fact | CORe members are all part of a Facebook group and there are moderators from HBX as part of the group. | Some MBA programs either require or recommend MBA Math to their students. Kellogg and Booth are the only top 10 MBA programs on the list that encourage MBA Math for prep, although it’s not for evaluative purposes for admission. | This is the original alternative transcript option, which started long before the other two. |
Trends around MBA Readiness Courses
The imperative to demonstrate quantitative readiness has become more prominent in recent years. MBA programs have attracted a broader array of students, often from non-traditional backgrounds, professionally and academically. Applicants with limited math exposure in college must find other ways to show they can handle the quant coursework.
Across our client pool, those with liberal arts college backgrounds have tripled in recent seasons. A genuinely holistic, diverse, and balanced student class is what every top business program seeks to recruit. But non-traditional applicants must still demonstrate they can thrive in the analytical educational environment of a top business school.
HBS Online CORe
Launched in 2014, HBS Online Credential of Readiness (CORe) is an innovative idea for providing a Harvard education to many students. The course is pricey and demanding. Students learn a lot, but it’s still a correspondence school that yields a certificate without actual grades or transcript. The HBS CORe used to be called HBx CORe, which replaced the former pre-MBA analytics program (aka “math camp”) for the poets and artists admitted to HBS or anyone looking to brush up ahead of their first year.
According to the former HBS Admissions Officers on our Stacy Blackman Consulting team, the departments running HBS CORe view it as targeting less competitive learners than the actual HBS MBA student population. The CORe facilitators rarely interact with the HBS MBA education team. For HBS MBA admissions, typically, only accredited classes are considered, and we don’t believe that CORe is accredited.
To date, we estimate that 35,000+ have taken CORe, and many have since matriculated at top full-time, two-year MBA programs such as HBS. But the HBS brand attached to this online CORe course may be an illusion. If you are looking at HBS CORe in terms of an immediate payback that will give you an increased chance of getting admitted to the top 10 US MBA programs, think again.
Most of our SBC team won’t recommend HBS CORe to our clients, but some applicants come to us having already taken it. “If someone is already applying, I don’t think CORe does as well as an easy substitute for the hard quant classes, such as those from UCLA / UC Berkeley extension,” Beth shared with our SBC team.
An exception to consider…
But there is some value to the HBS CORe for those planning well in advance for the MBA. As Beth noted, “If an applicant is coming from a very non-traditional background, it might demonstrate that they have a sincere interest in pivoting towards business. Or if someone wants to test the waters, (“Would I even enjoy the topics taught in an MBA?”) or planning far ahead in what they could do to get ready for an MBA, maybe this is something they could work on.”
Young professionals should be convinced that they will value the HBS CORe experience because the time and cost investment is high.
MBAMath.com
MBAmath was initially designed for admitted MBA students. Per the founder of MBAmath, the average completion time for the population of mostly admitted students is 25 hours, with a 10/90 range of 10-45 hours. Applicants needing quant prep would tend to the higher end.
MBAMath is the least expensive and also the least rigorous. “I’ve had clients fly through and complete it in one week,” Beth shares with our SBC team. “You can repeat the modules until you get 100% on the quizzes (the MBA AdCom knows this). I find it is good for people who have some quant on their transcript, but maybe aren’t using math in their job. Or they had a dip to a B/C grade in a college math class. This works for applicants who want to show that they’ve taken a refresher.”
SBC Consultant Sherry offers this advice for applicants considering whether they need to take a supplemental math course.
@stacyblackmanconsultingMath for Management: MATH X402 at UC Berkeley Extension Mathematical Solutions for Businesses: MGMT X 110 at UCLA Extension? original sound – Stacy Blackman Consulting
Meanwhile, Dione, a Senior Consultant on the Stacy Blackman Consulting team, says,
“Taking a university business math course is one of the best options for mitigating concerns about an applicant’s math/quant skills and knowledge. For clients who have either been unwilling or not had enough time to take a class, then MBAmath.com is a fast and affordable option to mitigate concerns about quant (but it’s not a “cure all.”) We tailor our recommendations according to the applicant’s transcript, work experience and test scores.”
UC Berkeley / UCLA Math for Management extension classes
Berkeley and UCLA offer college math classes, such as Math for Management, through their online extension programs. The courses result in an official transcript with grades. You have to complete it over several months (you cannot cram it into a week), and it involves homework. The cost is $800 – $1000, and you must finish within six months. It’s a big commitment and is the best fit for applicants in specific scenarios.
Request a free consultation from a SBC Principal to get guidance on if we recommend an ancillary course
for your scenario.