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Here is a particularly noteworthy clip from the UT McCombs Q&A about the MBA Investment Fund:
Linda Abraham: Juan asks, “How hard is it to intern for the MBA Investment Fund? What is the application process and do you evaluate work experience or education primarily?” I’m assuming that at the moment he is referring to the Investment Fund selection process.
Jolene Ashcraft: For those of you who don’t know, the MBA Investment Fund is actually a completely student-run investment fund that we have here on campus. It is managed by the students. It is great hands-on experience for those of you who are interested in getting into investment banking or investment management, private equity, or anything in the finance world. There is an application process for that, and it is a pretty competitive organization to be a part of. But basically they will look at your previous work experience, your GMAT score, and at how you are performing in your first semester core classes like accounting, finance, and statistics. There is also an application that you will have to fill out and an interview process. There is usually some sort of finance stock-pitch competition. So there are several different components of the application process. But they do take people from all different backgrounds, so you don’t necessarily have to have had previous finance work experience, just a commitment to learning more about it, wanting to go into it in the future, and then going through the application process which includes a lot of different components.
Vicki Duran: And as Jolene said, it is pretty competitive. It is also the largest student-led fund in the United States. They manage more than $15 million in assets. And typically, they will take about twenty new students each year onto the fund. And this process that Jolene talked about, it is actually the second-year students who are conducting the interviews, reviewing the applications, and making decisions, with support from the faculty liaison that works with the fund, Professor Sandy Leeds. So it is one of the student-led organizations, but it is one of the few organizations where you do have to go through an interview process.
And here’s another question on recommended pre-MBA coursework:
Linda Abraham: Daniel asks, “For those of us who didn’t study economics or business or math in college, what classes do you recommend we take before starting at a school like McCombs?”
Jolene Ashcraft: For those of you who haven’t had a lot of quantitative classes previously and want to do something to really prepare yourselves before starting an MBA program, first-off I would recommend just getting some undergraduate level textbooks for finance and accounting and going through those and just familiarizing yourself with the terminology and some of the basic principles. And then also if you want to enroll in some classes at a local community college or extension program, we would either recommend finance, statistics, economics, or accounting. Those are the classes that students sometimes have problems with if they’ve never experienced those types of subjects before, especially accounting. And then prior to orientation, here at McCombs we actually have a Boot Camp as well that you can take part in that can help you prepare yourself for the first semester, for finance, accounting. And you can go through that Boot Camp to really help get better prepared for the first semester before you even start the classes.
Jaryn Creasy: From a student perspective, I was a little bit nervous about that because my undergrad major was not focused in any sort of business or math, so I actually did take an accounting course at a community college. I thought that really helped me once I entered into the accounting courses here, just to be able to understand some of the fundamentals before getting on campus. I also did the MBA Math which was provided to us over the summer, and I thought that also really helped me ramp up prior to starting the school year.
View the full UT McCombs Q&A transcript or listen to the mp3 recording of the event now or subscribe to the Apple iTunes MBA Admissions Podcast. If you like the podcast, please leave a 5-star review.