Currently you may prepare for business school by talking to alumni and the careers service, reading about the program to identify specializations, taking the GMAT, and reading business books.
To further bolster your prep for the rigors of business school, GMAC’s Business Fundamentals courses have been set up to alleviate some of the pressure.
Business Fundamentals consists of three courses—Accounting, Finance, and Statistics—which will help you have an edge whether you are in the pre-application stage or have already enrolled. Completing courses can give schools greater confidence that you can master the core business concepts. Even when you’re holding a place, the courses can help you prepare for a rigorous program.
The Business Fundamentals courses are authored and reviewed by business school faculty—currently, they have faculty from Wharton, George Mason, Georgetown, Northeastern, UT-Austin, SMU, and the University of Louisville. Each subject includes lectures, quizzes, a practice test, and a final test.
Find out more here:
1. Business Fundamentals: Statistics
Statistics are essential for business school candidates to learn how to make sense of data for decision-making. In this course, students learn the basics of descriptive and inferential statistics in the course and how they are used to inform business strategy. There is also a lesson on using Excel to manipulate and understand data — a critical skill set for a business career.
The full course topics are Descriptive Statistics, Randomization, Sampling and Experiments, and Probability Theory. In these sections you can learn data basics, how to describe and display data; how to employ appropriate sampling techniques; finally, how to evaluate and critique business case studies using statistics tools.
2. Business Fundamentals: Accounting
The accounting course teaches students to become acquainted with the language of business. Students learn the framework for describing and assessing a company by analyzing financial statements and learn to differentiate assets, liabilities, and equity, and build a foundational knowledge of accounting theory, processes, and practices.
From this course, you will be able to identify the four financial statements' purpose and know how decisions are made from them, prepare financial statements, and identify the content, structure of financial statements.
3. Business Fundamentals: Finance
Students are introduced to the world of corporate finance through a combination of advanced quizzes, written material, media, and application-based practice.
From learning the time value of money and measuring business performance, to understanding debt and equity and how managers value business, the finance course provides an overview of managerial finance in the corporate world.
Details for sign-up
The three courses run at a flexible, asynchronous pace, with bite-size content accessible 24 hours a day through desktop and mobile and various teaching methods, such as videos, short quizzes, exercises, and answer explanations. This means you can learn the content in their own time and ways.
After completing three courses, students should be able to identify how managers measure business performance, list the basic types of debt and equity, perform basic calculations to show those values, and perform a fundamental cash flow valuation in a spreadsheet.
The three Business Fundamentals courses should take 40-60 hours in total. The price is $99 for each and $199 for all three, with one year of access to the course so that you can refer back to the content during your program.
“We are excited to provide Business Fundamentals to help candidates gain greater confidence in their ability to apply, prepare and do well in a business school program so they are ready for success.” Says Ana Kyper, Senior Director, Prep and Readiness at GMAC.
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