Incoming MBA students with relevant professional or academic experience can register for a waiver exam for the following courses:
OPAN 5600 Managerial Statistics
ACCT 5500 Accounting Fundamentals
FINC 6250 Corporate Finance
Passing a waiver exam allows you to replace the core course with an elective; no academic credit is awarded for passing the waiver exam itself. Please note that the standard for passing the waiver exams is quite high and that a relatively small proportion of students successfully waive these core courses. Students who do not pass the Finance waiver exam will still have the choice to take either Finance Essentials or Corporate Finance as their custom core Finance requirement.
You can register for any of these exams through the Waiver Exam Application Form. Waiver exam requests will be accepted until July 25, 2027. Contact the MBA Program Office if you have difficulty accessing the request form.
Requests will be reviewed after July 25. The Program Office will contact you to confirm your scheduled exam(s), which will take place during the week of August 2.
Finance Placement Exam
The MBA curriculum includes two custom core finance courses: Finance Essentials and Corporate Finance. All MBA students are required to complete one of these courses, unless you pass the Corporate Finance waiver exam. To ensure you choose the right starting finance course, we offer an online placement exam. This is a non-binding tool for guidance.
Custom Core Finance Course Options:
Finance Essentials (FINC 6200): This course introduces foundational financial principles, including the time value of money, valuation of stocks and bonds, and risk and return. It is designed to build fluency in using financial models to assess value and price capital.
Finance Essentials is designed for students with little to no prior finance background.
Students who take Finance Essentials as their core course are permitted to take Corporate Finance as an elective.
Corporate Finance (FINC 6250): This advanced course builds on foundational tools to explore capital budgeting, capital structure theory, corporate valuation techniques, and risk management. It focuses on how firms make long-term investment decisions and how those decisions drive overall firm value.
The Corporate Finance course assumes a strong understanding of the topics covered in Finance Essentials. Enrolling in Corporate Finance without that knowledge will minimize the value of the course and quite likely make passing the course difficult.
Students who take Corporate Finance as their core course ARE NOT permitted to take Finance Essentials as an elective.
How the Placement Exam Works
All students have the option to take the placement exam to determine their starting point. The placement exam is required to enroll in Corporate Finance. You will receive recommendations on which finance core course is appropriate based on your demonstrated proficiency level at the time of the exam. However, these recommendations are not binding
Students can access and complete the placement exam by joining this open enrollment Canvas course.
The placement exam will require use of Excel. The placement exam will be auto-graded so that you will know your score immediately after submitting it.
Scoring sufficiently high on the placement exam is an indication that you should consider Corporate Finance as your core course.
Those who do not take the exam, or who prefer a foundational approach, are advised to enroll in Finance Essentials.
While the exam is not proctored and is self-administered, the placement exam is designed to guide your decision on which finance course to take. Therefore, it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that you do NOT use external sources (including AI tools) on the placement exam - in order to accurately reflect your knowledge and ability to succeed in your selected course.
You may petition for the transfer of a maximum of 12 credits for specific courses taken at an accredited institution prior to your admission to McDonough. Only courses that satisfy the following requirements will be considered for transfer credit:
Courses must be graduate level, relevant to the MBA, taken for academic credit at degree-granting institutions, and meet McDonough academic standards as determined by the associate dean of MBA Programs in consultation with appropriate faculty.
Only courses for which you earned a “B” or better (or the equivalent) will be considered.
Generally, only courses taken within seven years of the transfer request can be accepted. However, exceptions can be approved at the discretion of program leadership.
Courses applied toward a previous degree cannot be approved for transfer. If the course to be transferred is on a transcript for a previous degree, it must be clearly noted that it was not used to satisfy any degree requirements.
Transfer credit requests for core courses may require passing a waiver exam to demonstrate mastery of the subject.
You must complete a minimum of 75% of the credits required for the MBA at Georgetown McDonough. Therefore, transferring credits may limit opportunities for registration outside of McDonough, such as the Consortium of Universities in D.C. or study abroad.
Requests for transfer credit will be reviewed for Part-time MBA and Online MBA students after admission to McDonough is granted; Full-time students’ requests will be reviewed after being admitted and submitting a deposit. Requests should be made as soon as possible in case they will impact your Fall schedule. Transfer approvals will be noted on your transcript after completion of your first MBA semester.
The deadline for requesting transfer credit for first semester courses is July 25.