Hello,

I plan on applying to a number of top 25 schools for a fall 2013 start, and I am currently putting together my CV. In general, I think my application looks good: I graduated from a public ivy, scored a 720 on the GMAT, have good recommendations, 3 years with a wealth management group at a big bank/1 yr prior of PE real estate experience, various leadership positions in volunteer orgs, and minority status.

The biggest problem is that I had a just under a 3.0 GPA in college. I was immature at the time, and took opportunities I was blessed with for granted. Since then, I've taken 8 courses since college from accredited universities, all in accounting and financial planning related subjects, and have done very well. I have been told that I should also take a statistics course and a calculus course. This is in large part because my prior experience with those courses was so long ago (a 5 in AP Calculus) or poor enough (did awful in college Statistics) that schools would want to be sure I can handle quant coursework.

However, I'm now in a time crunch. I would like to apply to the earliest, non early decision deadline for each of my schools. However, the live courses available for calculus and statistics will end well after most of these early admissions deadlines. I could try to take an online course that ends earlier, likely on a self-paced or 12 week schedule, but I am concerned that online coursework would be looked down upon by admissions. Regardless of the method of instruction, I expect to get an A on both of these courses.

Assuming I will apply to the earliest deadline possible, do I:
A) Take the online courses and get the grade, or
B) Take the live courses which may look more 'authentic', but likely won't have the grade available for consideration in the application?

If you believe I should take online coursework, do you have any suggestions where I should take it?


Thank you all for reading this, I really look forward to your insight.

- K