Program Update

I went to an ASAP alumni event in Milwaukee last night. A decent turn out (20+) it was just to hear what Mark Ready has planned for the program.

• 820 Intermediate Investment Theory - they are integrating it with 4 ASAP alumni presentations (Betsi Hill, Corporate Credit Analysis, Julie Van Cleave, Sector Weighting/Rotation, Phil Gross, ?, Tom Stevens, Quantitative Strategies). They will actually have assignments that tie in with those topics.
• 635 Security Analysis with Mucklow- required course in the 2nd semester of the first year.
• On Fridays they have alumni come in for the second years. Someone from the second years (rotating) has to give them a pitch and then answer questions. There is also a segment where the alum reviews the portfolio and randomly selects names to question.
• The students have meeting on their own. They are to take minutes (part of their grade) and pass that on to Mark. He then will have the student that pitched a stock into his office to go over the pitch to him and answer any questions.
• Mark and the dean indicated that the target class size with increase going forward. They would like to get to 20-25, but only with quality candidates
• There were several initiatives they mentioned related to recruiting, particularly in targeting candidates from NY and women.

I don't have my notes with me so I may add some things later through comments. We will have to see how it works out. They still are inflexible on waiving core requirements and no FI course yet. Alisa Robertson (alumni relations) was already asking me whether I would be coming to the Fall Investment Conference next year.