Waiver exams allow students who can demonstrate knowledge mastery in a certain subject area the ability to waive the corresponding core course. Waiving enables students to get a head-start on taking electives early during your time at Haas. You should consider taking a waiver exam if you have extensive academic or professional experience in the subject matter being tested.
Frequently Asked Questions
Fall waiver exams were proctored remotely before the start of the semester.
The Spring testing window will open Monday, October 19th and will continue through Thursday, October 22nd.
Waiver exams are graded pass/fail. A passing grade on a waiver exam exempts you from having to take the class, although you may choose to take it anyway. If you do not pass the waiver exam you’ll automatically be enrolled in the designated core class with no additional action needed.
Waiving a core course does not reduce the number of units needed to graduate. You must take additional elective course(s) to complete the 51-unit graduation requirement. You may, however, make-up the waived units in a later semester.
Fall core classes that ARE eligible to be waived:
- MBA200S Data and Decisions
- MBA201A Microeconomics
- MBA202 Financial Accounting
- MBA203 Finance
- MBA206 Marketing
Spring core classes that ARE eligible to be waived:
- MBA201B Macroeconomics
- MBA204 Operations
Core Classes that are NOT able to be waived:
- MBA205 Leading People
- MBA200C Leadership Communication
- MBA207 Ethics
- MBA 200P Fundamentals of Design Thinking
- MBA 299 Strategy
Successfully waiving one or more courses allows you to replace those units with elective units. The FTMBA Academics Team will share a list of available courses and work with you to help identify which electives might be of most interest. Students will have an opportunity to attend most classes before enrollment is finalized to be sure chosen courses are a good fit in terms of interest and level of academic preparation.
Students may also opt to replace waived units by taking a Non-Haas graduate level or upper-division undergraduate course. Connect with an Academic Advisor to discuss the process of finding and enrolling in non-MBA classes. To learn more about UC Berkeley classes, see the University Catalog and/or visit the website of the specific department you’re interested in for more information.
Fall Waiver Examination Guidelines
Waiver exam guidelines for Fall Core Courses are available on the Website for Newly Admitted Students.
Spring Waiver Examination Guidelines
Course Overview
In this course, we learn about the factors shaping national economies and how those forces influence business opportunities. We analyze how governments’ monetary, fiscal, trade, exchange rate, financial, and labor policies affect, and are affected by macroeconomics. We examine what makes interest rates, inflation, unemployment, foreign exchange rates, and economic growth go up and down. We use the tools developed in class to examine current events around the globe.
The class will sharpen students’ abilities to analyze and (in some cases) forecast:
- Interest rates and inflation rates
- Wages, salaries, and unemployment rates
- New business starts, consumer spending, and housing construction
- Innovation, entrepreneurship, and business profits
- The government budget deficit, the trade deficit, and exchange rates
- Economic growth rates over the long run and across countries
Course Format
The course meets twice a week in 2-hour classes, for the first seven weeks of the Spring semester. In addition, there is an optional 80-minute discussion section each Friday with a GSI.
Course Textbook
The tenth edition of Macroeconomics by N. Gregory Mankiw.
Waiver Exam Overview
The waiver exam will ask questions about both theories and applications of the concepts that are useful for understanding the macroeconomics of consumer spending, business investment, fiscal and monetary policies, financial and labor market policies, imports and exports, and rates of interest, inflation, international exchange, and economic growth.
To prepare, be sure that you are comfortable with the concepts and applications above at the level of conventional intermediate-level macroeconomics textbooks and that you can apply the concepts to current events.
Exam Preparation
Here are some sample exam questions to help you assess your ability and as a study guide. In addition here is a recent syllabus from a previous offering of the course. Please note that this syllabus is not current so you should not refer to it, except in preparation for the waiver exam. In addition, you should consider reviewing the Federal Reserve’s publication on “Fed Purpose & Functions” and readings on moral hazard and adverse selection (which can be found in many places.)
Exam-Specific Instructions
You will have a total of 90 minutes (1.5 hours) to complete the exam. This time limit will begin as soon as you start the exam, and will continue even if you navigate away from the page.
You will have only one attempt to complete the exam, and once you have begun the exam, you are not able to stop and start again later.
Students are required to observe the honor code at all times. This is an individual assignment, so you may not work with others, and you cannot share any notes/files you make during the exam with anyone, including other current or future students.
No notes, books, calculators may be used during the exam. Besides bCourses, no other programs may be open on your computer while taking the exam. Accessing the Internet or any other data or voice network during the exam is prohibited and violates the honor code.
Course Overview
This course introduces you to concepts and techniques related to matching supply with demand in manufacturing and service operations. The goals are to make you conversant in the language of operations management; provide you with quantitative and qualitative tools to analyze basic operations issues; and allow you to see the role of operations management in the overall strategy of the firm. The course covers topics in process and capacity analysis, inventory management, demand uncertainty, supply chain management, and service operations. In each module, you are introduced to tools for analyzing operations problems and methods of managing that aspect of operations. You will prepare cases for class discussion, analyze cases and problem sets, participate in simulations/exercises, and take midterm and final exams. Our objective is to create as much interaction with operations issues as possible, allowing you to examine how they affect an organization’s overall performance.
Course Format
The course meets twice a week in 2-hour classes, for the first seven weeks of the Spring semester. In addition, there is an optional 80-minute discussion section each Friday with a GSI.
Course Textbook
The course will use readings and cases that are made available electronically or through a course reader. If you want additional background, you may consult the textbook Matching Supply and Demand: An Introduction to Operations Management by Gerard Cachon and Christian Terwiesch.
Waiver Exam Overview
If you have a background in industrial engineering or very strong analytical experience in manufacturing or operations management, you should consider taking the waiver exam. If you have questions about the logistics of taking the waiver exam, please direct them to the MBA Program Office (not the instructor).
Exam Preparation
Here are a robust set of sample exam questions to help you assess your ability and as a study guide. You should be familiar with process and capacity analysis, service operations (including queueing phenomena), inventory control, demand uncertainty, and supply chain management.
In addition, here is a recent course syllabus from Spring 2020. Please note that this syllabus is not current so you should not refer to it, except in preparation for the waiver exam.
Lastly, the Cachon and Terwiesch textbook (available online to rent or purchase) provides a good review of basic operations principles. The syllabus’ “Course Outline” table’s right hand column provides references to sections of the Cachon and Terwiesch text that are relevant; the text also includes practice problems (with solutions in the back of the book). You are welcome to read through these sections and work through the associated practice problems. Many other operations management textbooks would serve equally well as a study guide.
Exam-Specific Instructions
You will have a total of 180 minutes (3 hours) to complete the exam. This time limit will begin as soon as you start the exam, and will continue even if you navigate away from the page.
You will have only one attempt to complete the exam, and once you have begun the exam, you are not able to stop and start again later.
Students are required to observe the honor code at all times. This is an individual assignment, so you may not work with others, and you cannot share any notes/files you make during the exam with anyone, including other current or future students.
You are allowed to use a calculator and reference notes and textbooks during the exam.
A Standard Normal Table and Equation Sheet will be provided on the exam site for students to reference during the exam.
Besides bCourses, no other programs may be open on your computer while taking the exam. Accessing the Internet or any other data or voice network during the exam is prohibited and violates the honor code.