ChatGPT Passes Wharton MBA Exam: A Look into the Future of Business Education

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A recent study conducted by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that ChatGPT (the artificial intelligence-driven chatbot GPT-3) was able to pass the final exam for the school’s Master of Business Administration (MBA) program. The research, authored by Professor Christian Terwiesch and entitled “Would Chat GPT3 Get a Wharton MBA? A Prediction Based on Its Performance in the Operations Management Course,” found that the bot scored between a B- and B on the exam.

This result highlights the bot’s “remarkable ability to automate some of the skills of highly compensated knowledge workers in general and specifically the knowledge workers in the jobs held by MBA graduates including analysts, managers, and consultants,” according to Terwiesch. He also noted that the bot did an “amazing job at basic operations management and process analysis questions including those that are based on case studies,” and that its explanations were “excellent.”

However, Terwiesch’s findings have sparked concern among educators who fear that AI chatbots like GPT-3 could inspire cheating. The New York City Department of Education recently announced a ban on ChatGPT from its schools’ devices and networks, citing the bot’s conversational speaking style and coherent, topical response style, which make it difficult to distinguish from human responses.

Despite these concerns, Terwiesch believes that there is a way to marry education and AI to enhance learning for his students. “I think the technology can engage students in other forms other than the good old, ‘write a five-page essay,'” he said in an interview with NBC News. “But that is up to us as educators to reimagine education and find other ways of engaging the students.”

While the performance of GPT-3 on the MBA exam is certainly impressive, it is important to note that the bot is not without its limitations. Terwiesch noted that GPT-3 “at times makes surprising mistakes in relatively simple calculations at the level of 6th grade Math” and is “not capable of handling more advanced process analysis questions, even when they are based on fairly standard templates.”

Despite these limitations, Terwiesch’s research has important implications for business school education, including the need for exam policies, curriculum design focusing on collaboration between humans and AI, opportunities to simulate real-world decision-making processes, the need to teach creative problem-solving, improved teaching productivity, and more.

What is Wharton MBA Exam?

The Wharton MBA exam is the admissions test for the MBA program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The test typically consists of multiple-choice questions that assess a candidate’s knowledge in areas such as mathematics, verbal reasoning, and analytical writing. The test is used to help the admissions committee evaluate a candidate’s potential for success in the MBA program.

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