I believe my practice has improved greatly since attending the CIMA program. I’m now able to demystify portfolio management by better setting client expectations and moderating their behavior through financial education. Read about Alex's experience »

—Alexander DiMartini, CIMA®, Managing Director at SoundView Wealth Management Group LLC

I am very happy to report that I passed the CIMA exam! Although I was part of the educational program at another school, there is no way I could have passed without the Chicago Booth review program and having been also granted access to the Chicago Booth CIMA program educational materials and live session videos. Kathleen’s voice was a constant companion as I listened to classes driving and even while on family vacation. Thank you so very much!

—Alan P. Jesiel, CFP®, CIMA®, Vice President, Senior Relationship Strategist, PNC Wealth Management

The University of Chicago has a well-planned approach to teaching the CIMA curriculum. All of the important concepts are covered in a clear, concise format. The professors really want to make sure you understand the material and go to great lengths to provide intuition behind some of the math concepts. The class is very interactive and the faculty make themselves easily accessible throughout the class. I strongly recommend this program to anyone considering attaining the designation.

—Todd Muentzer, CIMA®, ETF Specialist

This was a great overall experience.  Kathleen does a great job presenting and reviewing the content.  It was also beneficial to connect with other students preparing for the exam.

—Jon Maldonado, Financial Advisor, UBS Financial Services

Excellent program with in-depth analysis of calculation needed for course material.

—Robert Filetti, Robert Baird

This class was far above my expectations.  This is a great value for the cost.

—Alicia Frye, Regional Business Consultant, Symmetry Partners

I got the passing score I needed to finally achieve my CIMA credentials. I was and am still ecstatic about this accomplishment and absolutely credit it to the Chicago Booth workshop and team for helping me get here. I would tell anyone interested in the CIMA program or who is trying to finish the certification process that the Booth workshop is the way to go.

—Jen Litton, CDFA, CIMA®

Having the two day review class at Booth is a major differentiator from the other education programs. Having a two day intensive review upon completion of the material helped me identify areas of weakness that I needed to focus on before the exam and embolden my confidence in the material I knew well coming into the exam.

—Greg Goin CFP®, CIMA®, CLU®, CRPC® Advisory Solutions Director

Background

Academic Experience offers self-scheduled in-person final exams to help students design an individualized exam preparation plan and balance all of the end-of-the-quarter Kellogg obligations.  Many exams are offered at multiple times throughout the exam period; students select their preferred exam date and time in the Bidding and Registration System during the registration period below.

Self-scheduled exams include:

• Evanston campus Kellogg courses
• Dates and times all during the exam period noted on the Academic Calendar for "Full Time Exams"

Self-scheduled exams do NOT include: 

• Exam administration outside the posted schedule
• Non-Kellogg course exams (such as MMM DSGN courses or undergraduate courses)
• Kellogg Chicago campus course exams (check your syllabus for exam details)
• Presentations
• Take-home exams

It is your responsibility to confirm the dates for these deliverables, and to make sure they do not conflict with anything you schedule through our final exam registration system. 

To View Available exam Dates

Before the start of bidding for the quarter, exam dates will be listed for each course in the Bidding and Registration System.

Most exams administered by Academic Experience are offered multiple times during the final exam period.  NOTE: Some classes are offered in limited time slots at the professor/department request and may not be indicated prior to bidding.

Important! By default, all final exam times are scheduled in 3-hr blocks. The start time is fixed and will not change; however, the actual exam end time may vary depending on the course and will be reflected in your registration.

Important Self-Service Final exam Policies
You will not be able to access the system until registration opens, and once exam registration closes no changes can be made, absent a documented, unforeseeable, and exceptional personal circumstance or  medical emergency. Key dates for the upcoming quarter are:

 
In addition:

• Once the system opens, students are awarded preferred exam times on a first-come, first-serve basis.
• You can change your exam times, pending space, as many times as you want during the registration period.
• After exam registration closes, we will email you exam room locations.

To Register For/Change Your Final exam Time(s)   

1. Log into the Bidding and Registration System AFTER registration opens.
2. For each of your classes with an in-person final exam, there will be a drop down menu of time slot choices.
3. Select your preferred date and time from the drop-down menu for each exam and click Save. Repeat for any additional exams.

To make changes during the exam registration period, repeat Steps 1-3.

To View your exam Schedule

1. Log into the Bidding and Registration System with your Kellogg NetID and password.
2. If you see a date and time in the drop-down menu, it is confirmed and no further action is necessary.

Questions? Email Academic Experience

You may remember the syllabus. Handed out on the first day of class, it was a revered and simple artifact that would outline the plan of a college course. It was a pragmatic document, covering contact information, required books, meeting times, and a schedule. But it was also a symbolic one, representing the educational part of the college experience in a few dense and hopeful pages.

That version of the syllabus is gone. It has been replaced by courseware, an online tool for administering a class and processing its assignments. A document called “syllabus” persists, and is still distributed to prospective students at the start of each semester—but its function as a course plan has been minimized, if not entirely erased. First and foremost, it must satisfy a drove of bureaucratic needs, describing school policies, accreditation demands, regulatory matters, access to campus resources, health and safety guidelines, and more.

Last week, the office of the provost at Washington University in St. Louis, where I teach, sent out a new syllabus template for faculty use. It’s nine pages long and suggests that any detailed course content—a list of study topics, assigned readings, and weekly homework assignments—be sequestered at the very end. This is not unusual. I’ve seen and heard the same thing from colleagues all across the country, at schools big and small, public and private. At colleges and universities everywhere, the syllabus has become a terms-of-service document.

The change happened slowly. Long before courseware made it obsolete, the syllabus was pulled in two directions. On one side, it recorded a deliberate pedagogical plan plotted out by an expert. The syllabus, in its very brevity, offered evidence of that expertise. All of Greek lyric poetry or organic chemistry or political economy boiled down to this simple, confident itinerary. The syllabus was also meant to capture the letter and spirit of the learning environment: the nature of assignments, what success would mean, how the class would operate, the instructor’s style. It was a hallowed artifact in the mind of educators.

Read: How to really fix higher ed

But on the other side, students never seemed to read our syllabi. They didn’t know which practicing would be coming next, or what would be on the exam, or when the papers were due. A tradition of professorial barbs and sneers developed around that state of affairs: It’s on the syllabus! Didn’t you read the syllabus? Intention underlied impatience: The traditional university student matriculates to learn but also to become an independent adult. In its own small way, as a document that could and should be consulted, the syllabus gave students an opportunity to exercise self-reliance—and teachers a way of holding them accountable.

Even though most students wouldn’t encounter syllabi until college, their legend leaked out. The syllabus encapsulated the educational side of college life. This wasn’t just a course plan; it was a document that mediated the student’s relationship with the professor. It was a contract, and those who paid that contract insufficient mind—students who might find themselves in breach—were considered lazy, incompetent, or truculent.

Then, 21st-century software upended how courses were run. Whether built in house or licensed, learning-management systems became commonplace. The move made sense: The web had fully matured, and you could bank, pay bills, shop, and socialize online. Why not manage your classes too? But courseware would explode the syllabus into shrapnel. Sure, you could just post a PDF of an old paper syllabus online, but courseware lets you install weekly “modules” that show materials and assignments for each class meeting. It offers places to store readings and other resources. It lists teachers’ contact information and facilitates announcements. Suddenly, professors could also change their course plans on the fly, tweaking subjects and assignments as they liked. Adopting the legalese that now seemed best suited to the context, we’d put a broad disclaimer on our syllabi: “subject to change.”

Read: The Toyota Corolla theory of college

In effect, what had been marked as the “syllabus” section of a course website was no longer needed for that purpose. Now it was just a list of course policies. The syllabus had long been described as a course contract, an agreement between teacher and students about what would take place in the classroom and on what terms. But the “contract” part of that arrangement took over for the “course.”

For a time, courseware was optional. Some faculty kept using paper syllabi; others adopted the online tools. Some used a combination. But as universities invested big bucks in courseware, and as courseware companies made big bucks selling it, the pressure to adopt it increased. Student demand followed: They became irritated and confused by the notion that each course might be managed in a different way, and courseware gave students more information and greater feedback—or a sense of it, anyway. In particular, courseware’s ability to store and display grades allowed students to check in frequently—perhaps obsessively—on their performance, making courseware-run courses feel more student-centered than other kinds.

During the same period in which courseware was completing its takeover, the faculty-student relationship changed. Tuition prices rose, and the student’s role became more like that of a conventional customer. I’ve seen conflicts over grades or late assignments inspire faculty to add greater detail and more contract riders to their syllabi. Concerns about mental health, accommodation, disability resources, gender identity/personal pronouns, classroom climate, harassment and sexual assault, and other matters gave rise to pages’ worth of boilerplate. The pandemic demanded the addition of health and safety protocols. New ways of cheating, such as Chegg and ChatGPT, demanded fresh language about academic integrity. And each new policy clarification can beget subordinating policy clarifications; for example, using a software package called Turnitin to detect plagiarism requires that professors disclose that work submitted to courseware will be funneled through Turnitin, which vacuums data from those papers to benefit its business.

Read: The first year of AI college ends in ruin

If the syllabus had simply gone away, educators could mourn its loss and move on. Instead, the document persists as the bloated corpse of what it used to be, and also as a ghost haunting the distributed, corporate information systems that have slowly replaced it.

Professors still cling to their old-fashioned syllabi in private. They share them with their colleagues looking for course ideas. When proposing new courses to department heads, they still draw up plans in which subjects and materials, and assignments and schedules, take the place of quasi-legal notices. The syllabus as it used to be is for faculty’s eyes only.

Students, for their part, may be better off with the syllabus dead. (Used effectively, courseware serves their needs quite well.) But the bureaucratization of the traditional course plan has changed what it feels like to teach, and to be taught. The syllabus used to make a promise: that the classroom was a distinct place, separated from the world even if still coupled to it, where a common project would be undertaken, and during which trust would be presumed. Now it’s just the opposite, more a legal waiver than an invitation—just another contract rendered in fine print. If students don’t bother practicing syllabi today, who can really blame them?

The Syllabus area of the myCourses course template is organized into the following sections:

1. Course Information and Expectations
2. Instructor Contact Information
3. Course Requirements and Resources
4. Activities and Assignments
5. Assessment and Grading
6. Course Policies
7. Course Schedule

Much of the information needed for the Course Information and Expectations section—particularly the all-important learning outcomes and assessment methods—should be taken directly from the official Course Outline Form for your assigned course(s). Your department chair or program head can provide you with the form(s) and guidance on what is and is not modifiable in the transition to a course syllabus. If you are designing a new course, however, you will need to successfully complete the RIT course proposal process. 

Before completing the Course Policies section, we encourage you to first consult our companion webpage, RIT Policies for Your Syllabus. The External Resources section (below) provides helpful information, advice, and examples for developing the remaining sections of your syllabus.

Regardless of where you are in the syllabus-design process, you can always request one-on-one consultations with a CTL staff member.

I believe my practice has improved greatly since attending the CIMA program. I’m now able to demystify portfolio management by better setting client expectations and moderating their behavior through financial education. Read about Alex's experience »

—Alexander DiMartini, CIMA®, Managing Director at SoundView Wealth Management Group LLC

I am very happy to report that I passed the CIMA exam! Although I was part of the educational program at another school, there is no way I could have passed without the Chicago Booth review program and having been also granted access to the Chicago Booth CIMA program educational materials and live session videos. Kathleen’s voice was a constant companion as I listened to classes driving and even while on family vacation. Thank you so very much!

—Alan P. Jesiel, CFP®, CIMA®, Vice President, Senior Relationship Strategist, PNC Wealth Management

The University of Chicago has a well-planned approach to teaching the CIMA curriculum. All of the important concepts are covered in a clear, concise format. The professors really want to make sure you understand the material and go to great lengths to provide intuition behind some of the math concepts. The class is very interactive and the faculty make themselves easily accessible throughout the class. I strongly recommend this program to anyone considering attaining the designation.

—Todd Muentzer, CIMA®, ETF Specialist

This was a great overall experience.  Kathleen does a great job presenting and reviewing the content.  It was also beneficial to connect with other students preparing for the exam.

—Jon Maldonado, Financial Advisor, UBS Financial Services

Excellent program with in-depth analysis of calculation needed for course material.

—Robert Filetti, Robert Baird

This class was far above my expectations.  This is a great value for the cost.

—Alicia Frye, Regional Business Consultant, Symmetry Partners

I got the passing score I needed to finally achieve my CIMA credentials. I was and am still ecstatic about this accomplishment and absolutely credit it to the Chicago Booth workshop and team for helping me get here. I would tell anyone interested in the CIMA program or who is trying to finish the certification process that the Booth workshop is the way to go.

—Jen Litton, CDFA, CIMA®

Having the two day review class at Booth is a major differentiator from the other education programs. Having a two day intensive review upon completion of the material helped me identify areas of weakness that I needed to focus on before the exam and embolden my confidence in the material I knew well coming into the exam.

—Greg Goin CFP®, CIMA®, CLU®, CRPC® Advisory Solutions Director