BA-952
FINANCE II
Not in Fall 2026
Term
Overview
Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that discussion is a clear strength. Difficulty runs on the high side even without a single dominant complaint theme. Best for students who will actually talk in class instead of sitting silent. The sample is still thin, so treat this as directional rather than definitive.
DepartmentFUQUA
Terms offeredSpring
Typical enrollment9–9
Semesters of data1
8.5
Hrs / week
7
Responses
9
Enrollment
78%
Response Rate
Evaluation Scores
Overall quality
Teaching, content, and experience combined.
4.9
Intellectually stimulating
Challenges students to think deeply.
5.0
Instructor effectiveness
Explains concepts and facilitates learning.
5.0
Difficulty
Higher means harder.
3.9
Feedback Analysis
Feedback Analysislow
Analysis based on student evaluations
Based on 19 comments across 1 sections
Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that discussion is a clear strength. Difficulty runs on the high side even without a single dominant complaint theme. Best for students who will actually talk in class instead of sitting silent. The sample is still thin, so treat this as directional rather than definitive.
Student Reports
How hard is the A?
A is doable but not automatic
The signal here is more do-the-work-and-you-should-be-fine than easy-A chatter. Students do not describe the A as automatic, but the evidence also does not paint grading as punishing.
Homework Load
Moderate homework load
Homework load looks moderate. The recurring signal is steady weekly work, but not a course that turns every assignment into a grind.
Lecture Load
Lighter lecture burden
Student comments describe this as more discussion-, seminar-, or workshop-driven than lecture-dependent. The lecture burden itself does not sound like the main source of friction.
Strengths
• Discussion is a clear strength; students repeatedly describe the class conversation as engaging and useful.
• Teaching clarity stands out; students repeatedly say the material is explained clearly and effectively.
• Students repeatedly say the course teaches something concrete, whether that is content mastery, research skill, or a strong foundation.
Tradeoffs
• Difficulty runs high even when comments do not settle on one dominant complaint.
Best fit for
Best for students who will actually talk in class instead of sitting silent.
Watch out for
• Most of the signal comes from a limited sample, so be careful about over-generalizing.
• A large share of the evidence comes from one instructor's version of the course, so this may not generalize cleanly.
Student Responses
This is a highly valuable PhD-level corporate finance course in which I learned modern techniques for conducting corporate finance research. Topics covered include identification strategies, causal inference, structural models, household finance, and many others.
Spring 2025 · Adelino, Manuel
In this course, I gained broad exposure to corporate finance topics, with particular benefit from the sections on household finance and entrepreneurial finance.
Spring 2025 · Adelino, Manuel
First, the advanced empirical research design in Corporate Finance. Second, the coding skills through 2 replication works and great instruction from TA Ellen. Third, academic presentation skills to share the academic research.
Spring 2025 · Adelino, Manuel
I think Finance II is a very neatly structured course. It provides a window to several research paths under the "empirical corporate finance" umbrella, with special attention given to the identification and estimation tools used by researchers, their advantages and pitfalls. In this sense I feel like the course was greatly informative and formative, covering the process of conducting empirical research from question/inception to application, which is very useful for students to visualize and practice on. I found the discussions to be fruitful, as the rotation of lecturers provided students with the chance of meeting and discussing ideas with several researchers, getting different points of view, etc. Beyond the lectures, I also came to appreciate how the problem sets and final project induced me to think/act more like a researcher and face the problems inherent to data analysis---this hands-on approach is invaluable.
Spring 2025 · Adelino, Manuel
In this course, I gained an in-depth understanding of various research topics and recent literature in finance/corporate finance, which has given me a broad perspective on financial research. Through two replication assignments and the final project, I significantly improved my coding skills as well as my ability to write reports and writeups using LaTeX. Furthermore, I developed a deeper understanding of identification strategies in financial research.
Spring 2025 · Adelino, Manuel
Rating History
Rating history
Error bars show \u00B11 std dev
| Term | Instructor | Overall | Difficulty | Hrs/wk | Enrolled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spring 2025 | Adelino, Manuel | 4.9 | 3.9 | 8.5 | 9 |