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AQRApplied Quantitative Reasoning

Quarter Page

Quarter 3 — Build a Decision Tool / App

Jan 6 to Mar 11, 2027

Main focus

Student-built decision tool, app-like workflow, or Gem

Quarter 3 is the second major build quarter. Students create a decision-support tool, app-like workflow, or Gem that helps a real user compare options and make a clearer recommendation.

The central question is whether the tool makes a real decision clearer by showing options, criteria, tradeoffs, costs, risks, assumptions, and reasons. The interface can stay simple as long as the logic is visible and testable.

What students do

The quarter stays practical and artifact-based.

By the end of Q3, students should have a working decision tool and a clear explanation of how it makes a recommendation, what it leaves out, and how testing changed it.

Students build

  • one clear decision question for a real or realistic user
  • a comparison of at least three options and three criteria
  • a visible rule set, criteria table, prompt structure, or decision logic
  • a risk, cost, or uncertainty check
  • a tested and revised recommendation workflow

Math / QR lift

  • defining variables, criteria, constraints, and tradeoffs
  • comparing costs, risks, consequences, and uncertainty
  • weighting or prioritizing what matters
  • testing how sensitive a recommendation is to changed inputs
  • using evidence and assumptions responsibly

Sequential QR focus windows

Two short-focus themes support the main project.

These are not separate full units or two hidden courses running at once. One focus window usually carries the first half of the quarter and the second carries the next half, with short callbacks later.

Focus window

Risk, cost, and uncertainty

What could this cost, what could go wrong, and how sure are we?

Students examine money, time, effort, opportunity cost, failure cases, confidence, and uncertainty before treating a recommendation as settled.

Focus window

Model assumptions, weighting, and sensitivity

What rule is driving the answer, and would the answer change if one input changed?

Students make the tool's logic visible by naming assumptions, setting priorities, checking weights, and testing whether the output still makes sense.