Wharton uses an auction process to allow 'free market' economics to decide what classes students are able to take. Darden does something similar, maybe other MBA programs do as well. Basically, you get 1000 points for every class you take the previous semester. Then you bid on classes. A high demand class will go for 1500-2000 points. Many classes go for the minimum of 100 or only a few hundred points.

There are always arbitrage opportunities because classes invariably increase in price as the rounds progress. Because I like arbitrage, I find the auction quite appealing. However, historical auction data is not always that useful for predicting future clearing prices for classes.

I spent a bunch of points for the current semester's auction in order to acquire Professors Siggelkow and Day. This left me with insufficient points to obtain the much desired Professor Diamond for Negotiations this semester, he went for 8500 points. So I tried some arbitrage again this semester so see if I could rack up some points to buy him in the later rounds. The results have exceeded my expectations and now I am sitting on 21,500 points. I think it is pretty funny because I only know one other guy (our student body president) who has exceeded 20k points. However, these points are probably of little use to me since I don't think anybody will actually sell Diamond.

I any event, I rock at trading. :)