DC real estate is peppered with MBAs, from analysts fresh out of top programs to company executives with storied careers. It got us thinking: how exactly are today's students learning? So yesterday, we stopped by Georgetown McDonough School of Business' snowy campus to sit in on Prof. Matt Cypher's class. Matt's group (with help from PRC's Stephanie Orton Lynch, right) is actually helping a global institutional investor with early due diligence on potential acquisitions. Matt's a former acquisitions guy himself, having worked for Invesco for seven years before coming to Georgetown McDonough (where he's in charge of the school's real estate finance initiative) in 2012.

The group of first-year students in Matt's class runs the gamut: architects to engineers to lawyers. The students were divided into three groups that each analyzed a particular deal, and even researched and underwrote the deals together before class. Yesterday's batch of potential acquisitions included a value-add office property, a core-plus office, and a core-plus multifamily.

After coming to conclusions on whether the deals are worth bidding on, the students handed in their analyses to Matt and Stephanie last night and will be in touch with the investor by the end of the week. Matt tells us in years past, the students have reviewed deals with bids due within a week or two of class.