| Course | FI499 Bachelor's Capstone in Finance |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Seminar reflection |
| Length | About 810 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Finance |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for FI499 Unit 6
Two Million Dollars I Could Not Trace: A Unit 6 Capstone Seminar Reflection on a Peer Review of My Valuation
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
FI499: Bachelor's Capstone in Finance
Unit 6 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Tidewell, Paddlemark, the classmates and every figure are composite; the books and article cited are real.
What I Brought
I arrived pleased with my model. It valued Paddlemark at $24.54 million against a $21.0 million price, a cushion of $3.54 million, or about 17 percent. I had spent most of my preparation on formatting the forecast and writing commentary on the margin path, and I expected the session to focus on whether 27 percent was a realistic margin.
What the Review Found
Rosa reviewed my model while I reviewed hers. Within ten minutes she asked a simple question: where did the 3.0 percent growth rate in my terminal value come from? I opened my Unit 3 assumption list. A3 says 2.5 percent. I had typed 3.0 into an early draft of the model while trying a scenario and never changed it back.
While I was still explaining, she found the second problem. My year-one capital spending showed $360,000, the ordinary upkeep from A6. The $900,000 conversion budget from A7, which Unit 4 had just confirmed, was missing. I had built the capital spending row before writing A7 and never added it.
Corrected for both, the value fell to $22.54 million. The cushion over the price fell from $3.54 million to $1.54 million, a reduction of 56 percent. Neither error was a judgment call. Both were cases where the model said something different from the list I had committed to.
The errors did not come from bad assumptions but from a model that had drifted away from my own assumption list, and I could not see the drift because I had stopped checking the model against the list once the numbers looked good.
Why I Missed It
Looking back, I stopped checking at the point where the answer pleased me. A value $3.54 million above the price felt like confirmation that the deal made sense, so I spent my remaining time polishing rather than testing. Writers on decision-making describe this as the confirmation trap, seeking evidence that supports what one already believes and neglecting evidence that would challenge it (Hammond et al., 1998). The terminal growth rate was the single most powerful input in the model, and I never looked at it again after the first draft.
Forecasters in organizations also tend to be optimistic about projects they have invested effort in, and to treat their own plan as the likely outcome rather than one of many (Kahneman & Lovallo, 1993). I had become an advocate for my own model before I had verified it.
A Second Observation From the Session
Once the corrections were in, Rosa asked another question I had not considered: what was Paddlemark worth without the savings? I set the savings row to zero. The answer was $19.75 million, below the price. I had been presenting a $22.54 million value as if it described Paddlemark, when $2.79 million of it described what Tidewell would do after buying it. That changes how the recommendation must be written: the price is justified only if the savings arrive.
What I Reviewed in Rosa's Model
In return I found one issue in her hospital model: her discount rate was computed on market values for debt and book values for equity. She caught her own error faster than I caught mine, because she already had a habit I lacked: a summary tab listing every input beside its source.
What the Correction Means for the Capstone
The corrected cushion of $1.54 million is about 7 percent of the price. That is still positive, so the recommendation may still be to buy, but it is no longer comfortable. A cushion that small means the risk and sensitivity units carry far more weight than I had planned. If the savings come in a quarter below estimate, or if first-year enrollment falls further than 2 percent, the cushion could disappear. I had expected Units 7 and 8 to confirm a strong case. Now they will decide whether there is a case at all, and I will need to give them more time than my schedule allowed.
Two Changes to How I Work
First, every model I build will have a check column beside each input that compares it with the assumption list and flags any difference. If an input changes for a scenario, the check will show it until it is changed back or logged. Second, I will present stand-alone value before value with savings, so neither I nor a reader confuses what a business is worth with what a buyer hopes to make of it. Valuation texts recommend exactly this separation for acquisitions (Koller et al., 2020).
References
Hammond, J. S., Keeney, R. L., & Raiffa, H. (1998). The hidden traps in decision making. Harvard Business Review, 76(5), 47-58.
Kahneman, D., & Lovallo, D. (1993). Timid choices and bold forecasts: A cognitive perspective on risk taking. Management Science, 39(1), 17-31. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.39.1.17
Koller, T., Goedhart, M., & Wessels, D. (2020). Valuation: Measuring and managing the value of companies (7th ed.). Wiley.
FI499 Unit 6 instructions, in plain terms
In the sixth FI499 unit, students look back on a session where classmates review one another's capstone work. Describe what you brought and what you expected the session to focus on. Report what the review found, crediting the classmate, with the figures before and after any correction. Explain why you missed the problem, drawing on research about judgment where it helps. Note any further insight the session produced, such as a question you had not asked of your own model. Say what the correction means for the rest of the capstone. Mention what you contributed to a classmate's work. Close with specific changes to how you will work. Write in the first person, quantify every change and cite your sources in APA 7.
How the FI 499 Unit 6 example is put together
The sample's writer arrived expecting a debate about the 27 percent margin and spent preparation on formatting. Rosa's question about terminal growth exposed a scenario value left in the model; her second look found the conversion budget absent from year one. The value moved from $24.54 million to $22.54 million and the cushion from $3.54 million to $1.54 million. The highlighted sentence explains that the model had drifted from the writer's own list. A section on the confirmation trap and forecasting optimism explains the miss. Setting savings to zero then showed $19.75 million, below the price. The writer reviewed Rosa's discount rate in turn, and the reflection closes with a check column for every input and a habit of reporting stand-alone value first.
FI499 Unit 6 rubric: what earns full points
Seminar reflections in FI499 earn points for showing what a review found, why it was missed and what will change. Graders look for figures before and after any correction, credit to the classmate who found it and an honest account of the cause. The rubric rewards drawing on research about judgment to explain the lapse, recognizing what the correction means for later units and committing to specific working practices. Admitting an error helps when the final submission no longer carries it. Reflections that summarize the session in general terms, report corrections without figures or promise vague improvements like "being more careful" lose points. Concrete habits show learning that later units can confirm.
Common FI499 Unit 6 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Weak Unit 6 reflections recount the session but never show how the writer's own model changed. Others mention an error but give no figures, so its importance cannot be judged. Many explain a mistake as carelessness and stop there, missing the habit that produced it. The effect of the correction on the recommendation is ignored. Changes to practice are vague. Whether your session found a broken link, a wrong rate or nothing at all, the reflection can report what was tested, what held or failed, and what you will do differently.
Get an FI499 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Describe what your seminar reviewed and what classmates or your instructor questioned, and include the reflection prompt and rubric. Each correction to your own analysis is quantified, the way the error survived is explained, and the practices adopted afterward are recorded. There is no charge for the first sample, which typically takes 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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FI499 Unit 6 questions, answered
What if the seminar found nothing wrong with my draft?
Then the reflection can report what was tested and why it held, which is still evidence. Most sessions raise at least one question worth answering in writing, such as whether an input was sourced or a figure reconciled. A reflection that picks the hardest question asked and shows how the draft answered it reads as more than a summary of the hour.
Is it risky to admit an error in a graded reflection?
Generally the opposite. Capstone criteria reward finding and fixing inconsistency before the final document, and a reflection that quantifies a correction shows exactly that. What costs marks is an error the final submission still carries. The sample's writer reports a two-million-dollar correction because the corrected model is stronger for it, and the reflection says so directly.
Where can I find a free FI499 Unit 6 sample paper?
This page holds a full FI499 Unit 6 seminar reflection on a peer review that corrected a swim school valuation from $24.54 million to $22.54 million, with two new working habits and APA 7 references.
How did two small errors move the value by $2 million?
Terminal growth carries most of the value, so moving it from 2.5 to 3.0 percent raised value by over a million dollars, and leaving out the $900,000 conversion budget added nearly as much again. Together they inflated the cushion over price from $1.54 million to $3.54 million.
What is a check column?
A column beside each model input that compares it with the assumption list and flags any difference. It makes a scenario value left in the model visible until it is reset or logged as a change.