For as long as formal management education has existed, students have worked in groups to perform team projects. And for about the same amount of time, teachers have wondered about the best way to structure and administer student teams. Formal recommendations have been developed on how to effectively create and administer student teams. However, to date there has been limited empirical research on how teacher-controlled factors affect the student team experience. Drawing on earlier theoretical development, the present study takes an applied approach by focusing on contextual variables that a teacher controls in administering teams: method of team assignment, team longevity, the grade weight given to teamwork, the use of peer evaluations, team size, management education, and the quality of the instructions a teacher provides to a team. To examine these variables, the authors surveyed 116 MBA students about their best and worst student team experiences in their MBA program. Contrasting these best and worst team experiences, they tested hypotheses related to each of the contextual variables. Overall, the goal was to provide teachers with actionable, empirically supported recommendations for effectively creating and administering student teams.