Mendoza School of Business

Our Background

Founded in the year 1921, the Mendoza College of Business is recognized among the top 30 business schools for graduate & MBA programs in the United States by Forbes. It has a network of 40,000 undergraduate and graduates alumni along with 30 clubs & committees for students to get enrolled with. 

The MBA program of the Mendoza College of Business features a morality-based curriculum, practical corporate cases & global immersions. Executive MBA programs are focused on working professionals. Studying in Mendoza is not just about learning, it develops you as a leader and helps you grow the good in business.

Top Employers:

• Salesforce
• Cisco
• Intel
• Electronic Arts
• SAP
• Facebook
• Zynga
• Google
• Citi, Deutsche Bank
• Credit Suisse
• JPMorgan etc.

Application Essay Questions:

All the applicants are required to describe a short statement about their goals and the MBA at Notre Dame. Then, they can select between two prompts for Essay 1, followed by a required essay slide presentation. 

Statement of Purpose: 

Please share your short-term professional goals. How does the Notre Dame Master of Business Administration help achieve your career goals? (100 words or less)

Tip: Mendoza’s requested Statement of Purpose is a mere reflection of the candidate’s career goals & priorities, as well as passion in & out of work initial post-MBA job.

The authority at the B-school knows very well that the long-term career goals are prone to be changed, altered or modified in accordance with the convenience of candidates as they encounter people with varying mindsets, new information and opportunities or learn new skills or transformed perspectives towards the world. Given the human nature of adopting circumstantial changes, asking about candidates’ long-term goals can be a waste of time. This question intends to the admission committee’s eagerness to experience the level of commitment an applicant has towards their plan of joining B-school. They want you to have clear visions in your mind that are further aligned with your requirements & goals to pursue an MBA course at Notre Dame. 

Given the short length of the question, you need to be clear, specific and straightforward about your short-term goals after getting an MBA degree. Describe the industry you are targeting, functions & responsibilities, followed by the school’s MBA program significance to cater to your plans whether courses, clubs, projects etc. as the question says, “Why Mendoza?”. They want to make sure you have conducted thorough research about the school’s MBA program that polishes your interests & needs. 

Essay 1 – Option 1:

The University of Notre Dame was founded in 1842, by Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C, with a mission to become “one of the most powerful means for doing good in this country”. In 1879, Father Sorin’s vision for Notre Dame appeared to be at a sudden, abrupt end. A massive fire destroyed the building that housed virtually the entire University. 

Instead of giving up, Father Sorin interpreted the fire as a sign that he had dreamed too small and decided to rebuild, bigger and better than ever. That Main Building still stands today, topped by the gleaming Golden Dome, not only as an iconic campus building but as an ongoing symbol of perseverance and vision.

Tell us the story of a time in your own life or career when you had to overcome an obstacle, start over, or rebuild. (maximum 2 pages, 12pt font, double-spaced)

Tip: This essay signifies Father Sorin’s determination, courage, far-sightedness, keeping up attitude and effort to overcome after getting tremendously crushed. Precisely, we learn to stick to hope always & most importantly is that failures are crucial to find new opportunities. With this prompt, the committee wants to know your response to a certain situation as an individual. How you react, learn, and start over on to your action plans. Will you try to blame the situation or make excuses? Or, use your experience analytically to get better results with similar ventures? 

Mendoza knows how much it is vital to adopt a “Try & Try” attitude early in student life to accomplish goals, whether personally or professionally. This essay is an opportunity for you to deliver your intellect, resilience and determination which help you realize your goals. 

This prompt has rather no word limit, the applicants have an opportunity to choose such an event from their personal or professional lives. Explore all through your learning, career, family and community life experiences that help you stand as a strong survivor in a particular situation. Remember, the concerning life event must have enough weight to it to express your powerful comeback since the above-mentioned situation implies the school’s belief in failures & setbacks as an opportunity to stand again. For example, skip struggles with time management or college projects that were easy to overcome but instead, a huge hurdle that led to a rustic change. 

Essay 1 – Option 2

The foundation of a Notre Dame business education is the vision of the College’s founder and first dean, John Cardinal O’Hara: “The primary function of commerce is service to mankind.” Students choose Notre Dame because they are willing to Grow the Good in Business™. They look beyond profits and shareholder value and drive decisions based on values and the greater good. Please describe what “growing the good in business” means to you.

This essay prompt clearly implies Mendoza’s belief about serving the community and volunteering a phase of our life to support a cause we are passionate about from the early age of learning so that we carry it forward throughout the process of realizing our career goals. With this question, the admission committee is eager to know how you will contribute towards the school’s repeatedly-often principle of “growing the good” aligned with further professional goals. 

You may want to highlight your managerial or mentoring relationships that brought productive results or discuss a sound peer teamwork experience, but the nature of your relationship must express your realization of “growing the good”. We assume that if you are thinking to secure a seat in Mandoza’s MBA program, you may already be familiar with the importance of the principal concepts of the school. If so, then you can easily write the essay. For example, you can describe the challenges you face, and how you tackle them. What did you learn throughout the process etc? Clarify in your essay what “growing the good” means to you including your opinion, its importance in life and the type of “good” you would like to invest your efforts in. For example, are you interested in community building? Safeguarding the environment? Or inculcating new skills in students? Just be clear, and reasonable.

Slide Presentation:

Effective communication is a central skill for managers and visual presentations are an important method of communication. Demonstrate your ability to clearly and concisely communicate by telling us about yourself, using a short slide presentation.

Please consider the following guidelines when creating your presentation:

• Please submit four (4) slides.
• You may create your slides in any software that works for you, but you must save and upload as a .pdf.

• Do not use audio or video files.

• You are free to share anything about yourself that you think would be of value to the Admissions Committee. You can have some fun and be a bit more lighthearted in this portion of your application. Your tone should reflect your personality.

• Please be assured that the Admissions Committee will read your essay, your resume, and your transcripts in detail. Your slides are an opportunity to go beyond your academic and work history and show the Committee who you are as a person.

Tip: This question of the B-school clearly emphasises taking a quick glance into the candidate’s passions, interests & personality as an individual. The easy way to answer this question is to conduct deep research and find out a few certain perspectives of your personality, delivering unique, interesting or new information to the committee. Generally, the initial reaction of most of the candidates to these types of questions is getting nervous and panic, but on the contrary, this can be a creative way of revealing who you are as an individual, apart from describing all the basic information that your application already has such as about your job, education, activities and interests outside of job etc.

Supplemental Essay (optional):

If there is information that you would like to share with the Admissions Committee that does not appear elsewhere in your application, you may choose to submit a supplemental essay. For example, if your undergraduate GPA does not represent your true capabilities, a supplemental essay is your opportunity to address any relevant circumstances that impacted your performance. (Optional, 1-page maximum)

Tip: This question is an opportunity for the candidates to address any remaining questions in your application profile that you want admission officers to know the answer to about you, only in case you think so. Pay emphasis on keeping your responses short and precise, conveying the main thought without confusing or making excuses to bring a few factors to the reader’s attention. 

Upcoming Deadlines

The application deadline for the Full-Time MBA Class of 2025 are:

• Early Action Round: September 13, 2022 (Decision November 4, 2022)
• Round 1: November 1, 2022 (Decision December 16, 2022)
• Round 2: January 10, 2023 (Decision March 17, 2023)
• Round 3: March 14, 2023 (Decision April 28, 2023)
• Round 4: May 2, 2023 (Decision – Rolling)

Reach out to our professional MBA Consultant and increase the probability of gaining acceptance to your desired business school.