Notre Dame Mendoza 2013 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips

You need to clearly convey to the Mendoza adcom that you have what it takes to be an effective leader—an integrated mind, a broad perspective, tenacity, and heart. Use your career experiences, your career goals, and your personal values to help you demonstrate these key elements.

Notre Dame Mendoza Essay Questions:

1. Essay Question

Your response to the essay questions is extremely important in the selection process. Create a file for your essay and include your name on each page. Your essay should be typed, double-spaced, and no longer than 2 pages.

What are your career plans immediately after graduation? Explain how your past experiences have prepared you for your desired position. What are your long-term career aspirations?

Translation: What are you short-term and long-term goals? How have your past experiences prepared you for your short-term, post-MBA goal?

Note: This question does not ask “Why Notre Dame?” You do not need to explicitly answer that question, but the excellent response to this question will reflect Notre Dame’s values, specifically its focus on ethical leadership. In addition, the long-term objective will be much more plausible if it flows naturally from the short-term one.

 2. Slide Presentation

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

Please consider the following guidelines when creating your presentation.

• You are free to cover any material about yourself that you think would be of value to the Admissions Committee. Please use whatever software programs you like to develop your presentation but note that the only acceptable formats for upload in the online application system is Adobe PDF.

• There is a strict maximum of four slides, though you can provide fewer than four if you choose.

• The slides that you submit will be printed and added to your application file for review by the Admissions Committee. As a result, only text and static images will be seen. Videos, music, hyperlinks, etc will not be conveyed and should not be included. Color may be used.

• Your goal is to clearly, concisely and persuasively convey key information. Slides will be evaluated on these dimensions and not on graphic or presentation elements.

• Notes pages will not be accepted. You should plan to convey your entire message on the actual slides themselves.

To assist MBA Applicants with the development of their slide presentation, please consult this PowerPoint Guide.

Think strategically here. What do you want the admissions reader to know about you that isn’t found elsewhere in the application and could be presented well visually. Usually hobbies and non-professional experiences are good topics for this kind of question, but the key is that the experience or achievement can be presented graphically in four slides.

3. Supplemental Essay Instructions

The Notre Dame MBA Admissions Committee will accept supplemental essays from applicants who wish to provide additional information that has not been captured within other areas of the application.

For example, applicants with low undergraduate GPA’s may address any circumstances surrounding their performance or applicants who have been dismissed from school may want to consider addressing that issue. Also, if you want to explain your work history in greater detail, please use the Supplemental Essay to provide us with a chronology of your work history. Chronologies should include months and years worked – it is not a resume.

If you are a re-applicant, you must complete a Supplemental Essay outlining your activities since you last applied.

Ultimately, we will accept supplemental essays on any topic that you feel is important to the Committee and not contained or explained fully within other portions of the application.

Please keep all submissions to one page, typed and double-spaced.

Again, the response to this MBA essay should complement the other essays and information found in your application. In my view, this essay is optional in name only. If you are impressive enough to get into Notre Dame, you should have more to say than can be captured in the required goals essay and the slide presentation.

If you are a reapplicant, the key question to address: How has your candidacy improved since you last applied?  An improved GMAT is easy to point to, if you have it, but don’t limit it to that. Be sure to discuss increases in responsibility on and off the job, a sharpened career goal, a community service initiative, or anything else that reflects well on you and hasn’t been discussed in the other essays.

Deadlines:

If you would like help with your Notre Dame MBA application, please consider Accepted’s MBA essay editing and MBA admissions consulting or our Notre Dame Mendoza School Packages, which include advising, editing, interview coaching, and a resume edit for the Mendoza MBA application.

By Linda Abraham, president and founder of Accepted.com and co-author of the new, definitive book on MBA admissions, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

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