Meet The Texas McCombs MBA Class Of 2024

THE PEOPLE MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

When Gabby Stone arrived on campus, she describes a feeling of “energy and excitement” – which soon grew to “warmth and belonging.” Starting at orientation, McCombs MBAs partake in a popular tradition: Storytelling Series. Natalia Gonzalez, a 2022 grad, describes it as a “safe space” – a monthly gathering where classmates go beyond surface chat on classes and job hunts and share their personal stories, passions, and struggles.

“Getting to know students beyond my surface level perception of them was wonderful and allowed for our class to bond much faster,” notes Caleb Makonnen, a logistics manager by day and musician and producer in his spare time.

The Class of 2024 will be indulging in plenty of McCombs traditions over their 21 months in the MBA programs. There are tailgates to Texas Longhorn football games, of course. Sometimes, classes create their own traditions. Over two years, ’22 grad Greg Labanowski and his classmates made it their personal mission to hit as many Texas Monthly Top 50 barbecue joints as possible. Thus far, Eric Martinez has joined in on “Think N’ Drinks” – where first- and second-years gather on Thursday nights for drinks and dialogue. Such traditions tap into one of McCombs’ biggest strengths: good people having good times in good surroundings.

“[A] big reason why I decided to come to McCombs was the people,” admits Gloria Isabel Gutierrez Ramon, a sales analyst who is on her own mission to visit every Texas state park. “The admissions team does a fantastic job at selecting a class that all complement each other but who are all also genuine people. In our short time here, I have seen how first-year and second-year students and staff help each other succeed in class, recruiting, and overall life.”

A CLASS PROFILE

The Class of 2024 features 220 students, a return to the pre-pandemic normal. Collectively, their average GMAT and GRE come in at 706 and 319 respectively, with their average undergraduate GPA being 3.48. Women account for 35% of the class, while the percentage of international students inched up to 28%. U.S. minorities hold 36% of class seats, double the percentage of underrepresented minorities (17%).  U.S. military veterans (13%) and first-generation students (11%) also represent sizable shares of the class.

Academically, the class earned degrees from 149 different undergraduate institutions. 40% of the class hold degrees in STEM-related fields, with Business and Economics (33%) and Humanities and Social Sciences (15%) majors also included in the class. 13% already possess a Master’s degree, while 21 MBAs are busy pursuing dual degrees in conjunction with programs like the medical school, law school, or school of public affairs.

Long known as the top MBA program for accounting, McCombs excels in several other dimensions. In the 2023 Princeton Review ranking, which surveyed students and alumni, the school posted Top 10 scores for its consulting and finance programming – and ranked 5th for having a Family-Friendly campus. When deans and MBA directors were surveyed by US News earlier this year, it ranked Top 10 for Analytics, Information Systems, Management, and Entrepreneurship. Notably, 78% of McCombs MBAs take an entrepreneurship-related course during their time in business school. Even more, 95% of the faculty has some involvement in entrepreneurship at the school.

Entrepreneurship is one area that P&Q explored with Tina Mabley, the program’s assistant dean and director of the MBA program. Along with entrepreneurship, Mabley also touches on new program developments, signature experiences, and favorite hang-outs in this far-reaching interview.

AN INTERVIEW WITH TINA MABLEY

P&Q: What are the two most exciting developments at your program in the past year and how will they enrich the MBA experience for current and future MBAs?

TM: “Curricular innovations are an ongoing area of development. We look at our curriculum as an iterative, continuously changing process. Being in Austin, we have access to wonderful talent—from subject-matter experts on the leading edge of knowledge creation to experienced professionals—who illuminate our classrooms. This year we have added courses such as Energy Ventures, Intro to Philanthropy, Financial Fraud in Capital Markets, Influence of Marketing in Society, and Leveraging New Media Channels, among others. We continue to innovate with our curriculum to bring new ideas and topics into our classrooms.

A second highlight is the burgeoning interest around the cleantech sector. At Texas McCombs, our students believe that the future of business is rooted in innovation and sustainable industry practices, and we are finding that employers feel the same way. Class of 2022 graduates found full-time employment in consulting, banking, tech, electric mobility, and renewable energy – all firmly centered around the cleantech sector.

Our CleanTech Fellows program pairs students with partner companies to provide semester-long education and experience. This year, 45 student applicants partnered with 22 different organizations.

McCombs is also hosting ClimateCAP 2023, a national MBA conference focused on business solutions to climate change and related issues. Our students, Samantha Hea, Alexis Greco, and Patrick McPadden are the co-chairpersons heading up an amazing team of over 20 student volunteers to make this the best ClimateCAP Summit yet!”

P&Q: If you were giving a campus tour, what is the first place you’d take an MBA applicant? Why is that so important to the MBA experience?

TM: “The “Pivot Table” in Rowling Hall, our new, state-of-the-art facility that is certified LEED Silver and features an open, transparent design fostering community and collaboration among students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the Austin community. The Pivot Table is on the second floor in our popular open landing, Carpenter Commons. The table sits at the intersection of the Commons, our grand staircase, the student leadership office, and the MBA Program Office – it is a central landing zone as all parts of the building link directly to this gathering space. This table, named by the Class of 2021, is the centerpiece of our community. It is used for open office hours, student org events and promotions, studying, casual encounters, Community Coffee, and most importantly, the best Austin-style community-building tool: breakfast tacos.

It is hard to express the vitality of this pulse point of our program. The “Pivot Table” is the physical manifestation of the overlapping communities that spontaneously connect in this space.”

P&Q: What is the most innovative thing you have introduced into the MBA program in recent years? How has it been a game changer for your program?

TM: “At Texas McCombs, we like to take advantage of our broad and talented campus by finding unique and dynamic partnerships and collaborations that enhance our program and impact. One of our greatest collaborations in recent years is our dual degree program with our new, innovative Dell Medical School (Dell Med), which adds depth and diversification to our McCombs Health Innovation Fellows program. Dell Med is positioned in the heart of Austin and the UT campus and is highly selective with the school receiving over 4,500 applications for the entering class of 50 students. Dell Med recruits and trains physicians of the future—leaders who are comfortable taking on systemic challenges in health. Free from established curriculum, the Dell Med MD program built a unique program on the Leading EDGE (Essentials, Delivery, Growth and Exploration).

Through individualized experiences in the third year — the hallmark of a curriculum created from scratch to turn future physicians into leaders — students make progress toward long-term goals and collaborate to improve health locally. A nine-month “Innovation, Leadership and Discovery” block affords the opportunity to complete a dual degree, like our MD/MBA, the most popular, supporting between 20-30% of the class each year. These students gain an advanced understanding of business administration to help these medical practitioners be better equipped to lead health transformation and the adoption of value-based care. In addition, our MD/MBA students enrich our MBA classrooms with their diverse knowledge and unique perspective and add depth to our MBA Health Innovation Fellows program, which seeks to promote Texas McCombs as a producer of visionaries who will positively impact the healthcare industry through creativity and leadership.

Through Health Innovation Fellows, students experience in-depth healthcare programming, analyze the complexities of the US healthcare system, and compete against 9 peer colleges at the University of Texas at Austin in the annual McCombs-hosted Health Innovation Case Competition. As John Wagner, one of our current MD/MBAs, summed it up in his LinkedIn post, “Thank you to Texas McCombs School of Business and Amgen for hosting the competition. It was a great opportunity to put our health equity education at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin into action!”

P&Q: What have MBAs told you is the most memorable, signature experience they’ve had in your program? Why did it resonate so much with them?

TM: “Students will often share with me that their most memorable experiences are those they get to share with their cohort, from wine trekking through the Texas Hill Country to studying abroad together. All our students go through a collective experience, which is purposefully bookended with a beginning and ending experience that charts their journey throughout the program.

The McCombs culture, ‘Leave the place better than you found it,’ combined with the type of student we attract is what makes this collective experience so profound. During the admissions process, we are looking for students who take on leadership roles within their community; we want McCombs MBAs to be invested in this experience. The reason cohorts resonate so strongly amongst our students is because no matter what path they take, they feel emboldened to do so in a community that supports them.

“It is almost impossible to name one experience that you can define as “this is the MBA.” To me, it’s the ordinary moments. It’s walking down the stairs in Rowling and having someone invite you to grab a drink with a group of people you haven’t had the chance to connect with yet. It’s having a McCombs meet up in Dallas at the Red River Showdown. It’s having an interview not go your way, or an exhausting day and having a friend to take a walk with you just to debrief on the whirlwind that is this program,” a student said. “What resonates the most with me, is every ordinary moment. It’s the combined experiences that gives you this incredible new group of friends, all in a similar life stage to you, all looking for a pivot in their lives, that build a network that will last you far beyond the two years.”

Next Page: Profiles of 12 Members of the Class of 2024