Meet Notre Dame Mendoza’s MBA Class Of 2024

A CLASS PROFILE

Overall, the Class of 2024 averaged a 670 GMAT. Nearly half the class submitted GRE scores, which averaged 156 (Verbal) and 158 (Quant). In fact, nearly half the class submitted a GRE. International students make up 49% of the class and hail from 18 countries. Women and underrepresented minorities account for a 47% and 33% share of the class respectively.

The class tends to be strong on the STEM side. 53% of the class majored in Math, Science, or Engineering. Business and Economics (40%) and Liberal Arts (7%) round out the remainder of the class, which boasted a 3.4 undergraduate GPA as a whole. Professionally, the largest segment of the class – 13% – last worked in Healthcare, Biotech or Pharma. You’ll also find double digit representation from Financial Services, Technology, Consulting, and Energy.

You could joke that Mendoza grads will find a pot of gold at the end of the MBA rainbow. For the Class of 2022, starting base pay rose by nearly $10K to $130,000 on average over the previous year. Sign on bonus followed suit, rising from $25K to $30K. That’s not all prospective MBA can expect at Mendoza. Earlier this year, P&Q reached out to Joe Sweeney, assistant director of the Notre Dame MBA Program to learn about new developments in the program and explore its opportunities deeper. Here are Sweeney’s thoughts on the state of the Mendoza MBA.

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?

Sweeney: “This year we introduced a new approach to accessing our existing curriculum and a new focus strategy to leverage our core strengths as a program. For the curriculum, we consolidated our major offerings to Finance (STEM), Business Analytics (STEM), Strategy, Marketing, and Digital Marketing and Marketing Analytics (STEM). These core areas best align to the MBA job market and to the natural strength of our existing faculty at Mendoza. To complement these career focused majors, we introduced 13 minors to give students greater flexibility to develop their skills and craft their unique positioning for career success. As a supplement to this new curricular approach, we introduced Pathways, which provide additional opportunities of support around the key career destinations of Finance, Consulting, Marketing, and Technology. These touch points include different tracks within our Career Leadership Course, identification of experiential learning opportunities and Interterm projects by focus area, and focused administrative attention through both academic advising and career coaching.”

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?

Sweeney: “I would take you to the heart of the Notre Dame campus, the iconic Golden Dome. As a Mendoza MBA student, you become part of the much broader Notre Dame community that extends beyond fellow business students or graduate students. The Golden Dome sits atop the Main Building and serves as a symbol of family, resilience, and hope for the future. While it’s easy to spend all of your time in the program in the business school, students who explore the full campus and engage with outside opportunities add richness to their experience and that of their classmates.”

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?

Sweeney: “While experiential learning at Mendoza is not new. Over the past few years, new offerings have created more opportunities to engage in real world and applied scenarios across more disciplines. Although the Business on the Frontlines course is now entering its 15th year, more recent offerings give students the opportunity to engage in a similar experience in the United States through Frontlines in America, or within driving distance of campus through Ways of Rebuilding Community, or in a more limited format in Latin America for Frontline Engagements. For students focused in Marketing, Applied Digital Marketing allows the class to take the reins of live marketing efforts within the university to apply principles in real time on active platforms.

Perhaps the most impactful among the development of experiential learning initiatives is the Mod Away program. Students have the opportunity to spend seven weeks in either Silicon Valley, studying digital product management, or in Santiago, Chile, studying international business. These cohort-based opportunities provide a unique chance to gain additional exposure to new points of view from seasoned practitioners and to expand networks and worldviews through longer term engagements. These academic opportunities also allow students to travel and explore new geographies as an enriching part of the MBA experience. In Silicon Valley, the Digital Innovation course partners with companies ranging from startups to household names such as Visa and Google to apply data and innovation skills to real time challenges.

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?

Sweeney: “While there are several unique experiences that have had a significant impact on students throughout the years, such as Mods Away and Applied Investment Management, one of the most defining experiences over time has been Business on the Frontlines. This experiential, service-learning opportunity allows students to work on real time projects with locally based action partners in order to address significant challenges such as post-conflict rehabilitation, illicit economies, deep poverty, and isolation. Through the years, the program has worked in more than 30 countries, including Colombia, Uganda, Palestine, Brazil, and Tajikistan. From an experience standpoint, the ability to work with local partners and meet people impacted by these challenges provides a unique perspective on communities that otherwise wouldn’t see many outsiders. The projects focus on job creation and setting the economic conditions for growth so the stakes are high. Through the years, partners have actively implemented student recommendations around investments and strategy to change the conditions for the communities they serve. This level of responsibility, paired with extensive feedback from instructors and alumni advisors, creates a challenging but impactful learning environment and a unique view point into a new community.

P&Q: Where are some of your students’ favorite hangouts? What do they do and why do they gravitate there?

Sweeney: “On campus, students will often gravitate toward our two lakes to walk or run around and enjoy a bit of nature and beautiful views. Next to the lakes is the Grotto, which is always a favorite spot for quiet reflection and introspection. The candles there are lit all the time but burn brighter at finals time and on football weekends.

While most students live in the neighborhoods directly adjacent to campus, a popular spot farther afield is the East Bank neighborhood, home to bars and restaurants such as Hammer & Quill and The Lauber. The neighborhood also includes the ice trail at Howard Park for skating, the East Race for whitewater rafting, and the year-round South Bend Farmer’s Market.”

P&Q: How does the MBA program leverage the resources of the larger university? How does that create more opportunities for your students?

Sweeney: “One of the most important things you gain through an MBA program is a network and one of the strengths of Notre Dame as a university is its alumni engagement. For our MBAs, networking, engagement during internships, and integration into new communities across the country after graduation comes through interaction with Notre Dame Alumni, regardless of program. With over 250 Alumni clubs around the world, you’re never far from fellow “Domers”. By organizing these clubs at a university level as opposed to just for the MBA program, all students, alumni, and friends of Notre Dame can come together and build community through geography, career interest, affinity, or affiliation. This helps to broaden the scope of career networking possibilities for current students as they seek internships and full-time outcomes.”

Another area where the program is able to leverage the broader university resources comes through facilities and services. While our MBA program is intentionally small to build and preserve community, the university-at-large has better resources to help provide better support for areas such as health, wellness, international support, and more. Programming and institutes that cross multiple academic disciplines, such as the IDEA Center, our home for innovation, typically are housed at the University level but still provide opportunities for MBA students to engage in programming, projects, and events. The program also frequently takes advantage of the University’s excellent event spaces, such as the Downes Ballroom in the Duncan Student Center, site of the recent Grow the Good Gala, organized by the MBA student leadership to benefit a local non-profit organization.”

P&Q: What is your MBA program’s ‘secret weapon’ – the aspect of your programming that differentiates you from other business schools?

Sweeney: “When looking for an MBA program, there are so many factors to consider that there’s rarely a silver bullet for an applicant and more of a coalescing around a set of important characteristics. At Notre Dame, we seek to facilitate an intentionally small, welcoming and inclusive community that allows for real relationships while you’re in the program and feeds into one of the most powerful alumni networks in the world. Every business school is going to teach the fundamentals of business and talk about leadership. We strive to do so in a way that ties into the ethos of the broader mission of the University – to be a powerful force for good in the world. Sometimes this is implicit and sometimes it’s more overt through experiential learning, a range of international experiences, or focused thought about great challenges in the world. Ultimately, the hope is to create a program and experience that fulfills you as a person and helps you fulfill your MBA career goals. We’re a program that’s continuously seeking to elevate our experience and impact for our students, the Notre Dame family, and the world at large.”

MBA Student	Hometown	Undergrad Alma Mater	Last Employer
Ololade Aderonke Odogiyon	Ondo State, Nigeria	Bowen University	Sterling Bank
Antonio Aziz Gonzalez	Chicago, IL	University of Illinois at Chicago	Bijora Inc.
Lawrence Biloni	Bunkpurugu, Ghana	University of Ghana	Jumia
Jay Brockhoff	Cincinnati, OH	University of South Carolina	Inmar Intelligence
Bhavya Chawla	Delhi, India	J.C. Bose University of Science and Technology	Suzuki Motors
Weston Hyde	Layton, UT	Utah State University	The Stephen R. Covey Leadership Center
Ferdie Larson Dsouza	Udupi, India	National Institute of Technology, Karnataka	Centre for Advanced Learning
Amber May	Atlanta, GA	University of Georgia	Ernst & Young
Chelsea Reyes	Los Angeles, CA	Duke University	UCLA Health
Pavel Sorkin	Las Vegas, NV	University of Southern California	Kimley-Horn
Kelley Wright	South Bend, IN	Saint Mary’s College	Bank of Ameica
Gabriela Yurrita	Guatemala City, Guatemala	Universidad Francisco Marroquín	Plecto Latinoamérica

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