Admissions Q&A: University of Texas

McCombs admissions director Rodrigo Malta speaks from firsthand experience about the program and discusses what the admissions committee looks for in an application 

Like MBAs everywhere, graduates of the University of Texas' McCombs School of Business (McCombs Full-Time MBA Profile) often go into jobs in consulting, finance, and marketing. But now more than ever they can benefit from a redefined focus on some of McCombs' historical strengths, according to Rodrigo Malta, the new director of admissions for the full-time MBA program. The school has "an edge in providing extra differentiators in the subjects of energy efficiencies, innovation, and creativity," says Malta.
As a McCombs alum, Malta has intimate knowledge of the program and spoke from experience on how class size, the alumni network, and the city of Austin impact students—before, during, and after the two-year program. In a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek's Sommer Saadi, Malta gave some insider perspective on the program and advice on how to approach the application process for this top-ranked business school. Here are edited excerpts from their conversation.
To start off, two months into the job, have you enacted any changes? Or have there been any major changes to the program or to the application process?
The application process is going to be pretty similar to previous years. What we're going to be emphasizing this year, though, a little bit more than previous years, is a focus on the differentiators of the Texas MBA. If you look at the profile of where students go after they graduate with a Texas MBA, it's usually in the functions of consulting, finance, and marketing. But we have an edge in providing extra differentiators in the subjects of energy efficiencies, innovation, and creativity.
Are those changes to the curriculum or are those new offers in reference to what MBAs can focus on?
Around energy and sustainability, we have launched an energy center that encourages collaboration between the McCombs School of Business, the Jackson School of Geosciences, the law school, and the public policy school in providing a wider array of class offerings that our graduate students can pursue. In the innovation and creativity realm, we have recently launched Venture Labs, which is pooling a lot of resources from the University of Texas overall and guiding our students, partnering with the engineering schools or the science-based schools, in launching new businesses. You're probably going to be seeing a health-care concentration that ties into the innovation piece this coming year.
In addition to those, there is also a new emphasis on designing your coursework to support those initiatives. So you're probably going to see some new course offerings, as well as some new concentrations.
Why was it important for UT to initiate these sorts of collaborations and offer these more innovative concentrations to their business students?
With the current economic climate and the issues that our society is facing right now around energy, health care, and the need for innovation, the faculty and the dean felt it necessary to focus on those. It just so happens that they are historical strengths that McCombs has had. And that's also what our students have been asking us for.

In general, what role does the city of Austin play in an MBA student's experience during their two years in the program and then postgrad?
I'm a graduate of the MBA program as well, and can speak to it in [a few] ways. From a professional growth perspective, Austin is a hotbed for entrepreneurs and people who are into cutting-edge innovation. Having access to those people in the classroom is one of the differentiators that I think our MBA program has. To give you an example, in a lot of the classes, when we had case studies, it was easy to get CEOs and CFOs of the small and medium-sized companies—that a lot of times were started on and around our campus—to give their perspective on what actually happened. From a postgraduate perspective, Austin is a really great place to live and a lot of companies' headquarters are here, like Dell, Whole Foods Markets, etc. So it provides our MBAs with an opportunity to stay in Austin. And then the last piece is more from a living perspective. It is a mid-sized city with big-sized amenities—you are really close to Dallas and Houston, so if you want a big-city feel you can go to those cities. It's consistently voted as one of the best places to live in the U.S.
Do you have any tips for how students can make their applications stand out? Are there any common mistakes that they should be really careful to avoid?
I think the biggest mistake applicants make is trying to guess what the admissions committee wants to hear. All the admissions committee is interested in is getting to know that applicant—what their goals are and if they're the right fit. It is best if the applicant has a well-structured and tight application that really highlights their professional development to date, where they want to go and why the MBA is the step that they need to get there right now. I always tell applicants to have a really cohesive story. I think a good tip is also to share [that story] with your recommenders so that they know what angle they need to take when they are writing the letter of recommendation. This holds true for the interviews as well. Make sure that you're highlighting the same things from a professional achievement perspective, but use different examples that illustrate what you bring to the table.
The other common mistake is not doing enough school research. The essays for a lot of these top 20 business programs are pretty similar, [so applicants think they] can just copy and paste the school names. The admissions committee reads enough essays that we know when it's a canned essay. So making sure that you do the research and show us that research through the essay [is important]. Mention specific examples of activities you're going to be involved with and any interaction that you have had with the admissions committee or alumni, or [involvement in] any kind of school-sponsored activity.
Do you have any suggestions for what students should consider when they decide who they want to be one of their recommenders or references?
First, choose carefully because we are looking at the kind of judgment calls [applicants] make in selecting those people. The admissions committee is looking for someone able to share with us how [the applicant] performs at work, works in teams, and shows leadership skills. A title of CEO vs. manager is not as important as the actual meat of the recommendation. The admissions committee values insight into [the applicant's] accomplishments from the recommender's point of view, so that's usually a direct supervisor, somebody who has written their annual review or is really familiar—maybe from a client perspective—with the work they have done.
You mentioned how it was helpful for applicants to highlight their professional experience. Is there a minimum number of years of experience that you like to see or is that flexible?
We do not have a minimum number of [years of] work experience. We encourage applicants for the full-time program to have at least two years of work experience to have a competitive application. Our average is right around five years. Probably pretty close to 98 percent of our applicants have at least two years of work experience.

And how do the GMAT scores factor into the application process? Again, you have an average but, when you are looking at scores, is there a bar that you expect your applicants to hit or is it just another factor?
It's just another factor. We can assess [applicants'] communication skills through the essays, their recommenders, and the interviews. We have less opportunity to assess their quantitative skills. Sometimes undergrad transcripts may be more relevant than others. If you have somebody with eight years' work experience, their undergrad performance may not be as good a predictor as their GMAT score of their potential for academic success in a master's program. So we look at the GMAT score more in that context along with the undergrad transcript.
How does the alumni network play into the MBA program specifically and what can students look forward to postgraduation in reference to that alumni network?
We have a pretty evolving, extensive alumni network. A lot of our off-campus interviews that take place in the U.S. and [abroad] are led by McCombs alumni that have been trained to conduct those interviews. We encourage all of our alumni to come back and recruit on campus. Going through the program myself, I saw that a lot of the folks that come for on-campus interviewing are McCombs alumni familiar with the program, the experience, and the school culture. And then, beyond the admissions and even the recruiting process, you have a network for life. So the Texas reputation and brand gives you a lot of clout and kind of a safety net to be able to explore things that you may not have been able to do before. I'll give you an example from my [experience]: I came in with a finance background and I wanted to transition into marketing. There is always that hesitation of "what if it doesn't work out," but I felt that with the brand of the Texas MBA I would be able to use my alumni network to get back to finance if I wanted to.
Besides on-campus recruiting, what other things does Texas do to help students find job placement postgraduation?
During orientation [students] meet with an academic adviser [and] a career adviser. In addition to that, they have the one-on-one support of a peer adviser—a second-year [student who] went through the exact same process. We also go out and showcase our students through what we call tracks. We take students to New York, to Dallas, to Houston, to Chicago, to the Bay Area, and have them meet with companies and alumni in those companies and start to build connections. A lot of times, those are companies that may not do on-campus recruiting with UT, but companies that our students have expressed interest in working with.
The class size at McCombs is a bit larger than some other top-tier programs and the school itself at UT is exceptionally large. What do you say to students who are under the impression that such a large class size is going to inhibit a nurturing relationship with their professors?
Actually our class size is 260. I would say that it's either on or a little bit below average. Students are put into cohorts of 55 to 60 individuals, so you're taking all your core classes together with that cohort. You have assigned study groups, where you are working through the first semester—all of the projects for your core classes—together. You get to know your study group really well, your cohort, and then, as you take electives, you get to know the rest of the class as well. So there's an intimate feel for the MBA program, but you have the resources of McCombs, which, as you mentioned, is a really big business school.
And for a final question, are there any common misconceptions or stereotypes that you often find yourself having to dispel about the school?
I think that the biggest question that I always have to clarify [comes] from the notion that people stay in Texas once they come. What I always emphasize is that Texas is the No. 1 state in the [nation] for Fortune 500 companies. So there is a really strong employment base in Texas that we definitely leverage by being the flagship university of the state. But, by the same token, about 55 percent of our students stay in the state of Texas and the remainder go to work elsewhere in the U.S. or internationally.

 http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/sep2010/bs20100921_845199_page_3.htm