Notre Dame MBA Students are Making Their Case in Competitions
Margot Woolley, 2008 MBA candidate, says case competitions have become "the varsity sport of the MBA program." The competitions have many of the same hallmarks as a tight athletic contest: careful strategies that may change on the fly, teamwork, a relentless ticking clock, and ultimately, the chance to let your talents shine above top-notch competitors.
And like sports, the competitions have fired up the "Fighting Irish" in the business arena, resulting in a number of recent wins at events hosted by Cornell, Northwestern and University of Colorado. "The backbone to the whole case competition exercise is that it gives confidence to the students that we can compete against other top 10 schools," says Woolley. "It builds great relationships with recruiters."
In the fall, Mary Goss, senior director of the MBA Program, as well as Woolley and classmate Keith Flatley helped to launch a case competition initiative at the College to identify likely competitions, encourage candidates to participate and help organize the make-up of the team. Case competitions provide students with the opportunity to develop problem-solving skills under pressure, using real-world scenarios. Woolley also calls the competition "dress rehearsals for job interviews," because the judges are recruiters from companies the candidates may some day seek a job with.
The competitions differ in format. Some sponsoring companies send the case to the teams in advance, while others don't release information until the team arrives, typically two days before the presentation. Even when teams don’t have the case, preparation time may push 20 to 30 hours in the week or so leading up to the event.
Team members ideally represent expertise in each of the various disciplines, but key to success is the ability for teammates to analyze the case across disciplines to arrive at an answer. The Mendoza MBA curriculum, which emphasizes an integrated approach, was a great help, say team members.
Recent Case Competition Wins
| First Place: Notre Dame MBA students Margot Woolley, Keith Flatley, Gabriel Kacarab, Rohit Jacob and Clint Branam, the HABLA Case Competition hosted by the Johnson School at Cornell University. |
| Competitors included Cornell, Carnegie-Mellon and Purdue Universities, and the universities of Rochester and California, Berkeley (November 2007). |
| First Place: Notre Dame MBA students Heather Burns, Chris Wittman, Anita Allen, Joel Rambaldini and Pete Travnicek, the Kellogg Biotechnology Case Competition held at Northwestern University. |
| Competitors included Northwestern University and the universities of Chicago and Texas at Austin (January 2008). |
| First Place: Notre Dame MBA students Amanda Gunville, Vince Srejma, Matt Brewer, Bryan Quinn and Todd Nieto, Rocky Mountain Regional of the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) hosted by the Leeds School at the University of Colorado. |
| Competitors included Northwestern University, Purdue University, the universities of Chicago, Michigan and Wisconsin (February 2008). |
| First, Second, Third Place: Notre Dame MBA students Karen Frevert, Joe Kindt and Mike Bott were team members on the first, second and third-place teams respectively in the Kenan-Flagler School of Business Marketing Case Competition hosted by the University of North Carolina, a competition that builds teams with students from different MBA programs. |
| Thirteen top business schools were represented, including MIT and the universities of Georgetown, Duke and California, Berkeley (February 2008). |
Unravel Tough Business Problems
Copyright © 2008 • University of Notre Dame • All Rights Reserved
The Notre Dame MBA, University of Notre Dame, 276 Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA
Phone: 1-800-631-8488 or 574-631-8488 Fax: 574-631-8800 E-mail:mba.1@nd.edu