RICHARDSON, Texas (Oct. 18, 2006) — Students in the Cohort MBA Program at the University of Texas at Dallas’ School of Management will compete for two national titles in conjunction with the National Society of Hispanic MBAs annual conference later this month. UT Dallas is the only institution this year to land in the finals of both competitions.
The conference and career expo, which is being held in Cincinnati, Ohio, Oct. 26-28, brings together thousands of MBA students and professionals, matching them with career opportunities and providing professional development opportunities.
The Oct. 25 competitions that precede the conference give students the opportunity to apply their business school expertise to a real-world challenge, and then present their solutions to a judging panel composed of executives from sponsoring corporations.
In the Dell/Microsoft Marketing Case Competition, UT Dallas’ Cohort MBA students have made it to the finals for the fourth time in the five-year-old competition. The team of second-year students consists of Tony Castano, San Antonio; Max Freeman, Dallas; Carmen McGee, Dallas; and Selvamani Natarajan, Chennai, India. They are competing against teams from Babson College, Howard University, Indiana University, Northwestern University and the University of Texas at Austin.
This is the first year for a UT Dallas team to make the finals of the three-year-old Citigroup Finance Case Competition. That team is composed of first-year Cohort MBA students Tom Coleman, Columbus, Mississippi; Deepal Patadia, Mumbai, India; Scott Sparks, Dallas; and Cihan Uzmanoglu, Istanbul, Turkey. Other finalists in the competition are Case Western Reserve University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Pittsburgh.
UT Dallas School of Management Dean Dr. Hasan Pirkul said the success of the business competition teams is a reflection of not only the excellence but also the rigor of the school’s Cohort MBA Program.
“We expect a high level of performance from our students and they work hard to achieve it. We’re proud of them,” Pirkul said.
Jyoti Mallick, director of the Cohort MBA Program, said the publicity generated by the university’s standing could also help other UT Dallas students attending the career fair.
“Admission to the finals competition not only raises the visibility of our program, but may also help students acquire excellent positions at some of our country’s strongest businesses,” she said. “Success breeds further success through the creation of a positive reputation. Competitions like this show that UT Dallas has talented students with the capacity to be successful leaders.”
About the School of Management
Faculty in the School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas rank 33rd in research productivity nationwide, based on publications in the top 24 business journals spanning all areas of business. Financial Times, using a broader set of 40 journals, ranks UT Dallas’ management faculty 32nd worldwide. Financial Times also ranks The UT Dallas Executive MBA program 46th in the world and 25th in the U.S, and U.S. News and World Report lists the university’s fulltime Cohort MBA program 54th nationwide and 25th at public colleges and universities in the United States. The School of Management is the largest of UT Dallas’ seven schools, with an enrollment of nearly 4,700, of which 2,500 are graduate students.
About UT Dallas
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor®, enrolls more than 14,500 students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UT Dallas, please visit the university’s website at www.utdallas.edu.