E13 New Era at Texas McCombs MBA: Fit, Funding & What Makes You Stand Out w/ Rodgrio Malta

So I think kind of when we look at fit and kind of that secret sauce is individuals that are action oriented and they go about accomplishing the goal through collaboration, innovation, creativity and resilience. And then at the end of the day, when they do accomplish their goals, even if it takes two or three tries, they are ready to give back. Right? So they're ready to take the time to help others in our community and beyond those that are outside of our community.

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the MBA Golden Buzzer podcast. Today I'm joined by Rodrigo Malta, Assistant Dean of MBA Marketing, Recruiting and Admissions at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. The McCombs MBA is known for its culture of collaboration, deep ties to innovation and powerful place in Austin. But with the recent launch of the Hildebrand Scholars Program, funded by a transformational $20 million gift, the school is doubling down on access, inclusion and impact. So if you're considering a program that blends world class resources with grounded forward thinking community, this is the episode for you. So Rodrigo, thank you so much for being here with me. It's such a pleasure to have you. For the people listening who might not know you, do you mind maybe introducing yourself?

Yeah, for sure. Well, first of all, thank you for having me here today. I'm so excited to be spending some time with you and with your listeners. You know, by way of introduction, my name is Rodrigo Malta. I also go by Dego. I'm originally from Brazil. Brazil. Born and raised there, Moved to the States, immigrated to the States when I was in high school, lived in Missouri for a long time. That's where I pursue my undergraduate degree and worked after undergrad as an internal auditor for about five years. And when I hit that five year mark after my undergrad working as an auditor, I wanted to do something different. Didn't quite know what I wanted to do. So the MBA was a really appealing option to explore different kind of professional journeys in the two years I ended up being admitted into Texas McCombs. So I moved to Austin and pursued my MBA studies here. I was fortunate enough to get a job in Austin after graduation at Dell. Worked in marketing post MBA for a little bit and then boomerang back to McCombs in an admissions capacity where I've been since 2008. So this is entering year 17 MBA admissions.

That's awesome.

And I just love, love my job and in my role, I'm the Assistant Dean over MBA admissions here at Texas McCombs marketing, recruitment and admissions across our five MBA programs. So we have the full time MBA program here in Austin. In Austin we also have an evening MBA program and executive MBA. And in Dallas and Houston, we have weekend MBA format. So altogether five programs and kind of under the Texas McCombs MBA umbrella.

That's a lot to keep track of, a lot of responsibility. But 17 years, you've got it down, I'm sure. Awesome. And let's start with the big picture. So what makes the Texas MBA truly stand out in the crowded field of business school that we see nowadays?

Yeah, so the reason why I'm able to keep track, all of it, is we have an amazing team and community here at Texas McCombs. So they keep me in check. So that's, that's kind of step one. But to answer your question, I'm going to speak kind of the rest of the time that we are together. I'm going to primarily talk about our full time MBA program. So here at Texas McCombs, I think all starts with kind of the degree format and that immersive experience. So we have a really intimate program with about 250 incoming students at a really large public research university. So the University of Texas at Austin has over 50,000 students. So you have this intimate program where we divide you into cohorts, assign you study groups to get to know people really well, you're really well supported by staff and faculty. But with that individual attention, we have kind of at our fingertips all of the resources of a large public research university. So there are tons and tons of ways for our students to be involved on campus. And then we'll talk a little bit about Austin later, but in the city of Austin as well. So I think that duality of an intimate program at a large university is a strong differentiator. Another one would be that our program is highly flexible. So for those of your listeners that are international applicants and will be international students, we do have STEM certification paths in our MBA program. But taking us a step back from a flexibility perspective, over 70% of the MBA program at Texas McCombs is self selected through electives. So we have over 20 concentrations that our students can kind of follow as a result.