The application essay requirements for the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame are fairly straightforward—or at least the written one is. To start, you must provide a statement that presents your career goals and discusses how the school can help you achieve them. You also need to craft a slide presentation that offers more information about yourself as an individual, separate from your professional and academic background. In addition, you are required to respond to a series of recorded video questions after submitting your application. Finally, an option to submit an additional essay exists, but the school wants candidates to be prudent in doing so. Read on for our full analysis of all Mendoza’s prompts for this season.
Notre Dame Mendoza 2025–2026 Essay Tips
Written Statement: Applicants will respond to the prompt below in 500 words or fewer. This required written statement helps the MBA Admissions Committee gain a deeper understanding of your goals, background, and the perspective you would bring to Notre Dame.
Prompt:
“What are your detailed post-master’s degree career plans?
Illustrate how your background, experiences, interests, and personal attributes, in conjunction with your studies at the University of Notre Dame, will equip you to successfully realize these ambitions. Please share both your short-term and long-term career goals, and be specific about the industry and function you hope to pursue.”
In this straightforward prompt, Notre Dame Mendoza is requesting very fundamental information to understand your motivation for pursuing its MBA and where you expect to go in your career afterward. Be as specific as possible in your description of where you see yourself after graduation and several years down the line, from the industry and role to any additional details about which you currently feel confident (perhaps specific companies or responsibilities that appeal to you in particular). Explain what has brought you to this point in your professional life, not only your career progression to date but also what has inspired you to earn an advanced degree as a vital tool in moving forward.
The admissions committee also wants evidence that you have researched its MBA program thoroughly enough to have pinpointed resources and offerings that will help you achieve your stated goals. To do this effectively, get to know Mendoza beyond its website and published materials. Identify clubs, events, courses, initiatives, and other opportunities that speak to who you are as an individual and to the person you want to be going forward in your career. Ideally, Mendoza offers one or more specific resources or experiences that you believe are vital to attaining your short- and long-term career aspirations. In your response, explain how you will engage with these elements of the MBA program and what you expect to gain from them.
This prompt encompasses many elements of a traditional personal statement, so we encourage you to download a free copy of our mbaMission Personal Statement Guide for more in-depth advice. This complimentary publication offers detailed guidance on approaching and framing these subjects, along with multiple illustrative examples.
Applicant Snapshot: In addition to your resume and transcripts, the Applicant Snapshot offers a chance for candidates to showcase unique qualities and experiences not captured elsewhere in the application. This required component allows you to share personal dimensions of who you are—beyond your academic and professional background—and will be uploaded as part of your submission.
Applicant Snapshot Guidelines:
– Format your Applicant Snapshot as a slide presentation (up to four slides).
– Create slides using any software and save/upload as a PDF.
– Avoid using audio or video files.
– The Admissions Committee will review the applicant snapshot; no presentation is required.
– Share meaningful insights about yourself for the Admissions Committee.
Use a lighthearted tone that reflects your personality to highlight your uniqueness beyond academic and work achievements.
We imagine that the initial reaction most candidates have to pretty much any prompt that does not request a traditional essay is momentary panic (though, to be fair, that might be many applicants’ reaction to traditional essays as well), but let us reassure you a bit before we delve more deeply into how best to approach this one. This “essay” is merely a creative way of asking you to reveal who you are as an individual, apart from what all the basic elements of your application already convey about your job, your education, and your activities and interests outside of work.
In this case, you are communicating directly with a very singular audience, within a certain context, and with a very specific goal in mind. So start by carefully considering what you want the admissions committee to know about you—with the goal of sharing as many different aspects of your life and personality as possible—and what it will already be able to learn through your other essay(s) and the rest of your application. You want the admissions committee to take away something new from each slide.
Note that the prompt does not say your slides have to be made up entirely of text. They could perhaps also include pictures, drawings, paintings, emojis, and so on. And even though getting accepted to business school and earning an MBA are serious undertakings, this prompt even encourages you to use a “lighthearted tone,” which signifies that the information in your slides does not need to be entirely serious in nature; this should be especially true if your personality is naturally more casual and cavalier. The prompt states that the admissions committee is specifically interested in aspects of your personality and life “beyond your academic and professional background,” so focus on presenting features about you that are not clearly conveyed via the other components of your application. Even comical elements, if used judiciously, can be valid options if the resulting slide is truly reflective of your character and/or life.
That said, avoid being “gimmicky.” Your goal is not to seem “cute” or even more creative than the next applicant but really just to tell more of your personal story, albeit in a rather brief way, and thereby provide a more dynamic image of yourself for the admissions committee. We suggest you start by grabbing some paper and making an old-fashioned list of your key experiences, achievements, interests, and personality traits. Then, consider what information the admissions committee already has about you from your other essay(s) and elements of your application, and strive to showcase items from your list that best complement that information to create a well-rounded picture of you.
We also caution you against trying to squeeze too much information into your presentation or making it too “busy” or elaborate. You need to show the admissions committee that you can judiciously identify relevant additive information and convey it in an uncomplicated, easily understood manner.
Supplemental Essay (optional): This is an opportunity to share information not covered elsewhere in your application. You can include additional context about your background, gaps in employment, unique experiences, personal challenges you have overcome, or any other insights that may not be fully represented in other sections of your application.
Most MBA programs generally prefer that you write an optional essay only to explain an issue or potentially confusing element of your candidacy. For Mendoza’s optional essay, your first inclination should be exactly that; if you have a gap in employment (as the prompt mentions) or poor grades or a low GMAT score, this is where you should provide your explanation. However, unlike most other schools’ optional essays, Mendoza allows you some leeway to simply share information that you have not mentioned elsewhere in your application. Therefore, if your background or upbringing has contributed to unique experiences or personal challenges, this essay might be an appropriate space in which to describe that.
Note that even though this essay has no maximum word count, be sure to keep it as concise as possible. You are still asking the busy admissions committee to read something that is not technically required. In addition, this optional essay is not an opportunity to share another interesting story or otherwise try to impress or pander to the committee. And Mendoza will certainly be able to tell if you are simply recycling an essay that you wrote for another school. You will not be penalized for not submitting an optional essay, so do not feel compelled to do so. In our mbaMission Optional Essays Guide, we offer detailed advice on when and how to take advantage of the optional essay, with multiple examples, to help you mitigate any problem areas in your profile.
Video Assessment: As part of our application process, we require a video assessment. During this assessment, members of our Admissions Committee will ask you a series of questions to better understand you as an individual. This holistic approach allows the Committee to thoroughly review your application beyond what’s on paper.
A link to complete your video assessment will be emailed after you submit your application, and it must be completed to move forward in the application process.
Okay, start by taking a deep breath. We know that videos tend to be intimidating and nerve-racking, but Mendoza is simply interested in getting to know you in a more dynamic way than a written essay will allow. The admissions committee is not looking for the next prime-time anchor or expecting an Oscar-worthy performance—it just wants to get a sense of your spoken communication style, personality, and perhaps demeanor. Because the questions you will encounter are not provided in advance, the admissions committee is likely also using the video as a way of gauging how you deal with the unexpected, think on your feet, and convey relevant answers in a time-conscious way. This is, after all, similar to what you will be doing in the Mendoza classroom as an MBA student.
Despite not having the specific questions supplied for you, you can still prepare for this video assessment in advance. For example, you could find practice questions by downloading a free copy of the mbaMission Interview Guide, which includes a list of 100 questions commonly posed in MBA admissions interviews. Then, you could ask a friend or family member to randomly select from these questions, pose them to you, and then provide feedback on the content and presentation of your responses. As you practice, strive to minimize your use of filler words and phrases (e.g., “um,” “uh,” “like,” “you know”) so that you are less likely to depend on or default to them when the time comes for your actual video submission. This is the admissions committee’s chance to get to know you better as an animated, three-dimensional person, so they will be looking to see how you speak and behave. But do not panic. If you make a small mistake or bungle your words, just pause, smile, and get back on track.
Let us reassure you that none of the questions will have a “correct” answer, and you are not going to be judged on how energetic or enthralling you are in delivering your response. You should speak as naturally as possible so that the admissions committee can get a feel for your true character and bearing. If possible—meaning you can do so without forcing the issue—sharing a story from your life that illustrates or supports your answer will make it even more compelling. Otherwise, simply breathe, relax, and give the school insight into the unique individual you are. Respond to each query honestly and as smoothly as you can (despite any nervousness you might be feeling), and be yourself.
