Drew Hoff Reviews

I found Amerasia on GMATClub and reached out to them 3 weeks (yup, 3 weeks) before MBA deadlines for 2019 intake. At that point, I'd just re-taken my GMAT, had not started on any of my applications, essays or recommendations. I remember asking Drew if I should just wait to apply for 2020 intake to avoid rushing through my applications. However given that I'm slightly older, he advised me to go ahead with this round.

We started working on the essays straight away. Drew had a very structured approach towards the entire process. He had detailed memos for each segment of the application, from recommendations to essays to interviews. This made it less overwhelming as it broke down the entire process into smaller and more achievable segments. I found this extremely helpful as I was working under extreme time constraint.

Drew was very responsive with emails. He was giving me feedback on my essays and applications through the Christmas and New Year's period, taking only Christmas day off. It was easy to schedule calls with Drew when I needed to discuss my applications over the phone, especially since I'm located in South East Asia.

Here's my background: I am South East Asian, studied Economics and Statistics for my undergrad, worked as an analyst for 5 years in telco industry, and had a 710 GMAT score.

I applied for 3 schools - Harvard, Stanford and Wharton. I was accepted to Harvard and Wharton and was waitlisted for Stanford. After being waitlisted to Stanford, Drew shared some detailed guidance on the waitlist process and how to improve my chances, i.e. writing additional essays.

I found the entire experience to be very pleasant. Drew was extremely supportive throughout the entire process and gave direct feedback about essays and my interview responses.

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I was introduced to Adam Hoff and Amerasia through a high school classmate that worked with Adam and recommended him highly. My classmate and his wife both received Adam's help and guidance throughout their b-school application process and wound up at HBS together. After hearing rave reviews about Amerasia, I was excited to hear about their services and set up an initial consultation with Drew Hoff.

After going back and forth on whether I wanted to use an admissions consultant I ended up choosing to work with Drew and Amerasia because of the personal and dedicated approach that was shown in my hour plus consultation call; very different than any other free consultation calls I had before. Looking back at my notes from that call, Drew really opened my eyes to a successful and feasible path forward towards reaching my b-school goals due to his attention to detail and sincere advice based on the short questionnaire I had filled out beforehand.

Drew was a huge help at the start of the process as my brain had been swirling around in circles when I was trying to figure out where to begin on my own. I asked for guidance and a voice of reason throughout the application process and received it from Drew each step of the way - from vetting my final list of schools to choosing which stories to write about to preparing as best as possible for interviews.

The personalized strategy memos were really the kickstart to the hot and heavy time of my application period and they were a great help for putting pen to paper. I certainly remember being frustrated staring at a blank Word page for hours on end but Drew was there to coach me through my jumbled thoughts and help maintain my clear vision for b-school and beyond. Drew was responsive no matter how many iterations of my essays I went through and I distinctly remember the point in time where I took a step back after reading an updated version and thinking, "wow, I really have a chance at this" and "I've really learned A LOT about myself".

I cannot thank Drew and Amerasia enough for the instrumental help in the application process and I am happy to report that I was accepted at both Wharton & Kellogg when it was all said and done. (I interviewed at GSB & Haas and got dinged right off the bat at HBS). For quick reference - B.S. in Civil Engineering, 5 years in construction, 770 GMAT.

I'd strongly recommend Drew and Amerasia!

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Hey all! So first off and to preface my entire review, I applied for Harvard, Stanford, Sloan, and Wharton. These are obviously very difficult schools, but I did have hope that my unique background combined with a strong consultant could pull me through. In the interest of transparency however, I just wanted to state that I was not able to secure any of the four schools, not even an interview. Take from that what you will in regards to whether or not my review is tainted, but I do believe I am not one to be so affected. At the end of the day, I have other opportunities that I can aim for, and so this does not faze me too much. I do think everyone here would appreciate knowing how my process with Drew went though, to not make the same mistakes that I made.

Alright, so into the process itself. Perhaps because of my origins as a PhD candidate, coming a bit out of left field that it ended up being hard for Drew - though the initial consultations had left me assured I would be in good hands, with someone who knew what to do with my background.

We started with a survey that I returned to Drew on the 11th of November 2018, which I suppose marks the first day of the consultation process. This was where the first red flag appeared, and perhaps I should have done something about this then. Once I completed the survey, nothing came out of it - nadda. There was no follow up discussing the results of the survey, or even later on how the results could play into my application. This is a general theme that pervades the consultation process, and I would highly recommend if you are going to go with Drew, to always be ready to remind him of deadlines and things that has been done/needs to be done.

This is because the next thing that happened, was that I sent him the first draft for my resume on the 27th of November and my first draft of the Harvard essay on the 1st of December. He took four days just to get back to me on my resume with suggestions (not really any edits), and really practically all throughout it had always been four days between when I sent him a resume draft and when I receive feedback/edits from him. I would suggest to send him drafts as early as you can, and also ensure it is as close to one page as possible because Drew will not really make edits or significant suggestions to your draft until then.

The bigger problem was the first draft of my Harvard essay, which went way past the four day (96-hour) deadline as promised by Amerasia. Allegedly Drew sent me a response that never got through. We had a bit of a discussion about this, where Drew was a bit bummed out, and I was too. I did offer to dissolve the agreement, but Drew wanted to continue, and, having not much time left, I decided to take a leap of faith and continue with Drew. To be frank, I think it is fair of me to voice such concerns to him, given that we had a later start than others, and deadlines were fast approaching.

Unfortunately it happened multiple times. Five times actually - across Harvard, Wharton, and Sloan essays, and that was enough to turn everything upside down. On one occasion, Drew allegedly forgot to send me an edit until I reminded him. On the remaining four occasions, Drew was late by 7 hours, 16 hours, 36 hours, and the worse one - 83 hours (which already accounted for 48 hours where Drew asked to take two days off over Christmas). As you can imagine, when you are coming so close to the deadline, every hour counts.

So therefore, if you go with Drew, you HAVE to chase him up. Do not be like me and wait for at least 96 hours (i.e. the deadline for return of edits based on the agreement), chase him up earlier than that. He might be overwhelmed, or for whatever other reason, but it is your application - you need to take charge.

This is because Drew does do good work - he managed to make significant modifications to my resume to squeeze in everything I wanted to write within one page, and have made good edits to my essays. However, it could have been so much better if he has had more time to go through my essays - which simply did not happen due to the constant breaches of deadlines.

I considered giving him a lower rating, but given that he does do good work when he seems like he wants to do it, I simply cannot do that. I think my rating is fair given that there were significant breaches on Amerasia's side that significantly affected my applications. So yes, if you go with Drew, you have to chase him up - whether because he is too busy, or in my case maybe not feeling like he wants to help me anymore, he does not chase up my progress or check in with me. Though in that case, that is not exactly professional, especially given that I offered him the choice of dissolving our arrangement.

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Working with Drew and Amerasia was the key to my MBA admissions success. I had a below target score of 680 but had my eyes on the top programs. By working with Drew to unearth my story and find my true passions, I was able to obtain interview offers at every school I applied to, and earned a full tuition scholarship to a top 15 program.

Drew's approach is hands-on and effective. He is methodical and consistent in the way he approaches each school, essay, and process. He helps perfect your resume, fine tune your applications, and isn't afraid to tell you when something needs to be changed. I would certainly recommend his services for any candidate that is looking to stay both ahead of the curve and on top of their deadlines.

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I worked with Drew Hoff from Amerasia Consulting and had a great experience. I had a free initial consultation phone call with Drew and we spoke for about an hour about my target schools, post-MBA goals, etc. What initially impressed me about Drew was how much he seemed to know about each school. He talked about how important it was to really understand each MBA program’s “DNA” (i.e., the unique characteristics of each program) when preparing applications. After doing consultations with other admissions consultants that just talked generically about applications, this is what led me to decide to work with Drew.

After the initial consultation, I completed a questionnaire so that he could learn more about my background. We then started by working on a general career goals essay (not school specific) because he felt that nailing that down would be important for all of my applications. Once we finalized the career goals essay, we moved onto school specific applications. For each school that I worked with Drew on, he would prepare a 4-7 page strategy memo for the school. The strategy memo would give some background on the key qualities that each school looks for in applicants and then discussed strategies for approaching each essay question so that I could display those key qualities in my essays.

When we started working on the actual application essays, I would send him a first draft of an essay and he would either come back with a redline and comments or tell me to try a different approach. Be warned, Drew’s not just going to let you settle for a decent essay. On one application, I went through 14 versions of an essay before we finalized it. His typical response time was 2-3 days for an essay revision (but quicker as we approached deadlines).

Outside of the essays, Drew helped me to select my recommenders and also gave me a strategy memo on how to approach a recommender. He also prepared me for interviews on the phone by walking through some of my answers for general questions as well as stories for the behavioral questions.

I’m happy to report that with Drew’s help, I got acceptances into two M7 schools as well as another Top 20 school. Overall, Drew was like a coach for the MBA application process who helped to bring out the best in me for each application. For anyone considering an admissions consultant, I would strongly recommend his services.

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After a poor experience with another consultant last year, I really wasn't planning to go any further than the free consultation with any company. Nonetheless, after my consultation with Drew, Amerasia's school DNA approach really resonated with me and I signed up for the single-school package to help with my Columbia reapplication.

One thing to know up front with Amerasia (at least in my experience) is that the majority of your contact with your consultant is via email. That worked great for me, but others might want more phone contact. We did have a very productive strategy call to start, though, which was followed up by a Columbia-specific “Strategy Memo.” The strategy memo is a very useful doc that breaks down the essay questions and weaves in lots of school-specific info about the idiosyncrasies of that school’s application process and preferences.

I knew that in my last application I had done a poor job connecting my accomplishments to transferable skills that would help accomplish my goals. However, Drew helped me realize that my short-term goal itself was a hindrance on my app. At my last consultant’s advice, I had gone with a VERY specific immediate post-MBA goal that would require a lot of networking outside of the standard MBA recruitment processes. At Drew’s advice, I switched this to a more traditional MBA recruitment job that was an equally logical progression towards my long-term goal. In addition, he was extremely helpful at making sure I made the connections between accomplishments and skills, often asking for 2 or 3 rounds of edits on a single story just to be sure that connection was made.

Finally, a great benefit of Amerasia is the included interview strategy prep. Once I was invited for an interview, Drew and I had a prep call in which we went over some frequent questions and practiced responses/stories that would stay within my overall app strategy.

All in all, it was a very positive experience that ultimately had the right outcome, as I was admitted to CBS.

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I worked with Drew on 4 schools - Duke, Michigan, Kellogg, and Booth. I came to him because I had extremely low GMAT scores (sub 660). I had a good background with fairly high grades from undergrad, but I was so worried that my GMAT would prevent me from getting into schools that I enlisted Drew's help. He was fantastic throughout the process. He was quick and extremely insightful. He really helped me understand what the schools were looking for in the essays, and guided me in the right direction. He was able to help me condense many of my essays that ended up being too long, but kept them clear and meaningful at the same time. In the end, I got into a couple of my "dream" schools, Booth and Michigan, and got interviewed and waitlisted at the others. Not too shabby! I would highly recommend this service.

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