MBA Admissions All-in Services Reviews

One of the best decisions I made throughout the MBA application process was the decision to work with Caryn of Stacy Blackman Consulting.

Caryn, a former Kellogg Admissions officer, was an invaluable resource to me throughout the application process. She was vital in formulating my strategy that I presented to all schools regarding my future career aspirations. Additionally, she helped me revamp both my resume and my interview responses to specifically fit the business school process.

One of her great qualities as an admissions consultant is her ability to communicate. I never had any worries about not hearing her answers to my questions or seeing her edits to my essays in a timely fashion. Her email responses were thorough, and her edits always went above and beyond. Additionally, at any critical juncture (or whenever I felt I needed guidance), she was willing to jump on a phone call. She maintained this same diligence throughout the waitlist process. When working with Caryn, it is important to reciprocate her communication style and be organized / diligent.

I believe that I maximized my potential to get into a top MBA program by working with Caryn!

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I am an international applicant with a non-traditional background. I applied to several programs last year, but failed to get admittance. Before approaching SBC, I did not have a good understanding of my strengths or feasible career goal. My journey started with a 30-min phone call with Esther for an initial evaluation. Esther has the talent and acumen to quickly summarize the main issues in my previous applications and point out the key theme to draft my story and career goal. Her suggestions became the foundation of my application strategy. She is the reason why I chose SBC instead of other prestigious MBA consulting firms.
I was then assigned to Maria as my primary consultant and opted for the comprehensive 3-school package. SBC truly cares about matching you with the right consultant as Maria is a former Adcom in one of my target schools. She was instrumental in guiding me to refine my career goals and craft my story from an Adcom’s perspective. She persuaded me to visit the schools and talk to current students, which I found to be very critical in writing a genuine essay that stands out.
SBC’s Flight Tester was a game changer for me. They bring in a 2nd consultant to review the entire application package for my first school. In my case, Caryn, a former Adcom for that specific school reviewed my application. She responded quickly and gave vital advice on my essays. I honed in on her message and made critical changes to my essay based on her feedback, which I think secured my admission for that school.
As a non-traditional applicant with a very niche major and in one of the most competitive international application pools, my problem has always been getting over that initial bump of acquiring an interview invite. I am glad to say that Maria and the team were able to get me interview invitations from all three schools. I was admitted to two schools with a large amount of scholarship to cover 50-80% of the tuition (a great return on my SBC investment)! This would not have been possible without my team of super consultants: Esther, Caryn, and Maria. I highly recommend SBC for applicants like me who have great potential, but do not know how to package themselves well and stand out in the application pool.

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I am from Latin America, I had a story a little different from traditional applicants (I know everyone thinks they have, but I really did). My stats weren’t that great and I only applied to CBS since I was already living in NYC and it was the school I had always dreamed to go. From the first call we had, Christine perfectly understood my story, my experience, my strengths and weaknesses and what was the exact angle we could exploit so I could become an attractive candidate for CBS. Very quickly she generated various ideas and proposals which were tailored made to my profile, experience, and goals, giving me a clear direction to follow and the confidence that all the effort was going to be worth it. Her ability to help you during essays drafting was AMAZING, she really helps you get inspired and bring to words the best of your thoughts.

At one point during the preparation of the application, I was very busy because of work and on top of that, I was also studying to take again the GMAT and thank god that Christine was there for me, supporting me with the preparation, accommodating to my busy schedule and delivering an EXCELLENT service. If she had not been there, there was NO WAY I could have made it successfully through the application process. For the interview, her preparation was exactly what I needed and from the moment I applied in about a month CBS had already accepted me.

Christine perfectly knows the culture of CBS, what the AdCom thinks and what is exactly what they are looking for in applicants. I really can’t imagine a better advisor than Christine. It was a pleasure working with her and I STRONGLY recommend anyone to work with her!

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Choosing to sign up with SBC to assist in my B-school applications was definitely the right decision! The perspective & guidance that my SBC consultant was able to offer through the application process was invaluable. While I saw myself as an acceptable MBA candidate before hiring SBC, my applications and essays would have not been anywhere close to the final product that my consultant worked with me to produce.

My consultant was Jessica and she was a great individual to work with during this time. Jessica put in considerable time to understand who I was / where I came from / where I wanted to go, which then helped us to develop my complete profile and highlight my candidacy in the best possible way. We went through multiple rounds for each essay and my resume, getting a ton of feedback from Jessica that helped me to dig deeper within each draft. This led to the final drafts being a collection of refined ideas and themes that had been developed through hours of work between us. After we were through with this part of preparation, we were then able to submit my total profile to their “Flight-test”, where a former MBA admissions officer is able to review your profile and provide any feedback. Getting this final sign-off & feedback from a former admissions officer was a huge win and helps to give a high level of confidence when submitting applications.

Overall, my experience with SBC wasn’t about filling out applications, writing essays, or resume edits…. Instead it was about how Jessica was able to work with me to make me a complete candidate that was able to holistically demonstrate who I am through each & every step of the way. All of this culminated with me being admitted to my dream/target school (top-15 B School) along with a notable scholarship.

If you are like me and want nothing less than your best application possible (no regrets, no what if’s), I highly recommend hiring SBC.

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I had the pleasure of being paired with Caryn Altman and truly know I wouldn't have gotten into two top schools (Booth & Kellogg) without her support, patience, project management skills, and ability to see how my application worked as a whole. I worked with her on 3 schools and applied to another two on my own using some of the same strategies I developed with her. Start to finish SBC was a great investment from my initial point of contact, to my flight tester (Beth who is a former adcom), to additional folks who provided a second opinion on essays for me when Caryn and I disagreed (not often!). SBC is absolutely the way to go if you're thinking about working with a consulting company. They know what they're doing and all the positive outcomes vouch for that. Thanks again for everything!!!!!

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I worked with Beth Tidmarsh at Stacy Blackman and she really helped me manage the application process and feel confident in the application I was submitting. She provided helpful essay feedback and application guidance, she was timely in her responses, and she was proactive in letting my know when her schedule was tight.

I'm a strong writer but I didn't know much about what was expected from an MBA application essay, and Beth helped me put my stories in their best light and noted where I could add more information or remove confusing or unnecessary content.

Beth also helped guide me on what to expect throughout the process, gave me advice for my interviews, and provided support during the stressful and uncertain process of waiting to hear back after submitting apps and completing interviews.

I felt like Beth was personally invested in my success and her help improved my applications and gave me the confidence to perform at my best in interviews. I would strongly recommend her as a consultant.

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I had a great experience working with Stacy Blackman and in particular, my consultant Dawn.

When looking for an admissions consultant, I wanted someone who was ethical and who could best help craft my story and position me for each school's unique criteria. I selected Dawn because it was clear she was a very intelligent, strategic thinker who would give me honest feedback.

While working together Dawn developed a very helpful strategic plan/assessment for my candidacy - a roadmap for mitigating my weaknesses and highlighting my strengths. As someone who is not naturally and consistently introspective, this was feedback was very helpful! I flipped back to this plan often while writing my essays.

In addition, Dawn's honesty and willingness to hold me accountable were important throughout the application process. During one stretch, I was so jammed at work that I was not able to write a quality essay, and instead sent Dawn a half-baked draft. Dawn held me accountable and told me to completely re-do the draft, which was definitely the honest feedback that I needed to submit the best application possible.

All in all, I had a very good experience and it led to a great outcome - I will be going to Wharton next year! Thanks Dawn!

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I applied to four top B-schools in 2016, on my own, and was dinged from all of them without interview. After this difficult outcome, I decided to investigate consulting services to get an idea of how my application could be improved the following year. I spoke to a few other services, including the MBA Exchange and mbaMission. In the end, I decided to go with Stacy Blackman because of how helpful my free consultation call with Bill Chionis was. I did a ding analysis with Caryn Altman. Her feedback was so direct and actionable that I decided to do an all-in package with her for a number of schools.

Throughout the daunting process, Caryn's expertise and support was extremely valuable. Caryn was efficient, direct, friendly, and supportive. I applied only to top 10 programs, and stubbornly didn't add any 'safety' schools to my list, despite my scary results from the previous year. When I asked Caryn what my chances were, she candidly told me that it would be a stretch for many of them. Despite the odds, Caryn worked with me to ensure that I had a solid application and that I could showcase myself in the best possible light. She laid out a strategy which allowed me to understand how all the different parts of my application worked to tell a cohesive story.

Some aspects to my admission that I had to overcome:
- I had a pretty low quant percentile on my GMAT, which I tried to mitigate with the GRE, but in the end I still couldn't get my score up to the average of my target schools.
- I had a nontraditional background for an MBA (start-up). I was aware this could give me a 'uniqueness' advantage, but without Caryn's help I struggled to highlight the leadership experiences I had.
- Lack of focus with respect to my long term goals and how my MBA would get me there.

The All-In Package is quite pricey, but if you feel lost with the application process, I'd say it's worth it (recall that I had come off four brutal dings!). Especially because of my test scores, we knew that the rest of my application, especially essays, had to *really* shine. I consider myself a strong writer, but even so, Caryn had tons of feedback on my essays and was always ready to do another draft. The mock interview gave me such a boost of confidence, and when I did my first real interview I was surprised by how similar the questions were. The flight test feedback that I got from Lisa Anderson was very helpful. Another benefit to the all-in was that I could ask Caryn any general MBA questions I had (ex. interview-related etiquette, what to do when I get a confusing email during the application process, etc).

I also did a mock interview with Erika Olson for HBS, which was excellent, and helped me prepare correctly for the unique HBS interview.

I applied to seven schools in round 1, got interviews with four, and ultimately received offers of admission from two. I am happy to say that I will be attending Harvard Business School next fall. It wouldn't have been possible without Caryn's assistance - thank you to Caryn and the rest of the SBC team!

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I am over the moon with my SBC experience. From the (painless) matching process to the moment I hit submit on the last application (and into interviews!), Scott was my constant companion, coach, provider of real-time feedback, and sounding board.

As I came to the process from a pretty well-trodden path (healthcare investment banking to healthcare private equity), I knew that emphasizing the components of my application that made me stand out from the proverbial crowd would be essential. I just didn't know what those components were. Scott worked with me to find and then to emphasize the ways that my experience differed from my peers' experience, and the informal feedback that I've received to date emphasizes that this was what helped me be successful at Booth, Kellogg and Wharton.

In all, I have no complaints with my SBC experience. I would recommend SBC and Scott to any of my friends and colleagues without reservation.

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I took my GMAT in July, so I was already starting late for First Round applications. From my intro call at Stacy Blackman, I knew they were going to give me honest, up-front advice. CP helped me focus my resume and essays on what actually matters, something that sounds easy, but is far from it. Without CP's help, I would have told a less compelling story that didn't truly reflect who I am and where I want to go.

While the package is certainly expensive, no way around that, I truly believe that it was worth it. I got interviews at all 5 top 10 schools that I applied to, and got in to my top choice.

I did not love the application process, but, thanks to CP and the team at Stacy Blackman, I got where I wanted to go!

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