"Best" admission consulting companies?

Part 2 of my experience...

Amerasia

Pros
• Cheaper than other consultants especially on multiple school packages
• Polite and very welcoming in their approach

Cons
• Comparatively new to the market and for me that lack of experience showed when I compared them to the other consultants
• Not aggressive in terms of teasing out stories and coming up with new ideas
• Not prompt in their responses. Turnaround time ranged from 24 hrs – 5 days in my case


My own, TOTALLY UNSCIENTIFIC, Rating: 3/5


MBA Apply (Alex)

Pros
• Honest and genuine guy – he was really interested in helping me achieve my goal and didn’t once try to upsell or anything else like that. Quite funny with this comments too!
• Offered plenty of general opinion about schools and was happy to discuss options
• VERY prompt. For 99% of my essays, I got a 24hr turnaround. For shorter emails with single questions, it was even 2-3 hrs sometimes.
• VERY patient. I re-wrote one essay nearly 8 times and he didn’t once get agitated.

Cons
• I didn’t find the interview coaching as useful as Sandy’s and it was a bit expensive at $375 USD!
• Could have been more aggressive in terms of teasing out stories and suggesting ideas (note: Alex is really good but when compared to Sandy, he could do slightly better)


My own, TOTALLY UNSCIENTIFIC, Rating: 4/5


HBS Guru (Sandy)

Pros
• The grand-daddy of admissions consulting. Many many years of experience which really shows when you work with him
• Excellent at helping you create great stories and setting yourself apart
• His interview practise was absolutely fantastic and I’d HIGHLY recommend the individual package to anyone considering getting help – even if you don’t sign Sandy for the essay package just pay him for the interview one (around $300 USD I think)

Cons
• Very hard to work with - You’ve gotta be careful about not stepping on his toes at all times and have to follow his instructions to the letter (for example his aversion to attachments and specificity around email subjects). Plus because he's always in high demand, he's very picky and a tad bit egoistic (if I may say)
• You really have to fight for his time – if you slack off (u send your essays intermittently etc) then he’ll slack off too. I faced delays of upto 4 days sometimes which really made me wonder whether he’d even bothered to read my essays.
• Expensive - Each school is $2600 USD. No package discounts.
• Very characteristic writing style. If you gave me 5 essays I could pick out “Sandy’s work” within 2 min. And im sure that if I can do it, so can HBS/Stanford/Wharton. Not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. Personally, I used his help to get the story right and then altered that ‘trademark style’ to suit me.


My own, TOTALLY UNSCIENTIFIC, Rating: 4/5


My Advice: I'd pick between Alex or Sandy (depending on individual preferences). I'd take a 2 school package and pick those 2 schools who's essays overlapped the most with my other schools. I'd then take Sandy's interview prep in the end.


DISCLAIMER: The above is entirely my personal opinion and I’d be happy to hear from others who’ve had a different experience to mine. When I started my hunt for admissions consultants, I was hard pressed to find good articles where people talked about their personal experiences so I decided that after I’d gone through the process, I’d certainly write something up so that others could benefit. I hope you all find this useful.

If anyone’s still got any specific questions, feel free to PM me and I’ll try and get back to you as soon as possible.

Hi redjam17:
I wanted to take a minute to address your comments. I am sorry (and surprised) to hear that you do not think highly of the services that I provided and to first learn about it from your post.

Based on another one of your posts here (low-undergrad-gpa-success-stories-79977-80.html#p908658), you listed your stats as:

GPA: 2.7 non-US university
GMAT: 700 Q47 V38
Waitlisted: Ross, Duke
Admitted: Cornell, Rotman
W.E.: 3 yrs engineering

I only work with a limited set of clients each round and I pride myself on maintaining excellent relationships with them. That is, I know their stats, backgrounds and personalities. Your stats did not immediately ring a bell with me (as representing one of the clients I worked with this past year.)

In fact, I can say with a certainty that approaches 100% that you did not work with me this past year. I understand that you used 2 consultants, but I had no client with any combination of these schools this year. This is why I also find your "turnaround time" statement to be particularly puzzling. Is this assessment based on your experience directly with me or your friend's (the friend you reference in your post) experience with me?

Additionally, Amerasia has been in business since 2006. Although you define my organization as "comparatively new", I certainly disagree with the lack of experience or resultant lack of school insight on my part. Additionally, I served as an executive with one of the largest test prep and admissions consulting firms in the world. I certainly repudiate your statements.

If I am off the mark in my comments above, I welcome you to PM me or email me at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com. While I felt it necessary to response publicly to your assessment, I believe that this issue should have been handled professionally by first seeking out remedy offline. In my experience, forum anonymity never supplants respectful and constructive behavior.

Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti


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Dear Paul,

Thanks very much your comment. I must admit I was wondering how long it would be before you responded

I was a client with your firm last year but have intentionally taken the precaution to not list out the schools I had signed you up for. Should you require more proof, I still have my receipt of payment to Amerasia from last year (along with a lot of email correspondence) and would be happy to send it to the forum moderator as proof.

Please understand that I have no intention of berating you or showing you (or your organisation) in any negative light. I also do not wish to seek a 'remedy' offline because for me the application process is over and I'm focusing on whats coming up.

I have merely shared my personal opinion for the benefit of other GClubbers and they are free to make their own decisions. In my case, the "turnaround time" was a real issue and I wanted to ensure that I shared that with the others so that they can be sure they know what they're getting themselves into.

Regards,
redjam

P.S. I still stand by my post and encourage fellow GClubbers to post their experiences - especially if they are contrary to my own.

Hi All,

If anyone wants mor einformation on Sandy (in addition to what Redjam has posted), please free to PM me
Personally I would give Sandy 3 or 3.5 at the most - he is good but he sure does have his negatives.

Elaborating from what Redjam posted on his forum - working with Sandy has its positives and negatives.

Positives

1) Sandy really helped me tease out my story. When I wrote the first draft of my essay - it was fairly generic and sort of just scratching the surface of what really happened. Sandy forced me to go back to the board and really nut out the details, which would have been hard without his input.

2) Sandy provides strategic advice on your essays – so he really helps you frame your essays in a way where it comes across as impactful. I wont’s say he stretches the truth but he helps you write it in a way that shows you in a positive light

3) At the beginning of my session – Sandy spent an hour with me on the phone where we talked about different aspects of my personal and professional life and we were able to come up with some quick themes to get me started straight away.

4) He provides copies of past successful essays and these are helpful when you are trying to draft your story up

Cons

1) I think one of Sandy’s biggest negatives is that although he provides strategic advice on your essay – this is on a per essay basis rather than on your entire application. Now what I mean by this is Sandy will look into your essay and come up with a way to spin your story – but after all your essays are done – he doesnt take your whole application away and read it in totality to ensure your stories/essays fit together as a whole and that there are no gaps in your application

2) Sandy has no time – and this is reflected in the quality of your edits. His edits of my essays could not have taken more than 5 or maximum 10 minutes. His turnaround time is 4 days – so every time you tweak your essays it will be 4-5 days before you hear back – in fact if Sandy responded within 3 days, I would feel extremely lucky. Point 2 ties into point 1 – because Sandy’s turn around time is long (probably due to too many clients), there was no way he has a view of your application in totality – so while our individual essays could be great, put together your story could be pretty lopsided.

3) In addition, as Redjam pointed out - Sandy has this very distinct style of writing that one can easily pick out. I know another student who worked with Sandy and have a copy of his essays and some of our transitions and conclusions are same. To be fair though, I don't think Sandy was trying to copy-paste stuff across but his signature style so distinct that its easy to recognize (and most likely for the adcom as well)

4) No attention to detail – final drafts are very unpolished. When you are 75% there he will pretty much ask you to buzz off and not email him that essay back – can be issue for perfectionists.

5) I am not going to go into how tough he is to work with as that is already widely discussed and documented – but what’s said is a 100% true.

kudos to redjam and sapphiral for posting their experiences. After reading them, I have no doubt in my mind that these are genuine. There are a lot of fake posts out there - shameless plugs for one consulting firm or the other.

After a lot of research (which basically means trying to read about people' experiences on the internet; in my view just having a free session is hardly going to prepare you to expect what is coming) I have signed up for a consultant and will be working with one. I will post my experience once the dust settles and the whole process is over.

People - if you use a consultant then please do post your experience here for what it really was. Don't reveal the schools etc if you don't feel comfortable but do share. Frankly, the cost of hiring a consultant is not insubstantial and there is very little information out there to even know what one is getting into after having parted with $ right up front.

Please share.

Has anyone tried a ding analysis? I'm considering re-applying R1 this year. From what I've read, I think I'm mostly deciding between Sandy and Alex...

- Sandy, because he seems to be the most experienced and has an "insider" take; that said, I get the sense that he treats b-school admissions as a high-stakes game warranting whatever-it-takes tactics to win
- Alex, because he seems to be more down-to-earth, in tune with what actually matters in life and is able to keep things in perspective; I don't know if he has as much of a killer instinct, so to speak, but I like his emphasis on living a life rather than trying to build an app

Or perhaps more to the point... I think Sandy has better odds of getting someone in (and isn't that what we're paying them for?) but Alex might be a better coach (for short-term needs as well as longer-term life goals).

Again, this is purely my opinion from reading posts written by Sandy and Alex as well as combing through their web sites. I'll update the thread once I've actually had a chance to talk to both of them and have made a decision.

@gmat1011

Thanks for your words of support. I completely agree with you that signing on a consultant isnt a decision that should be taken lightly - theres a lot of money involved and we need to get as many honest opinions as possible to get a fair view of whats happening.

@gaman

I couldn't have summed it up better myself!

Do you mind sharing who you going with ?

BB,

Would you be willing to disclose whether consultants have to pay a fee to pitch their services on your site?

GMATClub is one of the best resources out there for MBA aspirants and admissions consultants are becoming a more pervasive element of the MBA landscape. For those of us that aren't bankers/management consultants, the costs associated with these MBA consultants are not insignificant. It's somewhat disconcerting that merely because some of us can't afford to use a consultant we may not gain entry into a program while somebody of greater means, but not necessarily a better candidate will get that spot because they could afford a professional editor. I guess that's life though. It seems like everybody with an HBS MBA is in the admissions consulting business. In the end, MBA consulting is a rather inefficient, opaque market and I'd be interested in knowing whether the consulting companies that are prevalent on the site pay a fee to be here? If so, would that represent a potential conflict of interest? Some of us can only afford it for 1-2 schools and we want to make an informed decision to give ourselves the best shot.

As it relates to M7, I didn't memorize each of his posts, but I don't recall M7 ever asserting that he had previously used any of the consultants and had a poor experience. If memory serves me correct, M7 disclosed his experiences with different consultants based on the free diagnostic sessions that they offer. M7 was particularly pointed in his comments with respect to Stacy Blackman by telling her to address problems in her organization rather than make apologies. Ultimately, I don't think that M7 was ever disingenous or misrepresented himself as someone who had actually employed a consultant's services. That said, you've got the posts and I don't so I'm open to being told that I'm wrong and M7 misrepresented himself, but I don't think that he did.

Thanks.

Wow What's going on here??
Bb, did you create this site as your personal playground and now do whatever you want, i.e. delete posts at your own discretion, decide who can talk and what can be said, etc? Does that make you feel important finally? Well...I guess, if nothing else does... Sad case.
Get a life, you do need one. And try to move to Iran, they still have a dictatorship there, you should fit in.
Go ahead, LITTLE boss, delete my post on your little wall, it is a useless place anyway, thanks to you. But at least you got paid by consultants, huh?

I think what's lacking is clear guidelines.

Perhaps for consultant reviews (be it for the free call, or otherwise), posters can just add a disclaimer at the end. e.g.

- Disclaimer: This review is based on my paid use of x, y, and z consulting companies for 1/2/3 schools.
- Disclaimer: This review is based on my reading of x and y's websites.
- Disclaimer: This review is based on a free consult call with x and my paid use of y for school a.
- Disclaimer: This review is based on my anonymous friend's experience paying x for help with school a.

etc.

Thoughts?

What's lacking is free speech, not disclaimers.

Guys, I think we are loosing sight of what this forum (and thread) was meant for. I think we all owe bb a chance to reclarify why m7's posts were deleted! Also, I agree with Gryphon's request for more clarity around the role of consultants on this forum and whether there is a potential conflict of interest. However, potentially baseless mud slinging can and should be avoided. C'mon lets be civil.

As for rules around posting consultant experiences, bb's been kind enough to provide those anyway. He's clearly given a recommended format and has also given a general disclaimer. From that point onward, common sense should take over...

This is the same user who registered under the M7 username.
Gives you an idea about the individual.

P.S. I do sometimes want to respond to a post like this in the Ayn Rand style.... but then I stop.
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Thank you for bringing this up. Allow me to happily clarify. I can assure you that not a single post has been removed or that anything has been changed to benefit anyone. I hope you realize that GMAT Club has been around for 8 years and it would be quite a waste of all that effort? I guess think of google who would start inflating the organic search results of paid search sponsors - they would ruin their reputation and nobody would use google anymore. I don't think Google would want to do it and neither would I - the benefit is simply too immediate and too small to warrant such shortsighted and greedy move.

Historically GMAT Club has had a very strict policy back in the day when any time a new consultant other than approved (Accepted, Veritas, and MBA Apply) would show up, they would be removed/banned/etc. I don't know why or how it evolved but that's what several of the moderators felt was right and I was happy to support this.

We have since opened up the Ask Admissions Consultant forums to ALL admissions consultants. We do not charge anyone to post/participate. That seemed to make the most sense and has benefited the community, though it has made the "Ask Admissions Consultants" forum a bit of a zoo.

We do have some real estate on the site to advertise and we offer that space to vendors including Google. It is not performance based, it is just placement and if a vendor wants to have exposure, they can get it. If 500 people sign up or 1, there is no differences. This allows us to fund projects and keep the development going and pays for several people's time including my own but if you take into consideration how much time I have spent/invested and keep investing and how much I got paid back, my hourly rate is extremely low, hence I have a real job.

As to the posts of M7, see it reproduced below. Here is specifically what was posted and I don't think that was posted in the spirit of GMAT Club or in the spirit of helpfulness. I frankly thought this person has had a very negative experience with her but in reality, he/she never have even used her services. I felt this was an unfair post and added no value compared to the hate it contained - do you disagree? I think one way do this post would be to quote/provide sources and perhaps links to reviews (maybe fix 4 spelling errors) - that would be a fantastic post. I contacted M7 and upon the exchange, removed that post. (I have contacted a number of other users who have posted/reviewed consultants with clarifying questions or asking to add more color to their experience. Sometimes to validate their extra positive review or sometimes to understand if a certain consultant had poor practices. This was the only time I ever removed anyone's post in this thread outside of spam, which by the way, we do not delete, just move to a hidden forum).



Now, if you feel that I have inaccurately represented Stacy's services, do a search on GMAT Club, there are plenty of posts of various degrees (positive and negative). Here is one. I think that's a legit post and i have no plans to do anything with it. Just for the background, I have a very involved full time job (I don't live off GMAT Club) and a family which keep me very busy. I don't have time to mess around with a guy who has nothing else to do but complain and be ridiculous. However, I will spend time to keep GMAT Club free of trolls and elitists that I have seen on another forum in 2002 when I started the GMAT Club. PM me if you have any detailed questions - I am not a fan of mass-CC emails.
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Thanks for the post! I don't intend to police this thread outside of deleting SPAM and keeping it organized.
Again, there is no value in artificially manufacturing posts.

And, yes, I agree, let's use common sense. There are real and fake reviews and with some, we'll just never know.

P.S. I have updated the rules to be very simple and basically come down to one - be constructive. I appreciate the feedback and by no means want to discourage anyone from posting their experience!
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I frankly think people should rate the consultants they use on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 (like redjam). Take a look at any survey or employee evaluation or even some MBA recommendation forms - thats what they do. You give a clear idea of where the service quality experience was located for that person.

Constructive criticism and the need to not hurt the interests of admissions consultants is fine, but given what they charge I personally think they can face a public evaluation when there is so little out there to know what to expect. Know that consultants no matter how accomplished are not magicians who can turn a no-hoper into a sure thing. But they are supposed to increase your chances (else, why hire them?). There is always a risk of abuse of things in life. Yes there will be jerks who use consultants and then come back and rant. But there will also be people out there who run into jerk consultants who charge top $ and then don't deliver.

Anyway, thats what I feel and I will post my experience for what it turns out to be.

I have not used a consultant for my admission experience, so I really don't have a good feel for what each one of them does, but I do feel that they should provide a one-pager to their clients that should stipulate what they will and will not do - to set the expectations so to speak. I know they may be eager to sell the service and seal the deal but at the end, the ones that mis-represent their services/level of help should be somehow punished vs. those that do this (potentially losing a client or two as the result of saying - "sorry, this is not what you need") should be rewarded. Again, my hope is that this thread serves as this reward/punishment mechanism. It won't be perfect due to fake reviews but it will work.

At the same time, i think it is very important to set the expectations of one correctly when choosing an admissions consultant and perhaps something we can do collectively is come up with that list of expectations and Do's/Don'ts

I liked this post by redjam17 very much: best-admission-consulting-companies-92923-120.html#p921705 and linked to it from the main/first post. Does anyone have anything else they would like to add to it? (it was posted on the 16th of May, so it is very recent).


P.S. gmat1011 I have added your suggestion for ranking into the list of Rules.
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