I tend to stay fairly quiet on these forums but I wanted to write about my experience with
Stacy Blackman Consulting because I think it will be helpful for others and I have also read some incorrect information here so thought I could try to clear away some misconceptions/rumors. So here goes, the story of my experience working with
Stacy Blackman Conslting: I started my MBA process about 2 years ago. I was reading articles, doing general research and then decided to hire an admissions consultant in order to gain every advantage. I spoke with at least four differerent companies and quite honestly had a hard time telling them apart. The people on the phone were nice, seemed smart and were very helpful. No desire to bash any of these companies and cannot even remember the names of all of the ones I spoke to, but it was some mix of the ones I find on GMAT Club. I finally spoke with Amy at
Stacy Blackman Consulting. She actually told me to wait a year to apply and retake the GMAT and work on a couple of things in my background. This was the first time that someone seemed to actually care about my application and was not just in a hurry to have me write a check. That left a very big and positive impression on me. I followed her advice, raised the GMAT by 70 points and returned about 7 months later to talk again. Again, she was helpful and informative and incredibly resposnive.
When I decided to sign up the first step was finding my consultant. I read in one of the posts above that
Stacy Blackman has more of a team approach but this was not true - I worked with one dedicated consultant the whole time. So in choosing a consultant I reviewed a few backgrounds and then spoke with two of them on the phone. It took about a week for me to find my match. I ended up working with Fiona who was absolutely incredible. She has been consulting for several years (maybe 5?) and went to Harvard. She is an incredible writer and cheerleader and so organized, professional and impressive.
Fiona helped me with every part of my application with incredible patience. Although I thought she went above and beyond in many ways, especially my interview prep, the biggest thing she helped with were the essays. The essays that we ended up with were very different from what I would have written about without her help. I spent far less time on my career than I would have expected and she encouraged me to write about other things that I might not have otherwise included. We went through many checks, 11 revisions on one set of essays alone.
As I said before I also thought the interview prep was amazing. She spent time with me on the phone, gave feedback and seriously prepared me in a way that benefitted me so much. I was relaxed (more or less) and knew what to expect. She was my point person all the way through though I did take advantage of other
Stacy Blackman resources three times. Fiona also managed that for me. First I had an extra liaison named Maggie check in with me right away and I did decide to show her one essay that Fiona and I had been through so many revisions of, we both agreed that it would be nice to have someone else take a look. She gave some feedback that was helpful and Fiona and I worked through it together. Second, at one point I had a very random, school specific question and Fiona asked someone else on the team who had served on that admissions committee. And lastly, my flight test - which had to be with a different consultant because that is the point of it, to have an admissions person review it like the real thing, seeing it for the first time. That exercise was incredibly useful and again, Fiona managed that and then helped me incorporate some of the feedback. So I felt that I was anchored with one point person the whole time. But
Stacy Blackman has a lot of resources at their disposal and I definitely took advantage of many of them.
I only worked with one company and so can only speak to them but I interfaced with a lot of people at SBC and every single interaction was extremely professional and positive. Now the results...I am going to Stanford. I also was admitted to 2 other top schools and received one scholarship. I was not admitted to Wharton. So I hope that this was helpful - it is my way of saying thank you to
Stacy Blackman Consulting and Fiona and hopefully helping those of you who are at the beginning stages of this process.