"Best" admission consulting companies?

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I worked with a consultant from Aringo and wanted to share my experience with the next generation.
Let’s start as expected, from the end - I was accepted to my first choice – Stanford, and second - Kellogg. All this I could not have done without the professional help and intensity of Aringo.
I began the process at a very late stage, and in reality I squeezed the GMAT, TOEFL, and all the applications into the four most intensive months (in parallel to a demanding job…). Right from the start I understood that without serious help I would not succeed in completing the task.
I understood that without help I had no chance to do all that wan necessary in time and I therefore turned to Aringo. Aringo’s method and the knowledge accumulated there helped me significantly in preparing the materials. Thanks to my consultant, I received daily professional and personal support, a ready ear and advice in every area connected to applying. She helped me not only in editing but also in thinking about the topics and aspects I would want to emphasize and reinforce as the most important. She was there for me always, at any hour, and invested a lot more than required from her role!

My review is purely based on my interaction with Paul @ Amersia Consulting as part of the free profile evaluation call.
After having spoken with atleast 8-10 different admission consultants, I was nearing a point where I had almost decided to not appoint one. All, except one call, followed a similar pattern of me doing the talking for first 10-15 mins with intermittent (and very obvious) responses to my questions. The next 15 mins were then about the services, how are they are so unique compared to that other consulting company, etc etc. It was then that I read about Paul on this forum and requested for a call.
The first call, scheduled to be 60 mins, went on for 2 hrs 30/45 mins. There was no salesmanship at display, but I almost felt like I was talking to a good friend who was genuinely interested in my story and wanted to give me every piece of advice that could help me achieve my goals. It was perhaps the first call where I frantically took notes. Paul not only is a good listner, he truly assimilates what you say and offers very straightforward and genuine advice. His knowledge of schools also seems real from whatever little interaction I had and he was very prompt and detailed in responding to my follow-up questions.
While I didn't eventually go with him for a complete 1/2 school package owing to commercial contraints, but I plan to get his help to review my application at a later stage and would sincerely recommend him to anybody looking for genuine help.

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Before applying for an MBA program in the Fall of 2012 I spent quiet a bit of time interviewing all the top MBA consultants. My background is non-traditional with a below average GMAT so I knew I had an uphill battle in front of me and needed the best advice I can get. After speaking to all the usual high priced firms with tons of consultants I figured I would be lost among their many dozens of other clients and knew I had to go for a small one man shop. I found Betsy on another forum and scheduled a call with her. She's a no-nonsense HBS grad with many years of Wall St and admissions consulting experience who spent quiet a bit of time with me giving me helpful tips on the initial call. The best part was that she was very reasonably priced and genuinely believed in my candidacy while the others were in car salesman mode and tried to make it sound like they can get me into any school I want.

Working with Betsy was a fun boot-camp experience. I'm a procrastinator by nature so she kicked my butt a few times when I was too lazy to work. She was very straight forward about my written essays, when something was junk she didn't let me hear the end of it! She really helped me figure out and put together my story when even I myself had no idea how impressive it really was. Some essays I had to revise 7 or 8 times before they were perfect. Her turnaround time was scary fast, sometimes I wondered if she ever left her computer. For my last school I only had a week to do the essays however Betsy was very accommodating and worked hard with me to get it perfected by the deadline. It must have been my best set of essays yet as I ended up receiving admission and a partial scholarship to a top 10 ranked MBA program. I also applied to 2 other top schools and was waitlisted at one, and dinged at another.

I highly recommend working with Betsy. If you are looking for someone who will write your essays for you, she is not it! You will work your butt off to achieve your true potential!

If you are serious about your candidacy I highly suggest investing a tiny percentage of your MBA tuition money on hiring the best consultant out there, she can make your investment pay back in dividends (aka your dream school and scholarship). After I finished working with her and before I heard back from any schools, I had already recommended her to another friend of mine. He got into 2 of his dream schools in the 2nd round!

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Hi All,

On this forum I want to share my story - My sprint to a Top US bschool.

March 6th, I talked to Rahul for the first time. April 23rd I got an admit from a US top-30 B-school with 100% tuition scholarship.


I contacted Rahul (MBAdream.in) in March when the international deadlines for all US schools were over. The first thing he told me was “Don’t apply this year, you have a better chance next year”. But I convinced him that I want to give it a try this year only. He agreed and gave me a very good deal. He didn't make any big promises but just said that "We'll try our best and we'll both have to work for it".

My profile was very simpleton. What can an IT guy achieve in 3 years after all. But Rahul projected my strengths very well, wrote some really focused essays for me. He also helped me in preparing my Resume, and scholarship essays. He kept everything simple. Also he was very responsive over emails, Skype and phone which made me feel connected. He also shared an interview questionnaire and helped me with my (interview) weaknesses. All in all he gave me hope and gave me the confidence that I’m good.

Initially our plan was to apply to around 9 to 10 Bschools. He didn’t want me to spend much, so I applied only to the colleges which granted me application fee waivers. By the time I had applied to 7 colleges, I had 5 interview calls lined up (US and Germany). Even before I could complete all my interviews, I got an admit from a US top-30 Bschool with a scholarship of $95000 which amounts to full tuition fee waiver. And all this we did in less than a month.



Feel free to PM me about my application experience and I will be happy to share the tale of my journey.

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You should definitely try MBADream. I had used their services and they offer excellent consulting for a very reasonable price too. I understand the need to be economical and yet have a top notch consulting for your MBA admissions. I was in the same dilemma and a friend of mine introduced me to Rahul who runs MBA dream. After availing his service I have now got admitted into a top 30 college with 80% scholarship.

After a disaster of applying b-schools myself in 2011, I decided to work with a consultant in 2012. Someone who had a very successful application season recommended Alex on the Chinese site forum.chasedream.com. So I contacted Alex Leventhal (from Prepmba.com) and he responded right away and scheduled a free 30-min consultation. His straightforwardness, genuineness and easy-to-approach manner made me choose him. During the initial consultation, Alex took the time to get to know me and made sure he had answered all my questions, and our conversation went beyond the scheduled 30-min length.

Working with Alex has been a great experience. He responded all my questions within hours, and the turn-around time for each essay was 24-48 hours. When he was super busy with other schools’ deadlines approaching, he will notify you that he would take a bit longer to get back to you, which is quite understandable. He will not forget you! Since I come from a scientific background and I had no idea how to explain my work, Alex supplied me essays from other scientists whom he had worked with. This was very helpful. When I still couldn’t write my story clearly, Alex would talk to me over the phone and walked through my thoughts and turned it into a plain language. He took great effort in understanding my story.

I strongly recommend using Alex, and use his multiple school-packages to get started, so you don’t need to worry about going over your budget. Alex will not satisfy with mediocre essays and he will make you change essays as many times as necessary. And during the whole process, there were ups and downs. But every time after I talked to Alex, I felt motivated and ready to work on my essays again.

Alex also helped me craft out a clear career path (short/long-term goals), which is very critical in the application, and made my stories readable . I got into Darden and with a scholarship that I have never imagined!


Darden '2015

Request everyone who is writing a review (or who has already written one) and has low number of posts, to contact me or any of the moderators if they wish to remove the 'non-genuine post' warning.

This is a great resource for future applicants and it will be great if we can keep this clean.

Thank you!

Moderators-What's credibility of this kind of post..? The user himself edited the post as 'Moderator's note...' This person has joined on the same day it's posted and is saying that "membership over 6 months and over 50 posts...!"...That's funny!

bb-If you've time please see this and I think this should be marked as low credibility by GC like in other same kind of posts...

Hi,

You state that, "Unlike other consultations I had, Tyler was honest..."

My question is, which consultants did you speak to that were not honest? Forgive me for sounding skeptical (I am), but some of these posts make me NOT want to use services because of how blatantly fake these reviews are.

Alex Leventhal from Prep MBA is exceptional and I am confident that there is no way I would have been accepted into the Ivy League program I was, if not for him (sorry for the vague reference to Ivy League but I'm going for a degree of anonymity).

I'm an international student (from Australia) and the conversion of our grades to a 4.0 system is seriously rubbish - whilst Adcoms know this, I still had something like a 2.0 undergrad GPA when converted. When I found this out I freaked. I had a GMAT of 690, which is also below the average for anywhere good.

I approached Alex (and a bunch of other consultants) to get a gauge of my chances at being accepted anywhere respectable. Alex was the only one that didn't bullshit me, which is the simple reason for going with him at the time (I wasn't referred to anyone).

The biggest thing that Alex did was help me craft a narrative of my life, from what I've done, to where I want to go. It sounds simple but I can't stress the importance of this enough. It's very hard to draw out the stories that make you special by yourself. I found that it's because you are living your life and the things that might be gold to admissions are everyday to you. Alex identified what stories I should be telling (that I hadn't even considered as important) and helped craft a whole narrative of my life through the essays and resume, so admissions got the best possible understanding of who I am and why they should accept me. It was astounding how poor my first attempt at the essays was compared to the end product.

After getting interviews at every place I applied (again only Ivy League schools), Alex helped me conveying the right stories from my life in an interview. Breaking down stories into key components that needed to be hit and practicing with me how to deliver them, and to which questions they should answer.

I would consider myself a 'high needs' client for him, and he gave me all the time I needed, without ever making me feel like I was taking up too much time, in order to produce a polished product to deliver admissions.

The experience is very personal and probing into your background and what you really want in the future. You really can't put forward a lie, or admissions will see through it. You work with him and him only, not getting palmed off to a junior consultant or anyone. You get to understand that he genuinely wants you to succeed, in what is the really onerous task of getting into a business school.

I honestly can't recommend Alex enough for anyone, whether you're worried about not getting in (like me) or just wanting to nail getting into the best school possible.

Hi everyone,

I highly recommend my consultant Alex Leventhal from Prep MBA.

I initially contacted a number of admissions consulting firms, and immediately Alex’s service stood out in that he handled the intro call, and not a sales intermediary. He spent 45 minutes with me in the initial consultation even though he said that he would spend 20 minutes. He really took the time to know me. I could tell he was passionate about his service and helping me think through the critical issues. Many companies suggest you can get into the top schools without spending careful time-Alex was quite honest about my chances at a range of schools based on what he called “my MBA vitals”. His PrepMBA business is his, and he does not have a team of junior staffers. He is a Harvard MBA, very articulate and funny, and will not BS you.

Before I decided to work with him, he helped me to connect to a former client that he previously helped. We had a Skype conversation and talked about working with Alex. His honesty and his professionalism are the key decisive factors for me to work with him.

Working with Alex proved to be amazing. His service was very personal and he was almost always able to accommodate my schedule and last minute queries. I did a 2 school package and got into both schools including my first choice, Wharton. The time we spent thinking through my career plans, and how they connected the dots with my previous experiences was probably a huge reason why I got in. I was not really sure what I wanted to do and I was going to write about a career direction that was not really supported or well explained.

The two things about him that most stand out are his creativity and his sense of essay structure and logic. He was always able to come up with a different angle or way of looking at my experiences and I was always amazed that we got the essays down to the tight word limits.

Furthermore, Alex kindly accommodated his schedule to help me prep the interviews under tight schedule. His two interview prep sessions gave me the confidence and the skills to present myself truly and professionally.

Some of my friends used consultants and had fine things to say about them. But I feel strongly that Alex is uncommon. He is sincere, hard working, brilliant and often made me feel like I was his only client. Getting into B-school is more of an art than science. The science part you have already done with your GMAT prep. Having someone like Alex to guide you through the “art” side of the application has been a eye opening journey to know yourself better but also presenting the best of you to the business schools of your dreams.

Some users don't want to come out in public with their usernames on this thread and use a new id. "Membership over 6 months and over 50 posts...!" means that the original id of this user had these many posts.

REVIEW: Prep MBA Admissions Consulting - Alex Leventhal

I can honestly say that I would not have gotten into Columbia Business School if it weren’t for Alex Leventhal at Prep MBA. As a candidate, I had a below average GMAT score (sub-700), bottom of the acceptable GPA range, generic work experience (investment banking), and no other ‘special sauce’ that really stood out. As I thought such was the case, I knew I had to look inward and write some amazing essays. After brainstorming with Alex, I felt differently about having no ‘special sauce’ and had the confidence to write great essays about parts of me that I didn’t realize were unique and interesting - Alex proved his weight in gold.

I was starting the application process and after talking to several friends, decided that I would ‘play the game’ and find an admission consultant to help me with my applications, and most importantly, my essays. My good friend highly recommended Alex Leventhal at Prep MBA so I gave him a call to learn about him and his process.

After speaking with Alex Leventhal for about 30 minutes on the phone, I knew he was the right person to hire as an admission consultant. Alex was candid and straight forward with his general admission advice and as I would soon learn, an amazing and creative business school essay consultant and fun person to work with.

Alex deeply understands the ‘MBA admission game,’ especially when it comes to the application essays. Alex closely guided me as I struggled think of unique and creative essay topics, and by the time we were done with our brainstorming sessions, I had come up with amazing essay topics. I consider myself to be a decent writer, but with Alex’s help, I learned how to write interesting, creative, and engaging essays. Alex also did an excellent job editing my essay drafts, a key part of the writing process that I found extremely helpful.

Alex’s consulting process is really what I think separates him from other consultants. Alex gave detailed, thoughtful and candid advice at all times and I could really tell he was thinking about me and preparing for my sessions. He also did a great job keeping me on track – he was keen to keep me on pace to be sure I met all deadlines with time to spare.

Overall, I 100% recommend Alex as an admission consultant and again, with all honestly, I am confident that I wouldn’t have gotten into Columbia Business School if it weren’t for his consulting services.

Thank you Jumsumtak!
That's correct - moderators have ability to lock posts and prevent authors from editing them and removing or adding any text and misrepresenting the authenticity.

Background:

I’m posting under a new id to keep my real identity under wraps and will work with the moderator to verify my information.

This post will be lengthy since I know when I started this journey, I wanted lots and lots of details and liked the lengthy posts. I've also posted this under the consultants review section.

I work as an IT consultant and thought I had a pretty good work experience and personal life story. However, I have an average GMAT score and I didn’t climb Everest during a stop-over to my summer hobby of saving starving children in Africa. In other words, didn’t think I had a special story to tell to get me into a top ten school.

However, after doing my own research and attending info sessions, I felt encouraged enough to go all out and give it a good fight. As a result, I was armed with tons of questions when I interviewed the admin consultants. Amerasia was the last on my list to call, and I almost didn’t do it since I had felt so strongly about my previous meeting with another company.

Adam Hoff’s incisive questions and perspective on my goals were so unique that I knew I wanted more of such insights for the rest of my application process. What I also really appreciate was his low key attitude in not pushing for a sale, and he would’ve been fine if I took his ideas and went off with another consultant. He recognized that it’s just not about ideas, but about finding a person who matches your personality to work with you in the weeks/months ahead on the application.

Working Style:

Adam’s primary mode of interaction with me was via email, so you have to be comfortable about the idea that you will not be having regular phone meetings. However, he was always willing to take a call if I needed it. In some ways, the emails work much better as I have them as notes to refer back on.

Adam always kept to the schedule we agreed upon, but his laid-back demeanor helped me keep a cool head as I was debating various issues (strategy on retaking GMAT, which story to tell for my essays, etc) while facing pressure of deadlines.

Also, I had a ton of questions throughout the process, but Adam was always patient and thorough in answering them. Sometimes even re-answering as I would say, “I know we already talked about this but now I have a different angle, would you still think…”

All in all, I felt I received the support I needed and was actively cheered on throughout the process.

Application:

During my initial conversations with Adam, we discussed my three target school in terms of both fit for my goals and what are my realistic chances. His insights were valuable to me in that he knew the school cultures so that he confirmed that I made good choices for schools that can help me achieve my goals. Also, Adam helped me navigate through my perceived pros and cons for the schools in the lucky event that I got multiple acceptances.

Regarding chances for an admit, Adam was always upfront and never gave me false promises (besides, I wouldn’t have believed him!). Given that Adam has worked with many candidates, it’s great to hear what I thought was a mundane background was actually unique. I don’t think Adam was giving me BS either since we were pretty candid about GMAT score or other areas that can be dinged.

Resume: This was an added bonus for me since I thought I had a strong resume, but Adam’s critique really brought it up another notch.

Interview: Adam brought in an outside expert to run the prep interview with me which really helped shake out some nerves as well as get another perspective on how I tell my story. A mock interview with Adam would not have been the same since I had a comfortable relationship with him by then, and having to talk to a total stranger was closer to the real deal.

Essays:

Working with Adam on the essays was great since it’s been a long time since I had written something for school, and didn’t realize how much business jargon and banalities crept into my writing. Since Adam was knowledgeable about the school culture of the programs I was interested in, he was also able to help me tailor the side of my personality and goals that would best appeal to each school. I still was being true to myself, but Adam helped me put my best foot forward.

While working on the essays, Adam typically responds within the day for questions, and within a few days for essay edits. I always got responses earlier than what I expected when I was facing deadlines and tried to crunch in more changes. In fact, Adam dug changes out of me even when I started getting sick of writing essays (doing several of them in a row will really get to you after a while!!). He also helped me turnover ideas when I was stuck… one method we used is for me to send key points for the essay so I won’t waste time writing the whole thing and have to do major revisions.

When I look back at what I started with, and then compare the drafts with the final versions, I’m amazed at the difference!

Results:

Got in two Top 5 schools and dinged in a Top 3 school (GMAT was the culprit, but I believe Adam’s help gave me a fighting chance).

In summary, only you can decide whether to work with an admin consultant and who to go with. You have to be honest with yourself about your chances and then do your homework in asking all the right questions during the free consultation. For me, it was a good experience in more ways than one, and I’m glad I went with Adam and Amerasia. I may question at what my outcome would’ve been had I done it alone, but I don’t question that having Adam there made the journey much easier in dealing with the stress and uncertainty, and the experience more enriching in terms of insights about myself and my goals.

One final thought: I knew I had decent chances, but I wanted to improve the odds in my favor. Besides, last thing I wanted to do was to look back and regret that I didn’t do everything possible to make my dream come true.

Best wishes with your application!

Prep MBA was recommended to me by a colleague who had worked exclusively with Alex Leventhal the previous year. My colleague, who was accepted to both GSB and HBS, had described how Alex familiarizes himself with his clients so he can effectively guide each through the business school application process. What my colleague did not mention was the countless hours Alex spends with each applicant, the creativity with which he approaches every essay and the structure and knowledge he brings with his experience.

Alex exceeded my (very high) expectations on all fronts. He is hard working and really brings a personal approach to helping you. Unlike some other consultants, Alex does not pass off his clients to junior staffers. He is direct with his feedback and very responsive, making the process less painful and more efficient.

I really think that Alex is unique and his dedication uncommon. I give Alex a lot of credit for helping me get into my top choice and highly recommend using him.

What about Alice from menlo coaching? Has anyone ever worker with her? Thanks!