MBA best admissions consultants FAKE by poetsandquants top 10 reviews

Question

Hi GMATClub,
I am creating a new topic based on: Reviews Rankings-Rep: poetsandquants top 10 ranking, legit or fraud. This is timely because of the ranking issues that poetsandquants has reported with Temple Fox and IE. I personally hired one of the top 10 consultants because of that poetsandquants best MBA admissions consultant ranking, and my consultant was NOT responsive throughout the engagement. I am furious. It’s reckless of poetsandquants to conclude those are the world's most favorably reviewed MBA admissions consultants.

I tried to submit an honest review but my review got DENIED by poetsandquants-- even though I was actually a client trying to share my experiences.

Who else has actual evidence that fake reviews went live OR that real reviews were denied/censored?

bb · Answer

Hi. Thanks for posting I see this reply: https://gmatclub.com/forum/reviews-rank ... l#p2010580 - it seems they have a manual verification process. Are you sure your review was dinged and is still not in the verification queue?

marisalv · Answer

I submitted the honest review a while ago. Since then, many 5 star reviews have gone live on the poetsandquants site for consultants. So, there's no bottleneck.

Npks · Answer

It's not a legit manual system and it was broken until now, BB. Manual is a euphemism for entirely lacking standards. I know of a bunch of fake reviews live on the poets&quants site. I will try to post screen shots of fake reviews here if I can figure how to add images. I brought a couple of those fake reviews-- that were on the P&Q site live--- to Heather’s attention in an email a couple days ago after I saw the forum on Gmatclub. Of course, Heather removed the reviews and actually stated the system had been BROKEN until I emailed her. Heather explained in her email verbatim:
“As a result  , I was able to correct a broken email test verification and also add an I’m not a robot feature. I was able to correct a backend problem.”

Heather went on to explain that their "system" is after-the-fact and sporadic-- only if there are red flags reported. They post all 5 star reviews permanently and then they remove only IF the consultants notices and emails in. Heather said, “In the absence of red flags we publish the post and then reach out for confirmation….yes, there is a lag in catching fake reviews. We are reliant on communication with the consultants and trust in the MBA community.”

Isn’t asking consultants to verify their own marketing efforts 100% void of legitimacy? Gmatclub's review system does not rely on consultant verification only. It's a clear conflict of interest. I was considering attending the Centre Court Festival with my colleagues and have decided not to go after this. I agree this is hypocrisy, and I question the integrity of Centre Court's founders.

Have MBA admissions consulting firms within this top 10 list actually received confirmation requests with each review submission from poets&quants as Heather said?

bb · Answer

Thanks! That does sound very one-sided. Basically if I understood it correctly - all 5-star reviews written by anyone (potentially even service providers themselves) are auto-posted.... that means there is no verification whatsoever.

Please do post the screenshots for reference (bottom of the reply screen - click preview to get there).

Thanks!

Posted from my mobile device

Npks · Answer

Per BB’s, the Gmatclub founder, request on the forum titled, “MBA best admissions consultants FAKE by poetsandquants top 10 reviews“ below are just three examples of posted fake reviews that went live onto the poetsandquants site, for those firms represented in the top 10 ranking article. They were fake names, non working email addresses, and not actual MBA applicants. Steve G, Jesse P and CC G didn’t even submit a full name.

Attachments

poets and quants example1.jpg [ 336.53 KiB | Viewed 10415 times ]

Npks · Answer

Here is a second example:

Npks · Answer

Another fake review that Poets and Quants posted without validation of any type

Npks · Answer

Hello BB,
I placed a few screen shots on the forum titled--- Poets and Quants FAKE “best” admissions consultants ranking- PROOF. It took me a while to figure out how to make them convert from a word doc to a jpg.

SGarr · Answer

Npks- good investigative work. Here’s what I see. The article was published in April 2017. I see the “world’s most favorably reviewed MBA admission counselors” in the article by John Byrne and “the most rave reviews” that Heather wrote on the Rankings, Reviews, Rep forum. Actually, at the time the article was written, there were as few as 3 reviews. See the chart below. That’s not a sample size.

Despite that paltry sample size of reviews, John Byrne in his top 10 mba admissions consultant ranking article wrote, "We’ve compiled a top ten list of the most extraordinary members of the club, the select few who have garnered the most raves from highly satisfied clients. All reviews are independently verified by Poets & Quants to insure that they are genuine assessments from recent MBA applicants."

That is all audaciously untrue, even though John Byrne is supposed to be a journalist with standards.

SAMPLE SIZE data for poets and quants top 10 article:

David White---------3 reviews
Stephanie Horn-----5 reviews
Tyler Cormney------6 reviews
Alex Leventhal------5 reviews
Meredith Shields----5 reviews
Suzanne Peltz-------7 reviews

CCsun · Answer

I used to work for one of the firms in the top 10 ranking article. I can tell you that the firm and its consultants never received verification emails from poets and quants. Any consulting firm within this poets and quants directory could fake reviews. That’s so obvious.

This is why Amazon cracked down on fake reviews with lawsuits, why yelp filters away marketing reviews by companies and why GMATclub has school email address and GMAT score report requirements.

BB and others are correct. This poets and quants system isn’t a system at all. It is a “fly by the seat of one's pants" sham that produced an undoubtedly fake ranking and a dishonest article riddled with lies and inaccuracies.

rdaniel · Answer

“Extra extra, read all about it, Something Fishy,” with poets and quants top 10 admissions consultants ranking, just like John Byrne himself wrote in “The New FAKE MBA Ranking ...” on 11/17.

ollumi · Answer

Some of these names may be intentionally abbreviated for privacy concerns, and "verified" by staff, who knows. I'd take any consultant ranking with a grain of salt, having had extremely unpleasant experiences with a number of them - I think like schools, you need to get to know one personally and see if they have a fit with you before you make any significant investments. Aside from your own examples (Fortuna didn't even bother returning my email or giving me a response after I went through the effort of filling out their detailed form, a "we don't think we can help you" would've sufficed, guys), StaceyBlackman, Amerasia also gave me horrific experiences - or non-experiences, as it were, despite their high ratings both here and on PoetsandQuants.

I'd speculate that demand for their services is much greater than their supply of consultants, so that they have a much more assembly line like process of narrowing down targets and procuring work, but that is pure speculation. So in fact, all of those reviews could absolutely be true, but you just happen to lie outside their happy-zone for whatever reason and end up getting the "****" treatment. In any case, yes, rankings don't matter half as much as you think it might, when it comes down to your own individual case.

jamesstavros · Answer

when I looked at the poet and quant consultant directory the only company that is a featured advertiser (featured coach) is fortuna. they are also a co founder of centre curt and none of this is disclosed in the article. Heather wrote, “those consulting firms did not pay for placement in that piece,” but didnt mention the obvious pay-for-play by Fortuna. Fortuna may not have paid for the article specifically---but they pay Poets and Quants to be at the festival and at the top of their consultant directory. This seems really cozy and now makes sense why the top 10 ranking doesn't have validation. Poets and quants has incentives of their own.

JohnAByrne · Answer

I've read with interest your numerous posts here and have to tell you that you are dead wrong. Our story on the most well-reviewed admission consultants in our directory is just that and nothing more: A list of the ten most reviewed people in the directory. Every review was verified and is accurate. I also find it appalling that you would hide behind an anonymous identify, attempt to post fake reviews in our directory, and decline to answer or acknowledge the emails I have sent to you personally, inviting you to have a conversation with me about your allegations which are completely untrue and libelous.

When we launched the directory years ago, our review process involved double-checking IP addresses, dealing with reviewers directly, searching LinkedIn, and checking with coaches. One day, we had a negative review come on the site, and the coach it was for denied that person was a client. That coach is no longer listed on the site, but the experience led us to conclude that we needed to change our process, which up to that point had been to post first, then verify and, if necessary, remove reviews that could not be verified.

Sadly, you tried to abuse this system, posting several fake reviews. A couple of them were indeed posted but you were responsible for this. They were all removed from our site within 24 to 48 hours, by the way, after contacting the consultants who told us that you were not a client. Then, after you yourself posted the fake reviews, you went on this ridiculous rampage. I have no idea what your motivation is. But I'm calling you out on your unscrupulous behavior.

While this has proven to be a waste of resources, we have learned a few things. First, our partnership with the community of admissions consultants worldwide is as strong as we had hoped. We have been honored to work with them and truly these firms as partners in our mission to create social and economic mobility for young, eager professionals and do-gooders. Second, we learned that no matter what we do, we will have trolls and time-wasters and, yes, it matters how we handle questions of our, and your, integrity.

The bottom line is this: We have implemented a new two-part email verification system, and we have reinstated the outreach to coaches prior to publishing reviews. Furthermore, we will continue to look for duplicate IP addresses and probe deeper when reviews are suspicious or negative, or just to spot check.

Best,
John A. Byrne
Founder & Editor-in-Chief of PoetsandQuants.com

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MBA best admissions consultants FAKE by poetsandquants top 10 reviews

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