Thank You Harold! From ding to admitted and beyond

I come from a non-traditional background. An MBA wasn’t something I even considered as an option for me until multiple years into my professional career, so I didn’t know the first thing about doing MBA admissions the “right” way. I entered the 2024 application cycle for the class of 2027 with a solid profile but lacking the fine tuning needed for a competitive M7 application. I was dinged after interview in that application cycle, and I reached out to Harold for the first time in early 2025 for a ding analysis. I never could have dreamed how instrumental someone’s guidance and expertise could be in getting me past “ding” and into multiple top business schools in this past year’s application cycle.

Everything about my experience with Harold is something to compliment. His feedback on my applications were tailored, candid, and fair. He’s great at communicating, whether getting back to you quickly to answer your questions, giving comments on your application drafts, or independently reaching out to see how things are going. He was invested in providing me the best possible chance to have a successful outcome, whether it was through dutifully reviewing the dozens of essay drafts I sent his way, utilizing his MBAMission colleagues as a resource to answer my questions if he didn’t know the answer to them, and even recommending I work with a Harvard-specific colleague of his (shoutout Devi!) to help me better prepare for my HBS interview.

MBA applications are a hard, drawn-out process. You spend so much time studying/testing, reflecting, writing essays, and chasing down recommenders, to name a few. You need to boil the sum of your professional and personal self into these applications, and that’s a lot of work. The difference between my 2024 application cycle and my 2025 application cycle wasn’t that it got easier the second time around - it wasn’t - but that I had someone in my corner who I knew was genuinely invested in me and wanted to do everything in his capacity to help me succeed. He even helped me reach beyond what I thought I was capable of. I didn’t even apply to HBS the first time around, and now I am a very excited member of their class of 2028! Thank you Harold, I cannot recommend you enough!