From 0 to 100 - Reapplicant Going to Booth with Scholarship

I am a reapplicant (dinged at 4 schools, only 1 interview), and Margaret Strother was my consultant for the six schools I applied to (2 of which were reapplications). She was not formerly an AdCom or an MBA graduate, but she’s a fantastic writer, confidant, and advisor. She does MBA application consulting full time, so she devotes all her energy into understanding the changes and demands the AdCom have of successful applicants.
She was very conscientious in laying out how difficult and challenging the process would be while still making sure I kept my morale and confidence up. I cannot stress enough that working with a consultant is a two-way street; the consultant is not there to write your essay for you and they can only do their best work when you do yours.
At the start, Margaret reviewed my prior applications and my prior recommendations, figuring out where I needed improvement. We spent a good deal of time figuring out an overall strategy and we spent a lot of time batting around ideas for essays. We had six to seven drafts of each essay, and she was not afraid to say that the story wasn’t working and that we should rebuild from the ground up. She was also very sharp when identifying when my drafts for one school were too close to essays for another. When three of the schools had deadlines within a day of each other, she was extremely hardworking, turning around essay comments in very short order. Margaret was also easily available to answer non-essay related questions, which was very helpful with a number of the application forms. When interviews hit, she was able to give me great pep talks and advise me on a general theme for the interviews.
I also used the SBC flight test to tighten up my application for one of the schools, and the SBC Wiki was very useful as one-stop shop for general information and deadlines. The school guides were a nice complement as well.
With all this fantastic support, I came away with 5 admits (1 school I withdrew from after getting to the interview stage), 2 of which gave me substantial scholarships. I firmly believe that I would not have been as successful, and possibly staring at the dark abyss of R3/reapplying next year, without Margaret’s help. Instead, I’m going to Chicago Booth.