SBC Was a Good Call

I went through the business school application process recently, and am glad that I used Stacy Blackman Consulting. SBC is responsive, organized, and knowledgeable. I applied to eight top 20 full-time programs for entrance in the fall of 2015 and used SBC’s all-in package for five of them. Ultimately, I was offered interviews at five schools and accepted at three. I am happy and excited to say that I will be attending one of them, a top 10 school, in just a couple of months.

Initially, I had planned on not using a consultant. After reading a lot of articles and books, I felt like I was capable of handling things on my own and didn’t want to spend any extra money. Fairly quickly into the process, however, I realized that I would benefit significantly from some expert guidance. I had taken a week off from work in July to get the ball rolling, but immediately found myself struggling with and taking much longer than expected on some of the early steps of the process, including redoing my resume. On Thursday of that week, I emailed SBC. I had been referred to SBC from a friend whose sister had used them and had gotten into her top choice. Almost immediately after doing so that day, Esther, one of SBC’s principals, contacted me, and before I knew it we were off to the races on an eight-month journey together.

My SBC consultant was Joyce Whang, and I recommend her highly. Joyce is a real professional. She is effective, thorough, and fast. Additionally, it was obvious to me that she truly cared about my outcome. She took the time to fully understand my background and goals, and quickly pinpointed my strengths and weaknesses as an applicant. She was frank and honest with me about these weaknesses, which was somewhat tough for me to take initially but pretty quickly became evident to me as absolutely necessary. In doing so, we were able to develop and pursue a strategy that put my application in the best light possible by highlighting the most unique and powerful aspects of my story while crafting reasonable and persuasive responses for those other aspects of my story that needed explanation and support.

To me, such highly personalized and nuanced help is one of the major reasons to use a consultancy during the business school application process. Personally, I was a candidate at the older end of the applicant age range and did not have some of the other so-called check-the-box qualities or experiences of many other candidates. So, without a doubt, I know I benefitted immeasurably from the guidance SBC and Joyce provided in navigating some of these challenges. In all honesty, there is a good chance that I would not be getting ready to go to the school that I am if I hadn’t made that call to SBC almost a year ago.

Finally, if you can afford it, I recommend going with the all-in package for as many schools as you can. Although higher priced than the a la carte options, I believe it was money well spent because it gave me the full, around-the-clock help and attention that I needed. Good luck to all current and future applicants who read this. I hope you get to where you want to go, and maybe I will see you around on campus.