Review - Christine H. & SBC

Summary

I can strongly recommend SBC and especially Christine based on my business school application experience. As a result of her excellent work and support I got accepted into Columbia Business School and Chicago Booth.

About me / whom this might help:

I am European (= international applicant) with a background in Tech, working as management consultant. Working and traveling a lot and having very little experience with business school applications, I decided to hire a consultant to help me shape my story so that I would be able to differentiate myself from the mass of management consultants and to communicate that story in the language of the Admission team while being as efficient as possible (due to my daily workload).

In retrospect, SBC and especially Christine not only met but exceeded my expectations by far.

Why SBC

I chose SBC because I believe that SBC has an edge over many other admission consultancies due to its very strong marketing position. By not only hiring a consultant but also the back office / expertise of the entire firm, SBC knows exactly how to position your profile for your respective target school (because they have it done a thousand times before). Through this rich expertise and track record my initial contact, Esther, knew in a heartbeat what I was missing in my application and which consultant – in my case Christine – could support me the best. However, I not only got a perfect match but also access to a lot of reading material, past essays, interview preparation software as well as to Lisa, who was a former Admission Officer and who evaluated my application package from a neutral perspective before I finally submitted it. I believe the best analogy to my thinking is: If you need a surgery and you can chose between a general surgeon and a medical firm that has a specialist for each type of surgery, including yours, who will most likely be prepared for all eventualities?

Why Christine

I believe Christine excels in almost any position including that of an admission consultant. This is because Christine has a very rare combination of an extremely high intellectual capacity, genuity and work ethics. She knows exactly what to do which is reflected in her very clear instructions and in the fact that she never fell behind any deadline, but usually always delivered early over our 6 months. The best example for that is when I decided last minute (48h prior to the deadline) due to a change in my calendar to also apply to Booth. Despite having many other applications, less than 48 hours and not a signed contract for my forth school (yet), Christine was up for the challenge resulting not only in two very intense days with very little sleep for the both of us, but also in an admit from Booth.

While I would have already been more than pleased at this point, there is much more I gained from our interactions and from Christine herself. By preparing my applications, I not only improved my written English, but also learnt how to best position myself in a job interview, by knowing how to best demonstrate my various strengths and capabilities in combination with what sets me apart from others. I believe this is noteworthy, because my work with Christine would still have been fruitful for me, even if I did not gain any acceptance letter.

However, what I loved most about our interactions was that Christine made the application process fun. By finding the right balance between application related and other topics and by making sure that I progressed while allowing me to learn from the process, I truly enjoyed working with Christine. In fact, I was not relieved, but said when I realized that I was done with the application process.