GMAT Club
April 17, 2017
drpsvvardhan

Joined: Apr 20, 2014

Posts: 0

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Dream Come True

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When I started my B school Application I had only 4 weeks time before the dDeadlines.   And I thought it would be prudent to take help of an aAdmissions consultant.   I contacted all the top aAdmissions consultants and most of them took their own sweet time getting back to me and when we talked they said they had set streams of processes that took a certain amount of time, no and were taking their own sweet time.  I needed a consultant who is nimble fast and caters to the individual needs of the client rather than one type fits all. - Assembly line type of consultation Then I called Squareoneprep after seeing some amazing Reviews about Kathryn on Gmatclub.

Most of the Free consults lasted for 30 min and everyone agreed with my story and said you I have a great story and chances to make it into your my dream school.  I always felt something amiss when I heard that. They were all too fast with their assessment. WBut when I talked to Kathryn (the talk went on for more than 80 min) she was very outright and critical of my story.  She said your my story is the same run of the mill story told by every other Indian B school applicant and pushed me to tell her what I REALLY want to do. She sensed I was holding back. 
Then I stated the real intention of my planing to join B schoolwhat I sincerely want to do with my life which and she told was the one which will work really well for megot excited for me, immediately helping me think through why I need B school and why this is the much stronger narrative. She took in great details of the game changing projtect I had done in India with all the figures statistics and results ( I still feel even my B school real interviews didn't ask so many questions). She learned so much about me, and after doing so she  
Then she suggested that I need to look into Harvard Kennedy school also along with the B Schools I was looking at.  I never thought I couldan make it to Harvard but Kathryn's suggestion made me look into it and I took the Decision to apply for HKs along with other B schools 
to it, Then she suggested I take work with Julia Kurnik as consultant foron my applications as she was HKS and MIT and Wharton graduate.  
I was apprehensive about taking using the same consultant for all my 3 school applications.  
But Kathryn knew what she was doing.
and then I started working with Julia 
Julia is one of the most patient understanding and genuine persons whopeople I will have ever meet.   She has great CV which we can only dream off.   She is an entrepreneur and innovation prize winner in MIT.   But she is so humble. I cherished working with her. and it was such a pleasure working on my applications with her . I always used to go intoften felto self doubt but Julia always kept my spirits up by saying I have a great CV and story to tell. S 
But she never overpromised but always cautioned me to be prepared for any eventuality as I was applying for only the Top 3 B schools. S
She spent lot of time understanding my rResume, my work, and My extracurricular activities, my life and my story. We had very little time to prepare my applications. But she gave me a detailed timeline to show me how we would get everything done. Even when I had personal issues that got in the way,
We had very less time 
SOP gave me a timeline 
But I had some personal issues lot of travel in midst that short time 
But Julia always persisted in getting the work done on time with me. In fact we finished all the applications well before the deadline. My resume had to be mMade into many versions of one page two page three page for different schools.  She did it with aplomb.
And tThe highlight of our application was the way she turned helped me with my essays.  I can say Sshe metamorphosed them from a caterpillar into beautiful butterfly. That is the biggest strength of Julia. Kathryn's inputs for my essays was also very crucial. She has an eye of a a business school Adcom and looks at the essays very critically. Her inputs gave me incisive inputs to change my essays and make them very powerful and strong 
Letter of recommendations was another well guided process. Julia gave me all the questions of LOR of B schools categorized into subject wise. This made it very easy for my Recommenders to write the LORs. Or else gGetting some highly placed people with so little time to write LORs for 4 schools is not a easy task. My LORs also came out well due to this process. And then we submitted the applications. Till I got the results I was very apprehensive and Julia always soothed my nerves. saying you will make it  Then I got my first interview call. The mock interview and the inputs about interview wereas so good that I didn't have any issue in doing my actual interview well.  

The most important feedback I want to give is that SOP always responded in any time of the day or week. I always think Kathyrn virtually never sleeps. And Julia has gone out of her way to respond to me calls and queries even the ones which were outside the purview of our contract. It shows the genuinine concern they have for their clients. Once she had a car break down in middle of the highway but still she didnt miss our call. And this is inspite of the fact that we had 12 hours time difference

Today I got into my dream schools, HKS and Sloan, and SOP has played a great role in achieving my dream.  

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