I first thought about working with a consultant for my application process when reading on Poets & Quants. It dawned on me that a ton of applicants used consultants, and with a few obvious weak points in my application I knew I needed something to help me look competitive. I ended up selecting SBC because of its historical success, and more specifically Caryn's historical success. I had pages and pages of material of people who loved working with Caryn, and when we spoke on the phone she seemed like a good fit.

Caryn was great to work with and very helpful throughout the application process. She was honest when I needed it and helped me select the schools that I would apply to, reviewed my applications, and helped prep me for interviews. I think I had the impression going in that the consultant would essentially do the work for me and tell me what my goals are - that's not what this is, it is YOUR application but Caryn and SBC are there to answer all of your questions and tell you when you need to work on things. Caryn is FAST at responding, every day I would get feedback on a draft and then every night I would send her a new one. She never took more than 24 hours to respond, which I really appreciated as I was doing 7 applications. More importantly Caryn is honest, when I came up with an idea that wasn't going to look good in adcom's eyes she would tell me to try again. Sometimes I would have 3 or 4 different ideas before we settled on something. In the end I have 4 admits, 2 wait-lists, and only 1 reject from my 7 applications. I'm going to Kellogg where I was even granted a $100K scholarship. I know that if I didn't work with Caryn to understand the MBA application process I wouldn't have received all of this. THANK YOU Caryn.

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I was drawn to Stacy Blackman Consulting after extensive research, I wanted to work with a consulting firm that only took a few candidates and really focused on providing a personalized service. Stacy Blackman Consulting definitely falls into this category. Caryn was help me to identify the things that I wanted from my MBA experience and from that we defined a plan. After this, she worked really hard to understand what my strengths were and designed my applications in a way to best showcase these strengths. We also worked on some weaknesses in my application and she came to very realistic recommendations for those. I would definitely recommend Stacy Blackman Consulting, specially Caryn.

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There's no question in my mind Caryn Altman @ SBC helped me get into Kellogg and Haas (heading to the Bay area this fall!). With a mediocre GMAT score and no quant in my undergraduate transcript, she engineered a tailored, competitive application strategy that mitigated my weaknesses/accentuated my strengths. She's extremely strategic; she's extremely knowledgeable about the entire application process (Full Time, Part Time, etc.); and last but not least - she's extremely hard working and professional. Specifically, my essays were bullet proof after 6 to 8 rounds with her. She's straight forward and says it the way she sees it (it stung a few times, not going to lie!). But during an extremely stressful and confusing process, you need a trusted partner - someone who can guide you honestly and confidently. Working with Caryn was the best decision I made throughout my application process.

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