I feel fortunate to have worked with Katy on my re-application to the Stanford GSB and MIT Sloan. Working with Katy was an outstanding experience from start to finish. From our very first free consultation, it was clear that Katy not only had a deep understanding of the MBA admissions process, but also was genuinely passionate about helping clients succeed.

Katy really understood me – my background as an applicant from Asia, my career aspirations and what motivates me. I would recommend anyone to work with Katy if they are looking for someone who can guide them not only through the applications, but also through a journey of self-discovery. Katy was professional, friendly and encouraging throughout our time working together. Thank you Katy!

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I might be biased, but Katy Lewis is simply the best. She helped me get into Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, Northwestern Kellogg, and a few other top10 programs with half- and full- merit-based tuition scholarships.
As an older candidate in the biotech industry, and a Chinese candidate, I know it is very challenging to get into top MBA programs, not to mention half and full rides. But Katy helped me realize my dream.
I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to work with Katy on my applications. I would never get into Stanford GSB without her. There are SO MANY things that I am grateful for her, and here are a few key takeaways:
1. The brainstorming sessions. For me, this is probably the most valuable experience working with her. I remember I sent her a 30-page brainstorming document and she read it all and subsequently spent 4 hours with me to figure out my story and my differentiators. It helped me connect the dots, and made me realize the pattern of my life events and the theme of my story. It also inspired me to dive deep into my past experiences and learn how to tell my story. I loved the theme she helped me developed and till this day, I still believe that it truly reflects who I am as a person. And it also constantly serves as a reminder that I need to continue to scaffold on what I have built
2. The editing. She has a fast turnaround time, even when she is on vacation! When I was waitlisted by Stanford GSB and rejected by HBS in round 1, she offered to look at my round 2 materials for free when she was on vacation during Christmas! I really appreciate it. In addition, she is one of the best writers and very detail-oriented! In some of my documents, she even found that I spelled my boss's name wrong!
3. The mock interviews. There are so many useful materials on OnTrack, and I loved these. But my absolute favorite material is her own PowerPoint summaries - very detailed instruction, and very useful tips, and I used it as a "bible" for my interviews. I also loved our mock interview sessions and how she help me phrase my answers and tell my stories.
4. Last but not least, she is such a kind and wonderful person! Extremely smart, and deeply cares about her clients. She is a great mentor and friend! It was a long process and I am grateful that I have her as my mentor!
Highly recommend her!

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It’s a difficult task to be able to summarize an entire business school application process into a single testimonial; it’s an even more challenging task to distill a person’s entire breadth of personal and professional experiences into a series of compelling essays and short answer questions that sneak in just under a restrictive word limit. Katy was able to masterfully do just that, and then some.

On paper, I come from a very traditional and overrepresented professional background when it comes to business school applicants (investment banking / private equity). But I also had a lot of unique and seemingly unrelated interests and experiences that I, at least, hoped could differentiate me if I could figure out how to actually tell them. That was always my biggest anxiety when setting out to begin my application process: I had a complicated story that risked being “all over the place” and incoherent if told incorrectly. I was also on the fence about working with an admissions consultant having never worked with one before. I did introductory meetings with around 10 consultants across a number of firms and none were quite able to see the “real me” behind the traditional background quite like Katy was. I met with Katy twice, but I knew after our first 30-minute intro call that I wanted to work with her. I felt like she was really able to “see” me and my story, which was an immediate weight off of my shoulders.

I won’t shortchange the difficulty of the application process, but Katy really did a wonderful job segmenting it into “digestible” bites to tackle, and she staged it in a way such that I never felt overwhelmed or behind schedule, even with an extremely demanding job. Pretty quickly, Katy was able to masterfully weave a series of disparate an unrelated experiences into a single, cohesive narrative, plucking the right threads from each in a way that I know I would have struggled to do on my own. This, alone, made the whole experience of working with her worth it for me. But it didn’t stop there; Katy was always available to answer my one-off questions and pull form her experience having sat on the “other side of the table” at Stanford. I very much valued her opinion and guidance when it came to the process-related questions and with how to best position my application.

When it was all said and done, I applied to Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, I was invited to interview at all three, and I was admitted to 2 of the schools and waitlisted at the third. While I am obviously ecstatic with the outcome, before hearing back from the schools I was actually quite calm. I knew that, regardless of what the outcome would be, that I had put my best foot forward. And I knew that, with Katy’s help, I was able to put together an application that I was really happy with and confident in submitting. I am fairly certain that I would have had neither the smooth application process nor the outcome that I did without Katy’s help. For that, I will be forever grateful.

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Review for Katharine Lewis:
I come from a background and country where people rarely consider getting an MBA from US, let alone getting into top MBA programs. But I wanted to try. First, I tried on my own and could not go anywhere. So I decided to get advice and see if I have a chance. I had a 30 minutes discussion with Katy and later she reviewed my materials and pointed out the issues in my previous application. She candidly mentioned the risks and realistic chances of someone with my background getting into top MBA schools (which is not that high). I insisted and luckily, she agreed to help despite the risks.

This time, with Katy's help, I managed to get into great schools: CBS, Kellogg, Haas, Johnson, Marshall (Also waitlisted for NYU and 2 others), with scholarships ranging from 25% to 100%.
Katy helped me in almost every step of the way. From listing and reviewing my personal life events and my history, to brainstorming ideas and storytelling, drafting and refining essays, who to pick as recommender and how to approach them, interviews and even asking for scholarships!

Katy is a great coach. Whenever I felt stuck, I asked Katy for her opinion and she would ask questions to explore the situation and then we discussed possible scenarios, fallback plans and strategies. Getting recommendations was one of the hardest parts of the application for me. Katy helped me prioritize potential recommenders and create a proper timeplan in case my first recommenders got too busy or did not want to help.
Katy is also a great friend and companion. Even though the focus of our work was the MBA application, she listened carefully to all my life stories, experiences and she understood my situation. Since Katy knew so much about me and my goals, she offered a lot of useful advice about which schools would match my personality given the culture and network around them.

Review of onTrack Product:
It was a great companion during my application process, from creating my overall story to minute details of different schools. I used it in every step: Learning about schools, story telling about my life and goals, refining story for each school, filling the application form and finally, preparing for the interviews.
Saved me a lot of time with the content that was gathered and curated. Things like Insider Guides, application forms & questions, example of weak and strong essays, examples of interview questions & responses, student contact pages, etc. If I wanted to gather all this info by myself, it would take a HUGE amount of time from me. But thanks to these curated info, I used the extra time to get in touch with students, attend adcom info sessions and online coffee chats etc.
I applied to 10 schools in r1 (I'm EXHAUSTED! :D ), got invited to interview in every school that I applied, except one.

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Katharine's support to my admission to GSB and Wharton was unparalleled. I applied from a traditional finance and demographic background, making it particularly important to me to differentiate myself from other candidates. Through brainstorming sessions with Katharine I was able to iterate on a story that in the process help me discover my authentic voice that eventually is what I believed resonated with the admission committee. In addition, her experience as a consultant truly came through when she was able to make me aware of resources at the different universities that I could highlight in my application. In addition to determining the right strategy, Katharine also will get into the weeds with you, iterating on all aspects of the application as many times as you want. I remember days before the application I would send countless emails on changing few words here and there and she would always be responsive without complaint. Most importantly, and what I believe really differentiates Katharine from the rest, is her unparalleled commitment to you as a person. Katharine took a vested interest me in as a person and went out of her way to connect me with people that would be valuable not only for my application process, but also my personal professional goals. Her commitment really came through when 48hrs before my Wharton application, when she probably was under stress from a lot of her clients, she still provided candid feedback that led to significant changes in my essay because she wanted to make sure we didn't compromise on the quality of the final product. Hours before the application deadline, she then helped me put the final touches on the application, and the efforts paid off with an admission to the university. The last piece was the interview process, during which Katharine agreed to have as many mock sessions I wanted and many of the pointers she gave me actually played out during the interview and resonated with my interviewer. Once again, Katharine highlighted her desire to go above and beyond by trying to find people who had previously been interviewed by my interviewer to personalize my experience as much as possible. Katharine's expertise as an MBA application coach is obviously unparallel, but once again reiterate her commitment to you as a person and genuine desire to go above and beyond for your success. I am truly grateful for Katharine and would not have succeeded without her support.

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Interviewing always felt like the most daunting part of the MBA application process, so I signed up for coaching sessions with Katy primarily to prep for the notorious HBS interview. Not only did Katy ask questions that closely resembled my actual interview, but crucially she helped me perfect my answers and gave me the encouragement I needed to enter the real thing with total confidence!

Given Katy’s personal experience as an HBS alum, she was especially helpful in articulating exactly what makes HBS special, what the adcom is looking for, and how someone with a non-traditional background like myself (tech industry) should present their story. I really appreciated the thought Katy put into crafting a series of questions tailored to my application and her detailed feedback after each mock. Katy successfully demystified the HBS interview and truly transformed me as an interviewee! Beyond the practical help, Katy is simply lovely to work with – she is encouraging, super sharp, extremely knowledgeable, and genuinely connects with her clients.

The skills I honed with Katy didn’t just prepare me for HBS, they carried over into my GSB interview too, and I was ultimately accepted to both programs!! I could not have done it without Katy and I recommend her wholeheartedly to anyone prepping for interviews. She puts in the time, truly cares, and knows exactly how to elevate your game to the next level!

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Katy is an absolute pro and was instrumental in my admission to all the schools I applied to: HBS, GSB, Wharton, and Sloan! I am forever grateful and cannot recommend her enough!

From day one, Katy helped me see through-lines in my life that I had never considered, crystallize my story and communicate it in a way that was clear, compelling, and authentic. Her advice on recommendation letters was game-changing, especially for someone coming from a non MBA-feeder industry. When it came time for interviews, Katy’s prep sessions were second to none. Thanks to her years of experience, constructive feedback and positivity, I walked into every interview confident and ready. There wasn’t a single question that caught me off guard!

Katy strikes the perfect balance of directness, accountability, and encouragement making even the most stressful parts of the journey feel manageable. The relationship never feels transactional as Katy invests in her clients fully. More than that, she makes the entire process enjoyable, infusing every meeting with a few good laughs!

Katy isn’t just an MBA consultant - she’s a mentor and career coach. Her background as an HBS MBA, a McKinsey consultant and a Yale and Stanford undergrad bring a level of insight and mentorship that extend far beyond the application process. Her encouragement to explore new career possibilities helped broaden my perspective and shape my post-MBA goals in ways I had not anticipated!

I’m grateful to Katy not just for the spectacular admission results but also for the life-long connection we’ve built. If you’re looking for the best MBA coach in the business, look no further. She is truly one of a kind and worth every bit of the investment – and then some!

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Hi all! I am a healthcare investor / UChicago grad. I worked with Katy on my apps to HBS, GSB, and Wharton HCM. With Katy’s help (plus a lot of luck), I got into all 3. Katy was fantastic – (1) kept me on pace with timelines (particularly helpful if you’re working a busy job during app process), (2) thoughtful sounding board when fleshing out story, with acute understanding of what does vs. does not resonate with adcomms, and (3) super generous with time (never felt transactional), particularly helpful during interview prep. In addition, Katy is a lot of fun to work with / we became friends over 6+ month app journey. Would highly recommend to anyone serious about getting into their “dream schools”. Best of luck to everyone!

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I am a straight Asian male in finance. I am also a triple HSW interviewee who committed to the Stanford GSB Class of 2027 this week. Katharine Lewis is the bridge between those two statements.

When I started my MBA journey, I was intensely focused on finding “the best” MBA consultant to work with. Having heard stories about nightmare consultant experiences from other friends, I compiled a list of the Top 25 consultants I could find and “interviewed” most of them. Katy stood out as the singular consultant who best understood my story, allayed my fears around being an “ORM” candidate (what a ridiculous term), and had the most outstanding reviews. I hope to add this review to her existing pool of glowing testimonials – there is no doubt in my mind that I made the right choice. She is simply #1.

When we first began our essay writing process, I brainstormed and essentially sent her my life biography. While others might have balked at such a large amount of information, Katy simply took it in stride and read the entire thing. During our first session (she even met me in person), she sat down and immediately said, “What stood out to me was XXX theme.” At the risk of sounding cheesy, I heard her suggestion, which I hadn’t thought about myself, and it instantly resonated with me. I stuck with this essay topic for all three school applications, and the results speak for themselves. Just this session alone would’ve been worth the money.

During the actual application process (3 months this summer), I interacted with Katy more than any other human being. By all accounts, I was probably a nightmare client, filled with constant anxiety, self-doubt, and indecisiveness. Through my daily questions, pings, calls, and late submissions, Katy was my emotional bedrock of calmness, strategic advice, and brutal honesty. Katy brooked no bullshit – as a coach, she had a really good sense for when to light a fire under my ass and manage ME, and when to scale back to be patient and understanding. Her advice and edits were always thoughtful and value-additive, without feeling like they were stripping me of my own voice. It was clear she spent real time thinking through my questions and my work, never just offering cursory and generic platitudes.

The day of the Stanford submission deadline, I still had one entire short essay to write that I hadn’t touched. I finished a draft that morning and sent it to Katy, well after our agreed upon final review deadlines. If she had ignored me, I would’ve understood. It was my fault we were in this position to begin with. Instead, Katy spent the entire morning and afternoon iterating with me on this final essay. I submitted my final application at 3:59PM, one minute before the deadline. Katy believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself. She never wavered in her commitment, even up until literally the last minute. I never once questioned that she was genuinely rooting for my success, well beyond the call of duty.

Then came the interviews – Katy prepared custom mock interviews for each of my three schools. Her mock questions probably covered 75%+ of the actual questions I was asked in each interview. I felt well prepared and confident stepping into the real things. When my decisions came out, Katy was my first call, even before my family and my friends. She was with me through thick and thin, and my successes were just as much hers as they were mine.

Katy is a not an essay copyeditor (although she is good at that too). She is so much more – a strategic advisor, an expert storyteller, a life coach, a therapist, and a friend. Deciding to work with Katy was easily one of the best decisions I made during my MBA process. Coming from someone who was deeply suspicious of paying for MBA consulting, I can tell you that Katy’s services were worth every penny – I could not possibly give a higher recommendation. I simply couldn’t have done it without her.

Katharine Lewis is the Stanford of MBA Admissions Consulting.

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I had an amazing experience working with Katharine. As I am someone who had very little idea about MBA admissions, her help was pivotal for me to get through the applications smoothly. She helped me straighten my story which showcased not only my strengths but also reflected who I am as a person. She helped me structure my resume which showcased my impact points concisely and effectively. She even helped me effectively communicate with my recommenders which was extremely critical as this was the first time they were recommending anyone to a Business School. She took my mock interview for Columbia and her questions were very similar to the ones asked in the actual one. The mock interview made me more confident to tackle the main interview. Apart from everything working with her gave me a sense of satisfaction and calmness that allowed me to give my best shot without worrying much about the result. From Brainstorming Sessions to Essays to LoRs to Short Questions to Kelogg’s Video Essay to Mock Interviews to Answering all small questions effectively her rock-solid support pushed me through all obstacles. I can confidently say that anyone would be lucky to work with her and she is the best that one can work with for MBA applications. I feel lucky that she was the most critical part of my MBA applications and this wouldn’t have been possible without her.

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