| All Reviews > Katharine Lewis > Katharine Lewis Reviews |
REVIEWER IDENTITY VERIFIED by school email address [?]
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
My spouse and I were fortunate to work with Katy as our MBA admissions consultant. Our goal was to attend an M7 program and pursue an MBA together in the same city, and we achieved it!
From the beginning, Katy demonstrated a deep understanding of the MBA application process. I called her two years ago, and she spent over an hour speaking with me, way exceeding our allotted time. She quickly grasped my story and identified key themes. My spouse also had a pleasant consultation call with her. Katy sent each of us a thoughtful debrief, and I immediately knew I wanted to work with her. Despite still having over a year before applying to business school, Katy welcomed my numerous questions and provided thorough answers. She even advised trying the GRE if I struggled with the GMAT. Although switching from GMAT to GRE was challenging due to my prior investment, I’m grateful I made the move. I enjoyed studying for the GRE more, and my score, while not extraordinary, was sufficient for admission to the schools I applied to.
Katy is a highly sought-after consultant who only works with applicants she genuinely believes have a good chance at their desired schools. My spouse and I appreciated her honest feedback throughout the process and trusted her advice completely. Working with the same admissions consultant as your spouse makes it so much easier to create a cohesive story.
Katy worked closely with us from start to finish, thoroughly brainstorming ideas, refining essays, preparing for interviews, proofreading thank-you notes, and assisting with recommenders and scholarship applications. I went through 10+ drafts for almost all my essays, and Katy never discouraged me. She provided unwavering support and helped me refine my essays until I felt comfortable.
Katy’s assistance extended beyond application essays. She provided exceptional guidance and interview preparation. Mock interviews were instrumental in boosting our confidence. Thanks to Katy, none of my interviews were a surprise. I knew exactly how to approach them and had prepared for 90% of the questions asked. Katy provided a list of past questions, conducted mock interviews, and helped refine our answers to align with our true selves, making interview preparation effortless.
Additionally, Katy’s support and expertise were instrumental in securing strong recommendation letters. She guided all our recommenders, particularly those unfamiliar with writing recommendation letters for top MBA programs, to understand the letters’ importance. Katy helped us draft thorough memos highlighting our accomplishments, ensuring our recommendation letters showcased our full abilities. I truly believe my recommendation letters compensated for my less-than-stellar GRE scores.
Katy’s dedication to helping us secure scholarships exceeded our expectations. She willingly reviewed our scholarship essays, even months after I completed my business school applications. As a result, I received a full ride at Kellogg and scholarships from other M7 programs. My spouse also received a generous 40% scholarship from Kellogg. As a first-generation college graduate from a low-income background, the financial investment in a consultant felt extremely daunting. However, for fellow MBA hopefuls in similar circumstances, I assure you that a consultant like Katy is worth it.
Completing the application process has been a long-awaited dream, and we’re overjoyed to have achieved our goals and more. The MBA application journey demands a lot out of you, and having Katy by our side, someone truly committed to our success throughout the process, will pay dividends in the future. We were expecting to pay for our MBA at a sticker price, and I can’t believe I get to say that my spouse and I are going to Kellogg together and I get to go for free! We are immensely grateful to Katy. I wholeheartedly recommend Katharine Lewis to any aspiring MBA candidate seeking a knowledgeable, honest, dedicated, and results-driven admissions consultant. Good luck!
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
When it comes to deferred MBA admissions, the competition is fierce, especially for candidates like me from India with a STEM background. I realized that to stand out, I needed the expertise of someone who truly knows the ins and outs of the MBA admissions world. After exploring various admission consultants, Katy stood out from the crowd. During our trial call, her thoroughness and understanding of my background, strengths, and weaknesses blew me away. My gut told me she was the right person to guide me through this journey, and boy, was I right!
Katy took the time to delve deep into my background, helping me uncover my true motivations and connecting the dots between my life experiences and choices. Together, we worked on multiple essay drafts, and her edits were nothing short of amazing. She possesses a nuanced understanding of what top MBA programs are looking for. Thanks to Katy, I became more confident in my writing and found clarity in expressing my thoughts, which was invaluable since English isn't my first language.
Throughout the entire application process, Katy made me feel like more than just a client. She genuinely cared about my success and offered unwavering support, even though we communicated through emails and video calls across different time zones.
But it didn't stop there. Katy also went above and beyond in preparing me for my HBS interview. We conducted numerous mock interviews, and it was incredible how the very first question of the actual interview was something we had practiced. That moment of familiarity eased my nerves and made the interview experience remarkably smooth.
I got accepted into HBS 2+2, and I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to Katy. Not only is she a brilliant mentor, but she has also become a great friend. If you're serious about putting your best foot forward and making your business school dreams come true, I wholeheartedly recommend Katy. She's the real deal!
REVIEWER IDENTITY VERIFIED by school email address [?]
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
Giving a sporting analogy – if you aim to maximise your chances at world level competition, you need a professional coach. Katharine Lewis is not just a business school advisor. Katharine is that professional coach and, in my opinion, she is one of the best in the world.
I came to Katharine with a low GPA, unsure about the future and thinking that getting into a top 10 school would be highly unlikely. By the end of our cooperation, I was at the best shape of my life, knowing exactly what drives and motivates me, having a clear vision of where I want to be in the next 5-10 years and as a result presenting my best self to top business schools. Katharine, as a true coach, honestly identified my strengths and weakness, helped plan strict “training” schedule, set realistic targets and most importantly supported me at the times of failure. Furthermore, years of experience at the highest possible level allow her to understand what each individual school is looking for and thus help you structure your game plan accordingly.
The application process, just like training for the competition, is not always fun and is often demotivating, but Katharine understands her “athletes’” potential, believes in them and genuinely wants them to win. In my particular case, I retook GMAT 5 times and then got rejected from the first school I applied to. I was very close to giving up but Katharine reached out herself and proved to me that I could do better if I kept on going. As a result, I was accepted with scholarship to world’s top business school. To be honest, even more important than the eventual application success are the self-improvement and self-growth that occur through your work with Katharine. These translate into not just a successful business school application but personal growth in work and life in general. I would like to go as far as saying that this cooperation was a life changing experience and apart from advising working with Katharine to my friends, I will be trying to find new challenges on which to collaborate with Katharine again in the future.
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
Katy was highly recommended to me by two close friends who are HBS students. She exceeded my expectations throughout every facet of the application process, and thanks to her help, I was accepted into my dream program, the MBA/MBA dual degree program at Wharton/Lauder, and even received a generous scholarship!
As someone with a non-traditional professional background, including a career gap and a salary decrease from moving to Latin America, I was concerned about communicating my narrative in a concise but effective way. From the first meeting, Katy seemed to understand me and through many conversations throughout the process helped craft every element of my application to highlight my fit with the program.
Without hesitation, I highly recommend Katy for anyone seeking help with their MBA application process.
REVIEWER IDENTITY VERIFIED by school email address [?]
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
Katy was an absolute pleasure to work with! I began the application process with my sights set on Kellogg’s MMM program, although at the time I felt like I was having trouble synthesizing my post-college experiences into one cohesive story. Katy encouraged me to take a step back, think about my background and evaluate my motivations behind why I chose the jobs I worked in, the projects I took on, the extracurriculars I joined, and my post MBA goals. She then helped me identify the common threads that linked these different experiences and tell a story that showed a strong logical progression from one experience to the next, all while highlighting the most salient experiences for each program I applied to. Throughout the seemingly dozens of essay revisions I sent back to her, she consistently helped me sharpen what began as long (often disorganized) first drafts into crisp, concise essays which were clear in messaging and easy to follow. At the interview stage, our multiple hours of interview prep further helped me clarify my messaging, phrase my answers correctly and relax my attitude so that the interviews felt more like a conversation. She is razor-sharp, refreshingly candid, and a great advocate who is always in your corner. I can’t imagine how I would have gotten into the MMM program without her, and I can’t recommend her enough!
REVIEWER IDENTITY VERIFIED by score report [?]
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
I can’t imagine approaching the MBA admissions process without the help of Katharine Lewis!
I’ve wanted to apply to Stanford GSB for years, but my non-traditional background of a creative career in the arts, jumble of transcripts from multiple undergraduate institutions, and less than ideal GRE score dissuaded me.
Then, someone introduced me to Katharine. She gave me the confidence and support I needed to believe it could be possible to explain my story in a way the admissions committee would understand. She saw and celebrated my strengths and successes and worked closely with me to ensure my unique career trajectory was conveyed properly for the MBA admissions context, meticulously, through absolutely every portion of the application. No question felt too small to ask Katharine.
I learned so much about myself and my history through her insightful questions that led me to uncover my best material for my application. Katharine also connected me with an incredible GSB alum and former client who gave me invaluable advice and details that greatly elevated my “why Stanford” essay.
Throughout the process, I constantly said that no matter the outcome, I was so happy I chose to apply and work with Katharine because of how fun, enjoyable, and enlightening the process was. Admissions decision aside, I felt incredibly empowered and validated just by understanding my past through the lens Katharine and I crafted together.
I only worked with Katharine to apply to one school, Stanford GSB, and I was accepted! I know for a fact it wouldn’t have been possible without her. And on top of it all, I found a true friend in Katharine. I felt and still feel incredibly supported and celebrated by Katharine — that she truly cared as much as I did, which constantly touched and amazed me.
I could not recommend Katharine enough, especially if you’re an applicant with an unusual or interesting background who’s not sure how to tell your story in an MBA application. Katharine’s enthusiasm is beyond inspiring, and I am grateful every day that I found her.
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
I was connected to Katy through a co-worker who was a former client and who recommended her strongly (she had helped him get into HBS the year prior). I interviewed 3 other consultants besides Katy, but I felt that Katy and I had the strongest connection out of all of them. I am very happy that I chose Katy; not only did she help me drive a successful outcome (admitted to GSB in Round 1), but she made the overall process fairly stress-free through excellent planning and time efficiency.
I would highly recommend Katy’s services to anyone applying to business school.
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
Katy is a fantastic consultant! I started working with Katy in the spring of 2022 to prepare for Round 1 applications. In the process of selecting Katy, I interviewed nearly a dozen consultants from different firms. Katy brought a level of confidence and honesty that stood out compared to the others. Additionally, I felt that Katy truly believed in me, and didn’t try to scare me into her services. Ultimately, I chose to work with her on two schools (HBS & Sloan) with the Complete Start to Finish package. Once we started working together, she was very thorough and probed on many different angles of my background to understand where I stood out. She made herself available for my seemingly endless revisions of my different essays. After I was invited to interview, Katy made sure I was confident and prepared going into both interviews. I was especially nervous for the HBS interview, but she knew exactly how to prep me so I was truly ready and could bring my best self to the interview. And, I’m happy to say I was ultimately accepted into both schools!
If you do choose to work with Katy, the several weeks leading up to application deadlines get very hectic, so make sure you agree on timelines well in advance. Because she has so many clients applying to HBS and GSB, the typical turnaround timeline can get extended leading up to these deadlines. I was finalizing my Sloan materials around the GSB deadline and some turnarounds were extended so the GSB applications could all go in on time, while there was an extra week or two before the Sloan deadline. Katy made sure everything was ready by the deadline, but that last minute crunch was stressful! Save yourself the last minute stress and get your materials ready to go a few weeks early! Ultimately, though, this is a plus- because she has worked with so many people applying to GSB and HBS, she knows what works and doesn’t work for those schools. Overall, wonderful experience and well worth the cost. I would recommend Katy’s services in a heartbeat.
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
I got in touch with Katy through another coworker who was a former client. We began our initial discussion in December 2020 through the free consultation. What impressed me about Katy is that she was quickly able to give feedback on what I needed to improve about my profile to attend a top business school. For the next two years, I would reach out to Katy to get feedback on my career and whether my professional decisions would benefit in MBA applications even before committing to her services. After getting an ideal GRE score, I knew I wanted to work with Katy, and we began working together in Spring 2022. Katy was really able to piece different parts of my story together and find an underlying theme. This is especially critical for those applying to Harvard or Stanford. When I started to receive interviews, Katy would really push me during our mock interviews and ask follow up questions to many of my answers. Most importantly, throughout this journey, Katy was a mentor and a friend. During the application process, a friend of mine suddenly passed away, and Katy was able to empathize with me by drawing on her personal life. I was lucky enough to be admitted to the MMM program at Kellogg. For those keen on attending HSW, take Katy's feedback seriously so you can put your best foot forward.
Product mbaMission School Package
Consultant Katharine Lewis
I am a Latin American reapplicant with a background in Law, and last year I was admitted to other schools, but not Harvard, my dream school. A friend had worked with Katy in the previous year recommended that I went through a ding review with her. What stood out for me is that Katy does not give one-size-fits-all, generic advice. She was very specific and candid in her advice, pinpointing everything she thought was wrong in how I was telling my story, why it was wrong and how to improve it.
I decided to work together with her. Her unparalleled understanding of the admissions process makes her suggestions extremely insightful. She took a very structured approach to the application process, which makes it easier to prioritize work and not lose yourself on the immense amount of work that is an MBA application, yet she was always able to accommodate me when needed (she did an extra mock interview with me on the morning of my HBS interview when I told her I wasn’t feeling 100% comfortable!). Moreover, she was so thorough when going over my application materials that it was almost like she knew my story even better than me, helping me put together a very strong narrative behind it.
As a reapplicant, I can definitely say that she made a huge difference on my application. I would highly recommend working with her.