I worked with Rachel for about a year starting in the winter of 2020 all the way until my admission in December 2021. I applied to Stanford GSB, HBS and Wharton and have just gotten 2/3 acceptances into HBS and Wharton. I will be pursuing my MBA in the Fall of 2022 at HBS in the class of 2024.

Just to give you a sense of my background, I'm a male with about 5 years of experience including national service in Singapore (2 years). I seemed untraditional coming into the MBA application process and it was pretty scary. I had been working as an Associate in a consumer venture capital fund in Singapore (the fund was quite small - US$400M) after national service, my GRE scores were on par with the HBS / Wharton averages but well below the GSB average - I got a 163V, 163Q. I applied with a 3.67 GPA from an undergraduate business school - I graduated from NYU's Stern School of Business in 2017 with a BS in Business with concentrations in Finance and Global Business. I also did 2 years of military in Singapore as part of the Singapore Police Force from 2017-2019 and then joined venture capital from 2019-2021.

So with this rather untraditional background, I wanted to tell a strong story so connected with Rachel to start the process. She is honest, straightforward and hyper effective in extracting your story. She started me off answering a number of questions from growing up, high school, university, and work in what she called an "Experience Inventory" to get an understanding of certain stories and threads in my life and how they have impacted my choices.

From there we pulled from a number of these stories to craft our first draft. Because she is so focused on a hand full of applicants every year, she is a master at understanding your story and how to best position yourself. Through each draft she will communicate to you if the story you've pulled from your experience inventory works or doesn't and which story you should instead include to create a stronger essay. She gives super specific advice on everything from resume to essay to smaller questions on the application because she has done her homework on you and what you have accomplished.

I did feel a bit insecure about the process because of my background - I felt I was climbing an uphill battle vs. consultants or bankers from larger firms but I think what Rachel was best at is helping me gain the confidence in my story. She was my biggest champion and was always there whenever I had questions on certain parts of my essay and story.

She had a clear plan for me that we followed through our google sheet and through emails so deadlines were very clear. She was organized and helped me organize myself while balancing work, tests and essays. Interview mocking with her was very helpful as well. She helped provide guides throughout the entire process that included potential questions and how to answer them.

My wife and I are now moving to Boston. It is the absolute best case scenario given we had wanted to make the transition to the US for a while. I attribute a lot of my application success to Rachel's help. I could not have done anything without her and am so happy with the money spent. It is a daunting process and sometimes you may feel like the money you spent is not worth it because there are no guarantees. But, Rachel does her best for you 100% of the time - so regardless of the outcome, you will feel like your time spent with her is worth it.

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Rachel, Donna, and the rest of the Stratus team were amazing. Their honest opinions and attention to detail throughout the entire process was so helpful. Rachel has a very calm presence and I never felt rushed; she was very positive and always reassured me we'd get everything done, even when I was getting stressed out. Donna was very helpful during the school selection process and her knowledge of the different programs is amazing. I got into my top program even with a very low GMAT score thanks to Stratus so I would whole-heartedly recommend Rachel and the Stratus team to anyone looking for comprehensive help with MBA applications.

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