Applying to business school is a stressful and challenging process that requires a lot of commitment and reflection in order to have a successful outcome. I wanted to hire a consultant that would not only support my goals but also set realistic expectations throughout the process. After an introduction call with Melissa, I felt she was the perfect fit for me. I immediately felt I was talking to a close friend. There are not enough words to describe why deciding to work with Melissa has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. Melissa was honest, responsive, supportive, and motivating every step of the way.
Melissa really excelled every step of the process. Here are some observations:
Brainstorming. This is the backbone of the application process. During this stage you have to self-reflect about every milestone in your life and write about them in a brainstorming document. Even though I drafted a very detailed brainstorming document, Melissa asked me multiple follow-up questions, genuinely showing her interest in getting to know me better and understand my story. Melissa was of great help to me when it came to decide which program to apply to – she even proposed me to apply to a program I thought it was a reach for me (this shows her interest in obtaining the best outcome for the applicant and not in improving her personal stats).
Essays. Melissa made the essay writing easy, efficient, and fun. I really appreciated how Melissa constantly pushed me to dig deeper into the details of my story. During this stage she was always fast at turning over reviewed essay drafts (much faster than the 48-hour stipulated turnaround). I liked that Melissa was forthcoming and honest when she felt an essay wasn’t strong enough or required a fresh start.
Interviews. Melissa and I had one-hour prep sessions before each interview. These sessions were extremely helpful as it gave me a lot of confidence and made me feel comfortable by the time I walked into the interviews. Melissa helped me prepare my answers in advance and taught me how to adapt my answers to specific questions.
You can’t go wrong with Melissa. She was largely responsible for my successful outcome. With Melissa’s guidance, I was admitted to Kellogg, Booth, and Fuqua.

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I came to Susan while in the midst of studying for the GMAT, exploring MBA programs, and uncovering my post-MBA goals (all within a very short deadline for round 1). Susan structured the overwhelming process, ensuring I was set up for success. She contributed several key insights that helped my application become significantly more competitive, while providing thoughtful perspective and ideas for how to craft my experiences into a compelling story. She provided a deep understanding of what admissions was hoping to uncover within the essay prompts, and helped me to generate ideas to demonstrate my aptitude/qualifications and my passion. With her help, I was admitted to a top 5 MBA program.

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I started looking for an admissions counselor in March for Round 1 deadlines in September. Of the six free consultations that I did with various admissions counselors, Melissa’s really stuck out in that she was extremely genuine, acknowledged both the strengths and weaknesses in my candidacy, and was very relatable. I also liked how Melissa had her MBA from Kellogg (one of my target schools) and had ad com experience. I hired Melissa in around May.

Even though the applications weren’t due until September, I am glad that I was able to start prepping with Melissa as soon as possible. Our initial meeting was over an hour reviewing my brainstorming document, where we came up with a variety of vignettes and themes that resonated throughout all of my essays. Melissa was also able to provide tremendous value in my resume; she helped me concisely describe the variety of roles and responsibilities that I’ve had throughout my career and the “so what” factor that would resonate with the ad com.

The biggest challenge in my candidacy was my test score. I switched from the GMAT to the GRE and took the GRE twice in June and July. When I told Melissa my score, she encouraged me to take the GRE one more time….with the only availability on the day before my first application was due in September! Luckily since all my applications were complete except for the test, I had the capacity to take the test and I finally crushed it!
Melissa was also very helpful with the interview prep – she helped me figure out other elements of my candidacy that I should talk about that weren’t addressed in my resume or essays.

Ultimately, I was accepted to all four schools that I applied to (Kellogg, Haas, Ross, Fuqua) with substantial scholarship money to all but one. Melissa had more faith in my candidacy than I had in myself….as we were prepping for interviews she said she thought I would have some tough decisions in a few months. Melissa also helped me with my tough decision…we talked through the strengths and weaknesses of each school for an hour and she helped me feel comfortable with my decision.

I couldn’t have done it without Melissa! She’s the best!

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The Beginning:

Once I decided I wanted to apply to the top full-time MBA programs, I reached out to several highly-rated admissions consulting firms. After numerous conversations and profile evaluations, I chose to work with Heidi. To me, Heidi checked all the boxes and more: MBA grad (Chicago Booth), admissions committee experience (Chicago Booth), impressive background (MBB consulting), and exceptional reviews. But most importantly, during our initial phone call, I felt a strong connection with Heidi and believed she had a genuine interest in me and my goals.

Working with Heidi:

Heidi did an excellent job of turning what can be an overwhelming process into a manageable game plan. She was with me every step of the way. When we were brainstorming for essay content, she left no stone unturned. Her feedback on my essays, resume, and short answers was clear and invaluable. She was also a terrific mock interviewer. Additionally, Heidi suggested certain activities that I believe helped strengthen my candidacy.

For me, the MBA journey has been a time of deep reflection. I felt very comfortable working with Heidi and never had second thoughts about running an idea by her or sharing a story I never told anyone. In fact, she now probably knows me better than most of my friends do!

The Result:

I was accepted to my dream school (M7) and will be attending this fall! I truly believe Heidi helped maximize my chances of getting into an MBA program. Heidi is not only an amazing admissions consultant, but also an incredible mentor and person. I feel very fortunate to have worked with her. I highly recommend Heidi!

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Susan is truly an invaluable asset in the MBA admissions process. I was very nervous going into the process, as I was coming to the table with a non-traditional educational background (social sciences undergrad degree), a non-quantitative job, and good, but not amazing, test scores. From the beginning, Susan worked tirelessly to get to know me on a personal level and what was unique about me; using her background in marketing, she refers to herself as your “personal brand manager” throughout the process. As we prepared my applications, she consistently questioned and challenged my assumptions about my motivations for getting an MBA and my future career plans to help me narrow down my exact goals, which helped immensely during essay writing, networking with the schools, and interviewing. As other reviewers mentioned, Susan is tough, but in my opinion, in the best way possible. She puts so much time and effort into making your application the absolute best it can be with copious thoughtful comments and revisions to essays and pointed questions during brainstorming and interview prep. At every step of the process, Susan was by my side, simultaneously pushing me forward and cheering me on.

Thanks to Susan’s help, I was accepted to 3 out of the 3 schools I applied to with her, two of which we both agreed were reaches and one where I received a full ride. Every time I found out I got in somewhere, Susan was one of the first people I wanted to tell. If you’re considering getting a consultant to go through this process (which I absolutely believe you should), I would 110% recommend hiring Susan!

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Julie-Anne was instrumental in helping me secure a spot in the top MBA program on my list. I scored 700+ on the LSAT and had a good undergrad MBA, but from a non-target school. I graduated from undergrad in 2016 so had limited work experience. I was nervous about my chances of being admitted, but Julie-Anne helped me brainstorm essays that highlighted my strengths. Julie-Anne also prepared me for interviews by hosting Skype mock interviews, which I found very helpful. She was always quick to respond with helpful thoughts on my essays. I would highly recommend Julie-Anne to anyone applying to B-school!

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From the first time I spoke with Jessica, I could tell that she genuinely cared about not only helping me get into a great business school but also letting my true character and personality come through in my applications. I realized immediately that I was working with a professional and I found it particularly reassuring to be receiving guidance from someone who really understands the admissions process and the expectations of the schools' admissions teams. I knew generally what I was going to write about in my applications but the advice Jessica offered on how to structure my ideas and concisely articulate my story was extremely valuable. I also have a pretty unconventional professional background and Jessica helped me to navigate this in my applications and highlight my unique work experience and qualities. By the end of this long and crazy process I was admitted to one of my top choice schools, thanks in large part to Jessica's help!

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Like many others, I went through the process of doing the initial 30 minute consults with many other admissions consultant firms. Right away I could tell there was something different about Kate. She didn't focus just on the raw scores but on the compelling story we could tell based on my background.

Throughout the 4 months I worked with her the process could not be smoother; timelines were established, there was constant follow-up and communication. She was also honest about feedback and made sure the essays were genuine.

With her help I made it into some of my choice schools! I would highly recommend her to anyone.

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Over the past two weeks, I've just finished my MBA interviews with HBS, Wharton, and Oxford. As most of you know, each of these interviews are very different in approach and I finished each feeling very confident and also incredibly thankful that Katy Lewis had helped me prepare for each of them. Katy went above and beyond to prepare for each mock interview with me with specific questions tailored to me and based on the tendencies of my interviewer - I can point to specific questions in each of my actual interviews where I am really glad that I not only got to rehearse my answers with Katy, but also brainstormed with her to refine them.

Taking a step back, this is the second year in a row that I've worked with Katy. She has become a friend to me personally and a mentor to me beyond this business school application process. Beyond the tactical of my essays and how to work with my recommenders (which Katy has done an unbelievably great job), Katy helped nudge me toward my most transformative career decision (and self-discovery) between last year's application cycle and this year's. I am very proud of the person I've developed into because of Katy's help. Most importantly, I personally feel how much Katy genuinely cares about me and my success as a friend, from the way we chat and from how often I feel my warm appreciation of "you didn't have to do all this for me but you did!"

I will sum this up by saying - three years ago when I reached out to Katy, I was privately cynical about MBA consultants in general, but I knew an MBA is so important to me that I couldn't take the risk. BEST DECISION EVER THAT I DIDN'T EVEN FULLY KNOW THEN. Whew!

My advice - I still don't know about MBA consultants in general, BUT DO NOT MISS OUT ON KATY LEWIS! SHE IS THE BEST!

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I'm one of those people who like to do a lot of research before committing to a company/service/etc. I spoke a quite a few consulting companies and I'm so glad I was able to find Jessica and MBA mission in the end. As an "older" applicant, the other companies that I spoke to seemed to be using this "fear based" model to sell their services - making me feel terrible about my odds and my candidacy at the top schools first, then offering their services to help me out. I didn't realize that's what they were doing until I had my first phone call with Jessica, who was so enthusiastic, encouraging, and genuine about her thoughts on my candidacy. I knew right away that I’d want to work with her. She didn’t have any spots available for R1 so I signed up to work with her on R2 on two of my dream schools, which was the best decision I made during this application process.

From day 1 of working together, I could just tell that Jessica is an absolute genius. For several months I had been trying to come up with a thread for my essay, but I just couldn’t figure out how to connect the dots and I felt lost. But Jessica was able to do that in ONE DAY - I sent in my brainstorming document and the very next day during our phone call she was able to come up with a genius thread that connects all the dots and showcases my strengths in a very compelling way. She goes so deep during the brainstorming part and asks the right questions to uncover all the aspects, then on the spot she could come up with a theme for the essay. I was blown away by how good she was. I remember getting off that phone call feeling super excited about writing the essay (which is very rare because I always hated writing) and I had to call my best friend to share how thrilled I was to have found Jessica and how great her ideas for my essay were.
I always thought I had to write 8-10 drafts of essays before I could get it to a “top school quality”, but I was wrong on that because Jessica is so good at helping me frame up the essay (paragraph by paragraph) that I got to a final version quality within only 3 drafts. She’s just that good!

Jessica is very professional and caring. She always turns around things and answers questions very quickly. When you are working with her, you can just feel that she’s not just another consultant for you, but she’s truly on this journey with you – she cheers you on during the tough and stressful times, goes above and beyond to make your application shine, she was like this awesome big sister that I never had and I’ve never even met her! Just a few days before the applications deadline, I had a family emergency, everything was like my worst nightmare. Jessica was an angel and helped me out so much during those days. Her comforting words really helped me grieve during the most stressful time. She turned around my items just a couple hours after I sent them to her to allow me to focus on my family and grieving. I was in such terrible shape and I honestly don’t think I would’ve gotten my applications through without her help.

Perhaps the best part of working with Jessica was that I have learned so much about myself throughout this process. She really helped me see myself from a new perspective and get more clarity on who I am and what I want to do with life and not just with an MBA. In the end, I realized crafting the essays, the stories, the post MBA goals wasn’t just about getting into the dream schools any more, it was more about asking the deep, tough questions to myself and figuring out who I truly want to be. And I’m forever grateful for Jessica for that. I got interview invite to my dream school and now working on the interview prep.

Jessica is all around top-notch. I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have worked with her.

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