MBAPrepSchool Admissions Consulting Reviews

When I started to prepare my MBA application, I am very confident that I can show my love for dream school, so I spent over three months to DIY, and when I finally received a cold rejection letter, I was heart-broken and discouraged. I learned my lesson here, no matter how confident you are, to get into a dream school, you need more than passion, hard work, and score. Knowing what you don't know and get as much help as you can is also important.

When I sent my old application file to Kristen, she instantly noticed many mistakes I made. (I really wish I could know when I prepared my No1 dream school application). Kristen encouraged me to keep trying because my application content is good, needs a better strategy to make Me standout.

After our first call, she gave me a clear, simple, and smart strategy which tailored to myself but made my story more compelling. The problem I previously had was I had too many ideas, and I cannot express my thoughts in a few hundreds of words. When she returned my essays, I felt, yeah, Kristen's writing is so smart! She not only polish my writing, but also raised questions to let me add details by myself, so my essay is still MY essay, which reflects a real me, but in a much better way. Comparing when I asked other friends to help, sometimes, either they make a little real contribution, or they rephrased my essays in a way I feel not authentic or killed my character. But in Kristen's version, she is very good at finding my shining point and instructed me to explore more in detail. With her profound experience, Kristen knows how to set a good theme, and express ideas in a nice strategy that I wanted but felt hard to express by myself.

Kristen's edit on my resume also upgrades my resume to another level. makes me realize that my resume can also be a compelling tool too, I thought my resume was perfect, however, after her consult and edit, I felt it is much more impressive tailored to the MBA admission office.

I strongly recommend Kristen and felt her job much worth the money. She also quickly turned around in three days, and substantially alleviate my pain when my due is in a week. I may be the last application, but still, get in. I am very glad I asked her for help and this decision made my dream come true.

Thank you for your excellent help.

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My experience working with Faisal was absolutely fantastic and I could not have asked for a more supportive, responsive, experienced and professional mentor. I currently work in private equity (previously worked in investment banking), with the objective of applying to several top US MBA programs (R1 and R2) for the Class of 2020. I had high aspirations but came from an overrepresented background. Additionally, I lacked direction as to my rationale to pursue an MBA (e.g. “why me? “why now?” “what will an MBA do for my career?”)

After working closely with Faisal for 9 months, I’m proud to say that I received admission to my first choice (top 5 US ranking) and second choice!

Faisal’s close mentorship and logical approach to drawing from all aspects of my life (professional and personal) to help form a clear and persuasive story was beyond anything I could have imagined. His focus on precision and tailoring my message to each school kept me focused and built my self-confidence every step of the way. Lastly, Faisal’s organization, responsiveness and commitment to school deadlines was exactly what I was looking for in a mentor and consultant.

This process was truly life changing not only from the perspective of receiving admission to a school that I could have only dreamed of, but helping me understand myself better and mapping a professional pathway that will allow me to achieve my short and long-term goals.

I can confidently recommend Faisal and wish future candidates the best of luck in their application endeavors.

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Hands down: Without Jeremy, I likely would not have gotten into HBS. Jeremy was the single most important factor in molding my applications into truly personal pieces of storytelling.

Jeremy’s vast experience in journalism helps him to carefully guide and review your essay writing. He starts by going through your anecdotes and then illustrates ways to knit these into seamless, convincing stories of purpose and goals. Jeremy provides you a voice that is uniquely humble, genuine, and driven.

I really appreciated how direct Jeremy’s comments were: There is no sugarcoating and his efficiency makes for an ultimately much better application. Jeremy is very reliable and his return times are incredibly short – he often came back to me within 2 hours of sending a draft.

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I came into the MBA admissions process as a novice – nobody in my family had applied to business school and neither had any of my close friends – and the one thing I did know was that I would need help!

After being recommended to reach out to MBA Prep School by a friend of a friend who had worked with them and been accepted to a highly ranked school, I was still a bit skeptical. Would working with a consultant really be something that would be valuable? What sort of help was I getting? How were they going to help me?

After our first initial call, Faisal helped me to allay my doubts – not only would MBA Prep School help develop my essays but their approach was a rigorous bottoms-up analysis which focused first on career coaching not merely essay editing. We spent our first few sessions talking about my goals and career aspirations using exercises to help me to discover the strengths and experiences that would help me stand out from my peers as well as shore up potential weaknesses as well.

I think was actually the most valuable part of the whole application process and even if I hadn’t applied to business school I think this would have been very worthwhile.

After condensing an amorphous cloud of thoughts, perceptions, and dreams into a coherent narrative, Faisal and I set to work on developing my essays. Faisal is an excellent editor, allowing my voice to come through while giving helpful hints on how best to craft a story. Faisal gives room to disagree and while he is not afraid to give tough criticism I never felt that he didn’t have my best interests at heart. I applied to 5 schools and each essay received as many revisions as they needed.

By the time I submitted my applications I felt not only did I have excellent essays but also a much stronger conception of my own career trajectory and a clear road map for achieving my dreams.

Out of the five schools I applied to, I was accepted to two and will be attending Kellogg this fall. I was completely satisfied with the help I received from Faisal and the MBA Prep School and strongly recommend reaching out to them if you have doubts about applying to business schools and wish to take your MBA application to the next level!

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TLDR: I highly recommend working with Christina and have already recommended her to friends and colleagues alike. She is top notch in terms of both skill and effort, and will give everything in helping you do your best in the MBA process. She truly cares about her clients and I believe wants you to succeed irrespective of her own results as a consultant (though her track record is very strong).

I worked with Christina from MBA Prep and feel very fortunate to have had her guidance throughout this process. Before selecting Christina I spoke with consultants from three popular MBA consulting groups and was deciding between working with Christina and another consultant but ended up going with Christina as I felt she believed in my candidacy and would give me consistent attention throughout the process. It's hard to know who to pick for such an important role so I hope this review helps another in the position in which I found myself last year!

After working together, Christina probably knows me and my aspirations as well as my closest friends do. The sheer number of hours spent discussing my background, interests, and goals lent itself to a self-reflective process that allowed me to put my best foot forward and convey my true self to schools. If you are set on business school and planning to apply to multiple schools, working with Christina on a package basis will make sense for you and allow you to get the most out of her dedicated review process and very thorough feedback. Christina is extremely honest and you may think you can be hard on yourself but she will be tougher (in a good way!). There are times in the process I felt overwhelmed and dejected but Christina knows how to keep you motivated and encourage you to do your best work. She will push you to do more than you would have done yourself and you will be grateful for it in the long run.

Below are a few key reasons I'm very happy I worked with Christina:
-Positive results: I was admitted to five schools (HBS, Wharton, Booth, Kellogg, and Darden) with half and full tuition scholarships at two of the schools
-School knowledge: you will still need to research each school's unique program yourself but Christina has deep knowledge of all the top schools and this is invaluable in saving you time and helping you to narrow down your schools of focus and then bolster your applications; additionally, Christina keeps her finger on the pulse of MBA admissions more broadly and can provide valuable strategic advice on all areas of your application
-Essays: Brainstorming essays with Christina was critical in allowing me to convey key personal values in the limited word counts allowed by schools; her comments were well beyond what I would call thorough and it's evident she spends a significant portion of time reading and re-reading your essays to provide the best and clearest feedback possible
-Candor in addressing weaknesses in your candidacy and clear, actionable suggestions to improve those
-Like a good personal trainer, Christina knows when to push you and when to console and encourage; this is a tricky balance to get right for optimized results but she does it!
-Her genuine interest in and care for you allows her to help you most effectively tell your story to schools

You will improve your candidacy with her help in ways you didn't realize possible, and it will make the difference when it comes down to where you're admitted.

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I worked with Faisal in the hopes of joining a full-time program in the fall of 2020. I chose to work with a consultant because when I had applied by myself the previous year, I had been denied from all six full-time MBA programs that I had applied to without any interview invites even though I felt I had competitive experiences and a GMAT score above the averages for all the programs.

I chose MBAPrepSchool for one main reason – they didn’t treat me as just another customer to put into a preset program, but rather an individual with specific needs. I talked to several different companies before making my decision, but only MBAPrepSchool (and specifically Mariah) asked me to send essays from my previous application and used it to prep for my intro meeting with them. That hour-long meeting was followed up with a personalized list of specific consultants and why they thought they would be a great fit for me. One of the people who was suggested was Faisal. As an engineer that was struggling with how to relate my technical expertise into business terms, it was pretty clear he would be perfect for me with his background in engineering along with experience in admissions at an M7 program.

I began working directly with Faisal about seven months before application deadlines. For the first couple of months, we worked on understanding my life story and how that fit into my career goals. After that, we started narrowing down which programs would make sense for me to apply to and I eventually chose Stanford, Kellogg, Sloan & Darden. Though I gave myself seven months to work on my applications, Faisal still helped me focus on what all needed to get done and I ended up spending time on most weeknights on my application and it definitely made a big difference in the end.

One area where Faisal made the biggest difference was in my essays. I went through at least 3 revisions of each essay for each of the schools with some of the longer ones having 6-8 versions. Faisal’s ability to let my voice shine through my applications while helping me sculpt my message was invaluable. He also set specific requirements for himself (feedback within 72 hours on anything I submitted to him for review) and stuck to it. One thing I especially appreciate in hindsight is that Faisal never tried to make a decision for me (which schools to apply to, which life stories to use in my essays, etc), but rather helped by providing guidance on how to think through the problems and as a result become more intentional in my choices.

When I sent out my applications, I knew everything in my application – the essays, recommendations, education, and work information, etc. – was leagues beyond what I had submitted the previous year. While I had personal advancements that played a factor in this, the largest change was working with Faisal.

I ended up interviewing at Stanford, Kellogg, and Darden. I was then accepted into Kellogg and Darden with scholarships at each while being waitlisted at Stanford. I simply could not have imagined this being a possibility after I had been rejected from six programs just a year earlier.

By the end of the MBA application cycle, Faisal became more than just a consultant. In fact, when I got the good news for my acceptances, he was the first person I contacted after my family to tell the good news.

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The only school I wanted to apply was MIT, known for its scientific rigor and applied learning approach within innovating ecosystem. At the time of my decision to do so, I had conviction about the school but tons of uncertainties about how to successfully navigate the arduous process of an application. After talking with Chris from MBA Prep School, he mentioned Court as a potential coach fitting my needs. It took me a 15-min call to know already that Court would be an amazing coach, well suited to my expectations.
Court is like a human GPS, who will assist you through all the navigation steps of the application. He will push you to discover yourself, to be authentic, to know who you are and what you want to accomplish through an MBA.
Court went above and beyond in every step of the process. I said Court is a human GPS because he knows all the roads you need to take, where the bumps are, and …. many of the bumps are in yourself. With his help, you will discover them, and you will feel more confident and competent to the task.
Court was very professional and emphatic, and neither left anything unplanned nor cut corners in terms of his support to my successful application. He was initially my coach. I consider him a life-long friend and a mentor.

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After receiving an invitation to interview at HBS, I reached out to MBA Prep School to investigate setting up a mock interview. I was lucky enough to be paired up with Court, and with his help, I went into my interview feeling extremely confident. He gave me broad insights on what HBS admissions officers are looking for in an interview, as well as extremely personalized feedback based on our mock interview. He made me aware of my physical and verbal ticks that could be distracting, and he recapped my each of my answers, highlighting which ones could use work and in what way.

Court also went above and beyond when it came to the HBS post-interview reflection, which is due 24 hours after the interview. The day of my interview, he made himself available to recap the day with me, and he helped me focus in on the couple of things that made sense to highlight in the reflection letter.

Court is extremely dedicated and passionate about mentoring aspiring MBA students, and I am fortunate to have worked with him.

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It was a privilege to work with Court on multiple applications to top-20 MBA programs. Prior to reaching out to MBA Prep School, I was overwhelmed and intimidated by the application process. After just one call with Court, I felt reassured and confident that he would help me create an application that genuinely reflected my story and highlighted my accomplishments.

Court gracefully provided clear and honest feedback, pushing me to share experiences, passions, and future goals that would help me stand out from other applicants. Whenever I emailed with a question or concern, he provided a prompt and thoughtful response. He is not only rigorous, but empathetic: Court seemed to instinctively know when I needed a cheerleader. The value of Court's guidance cannot be overstated; the caliber of the applications that I submitted would not have been possible without him.

Court provided me with invaluable support during the interview process, as well. From the way he conducted our mock interview to the feedback he gave me afterwards, Court set me up for success. His guidance allowed me to feel calm and prepared when I stepped into each of my interviews. I know I will use many of the takeaways I learned from him as I move forward in my career.

I am truly grateful to have worked with Court. His expertise, genuine interest in helping others succeed, and reassuring guidance were instrumental to my success in the MBA application process. Thank you, Court!

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When I started the application process early summer of last year, I was looking for someone with a critical eye, good grasp of what schools wanted, ability to help me create a good narrative and highlight what was needed out of my experience and extracurriculars to emphasize my story, and ability to push myself out of my comfort zone. I came from an engineering background (with a few lower grades on my transcript that I felt could keep me out of the top schools) with extremely technical work experience and no formal leadership.

Working with Faisal, I was able to fully reflect and create a cohesive story that made sense for my background and for my future goals. Faisal helped me understand what to highlight and what to de-emphasize, especially coming from a technical background, in my resume and essays. He helped craft an optional essay that helped explain my academic background and lower GPA. Faisal was critical and discerning in his edits, making sure that I was saying what I needed to and not being too vague or "on" with my language. He was also great to work with on my interview prep - making sure that I was working through highlighting my strengths and exactly answering the intended questions. I felt like my essays were strong, polished, and represented me well. Faisal also pushed me to research the schools in-depth, which helped with essay creation and the interviews, since I truly felt like I knew each school in and out by the time I submitted my application.

With Faisal's help, I was admitted to four M7 schools, waitlisted at another, and received partial scholarships at almost every school. This is an outcome I would have never thought possible looking solely at my stats coming into the application process - with Faisal's help, I was able to showcase my best qualities and gain admissions to some great schools.

Faisal is very easy to talk to and work with, is timely with his feedback, and delivers great results. I highly recommend working with him!

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