I have had an amazing experience with Stacy Blackman Consulting. At the beginning of my application process, I read reviews from various sites, and found that SBC was one of the highest-rated services. I decided to try out 3 different services by scheduling initial calls with them. I was most impressed by how thoughtful my initial conversation with SBC went. The person I talked to initially was able to identify different connections between various elements in my life like I had never thought of before and make some concrete suggestions on potential directions of my application right from the very first call.

SBC then matched me with Paul Kang who shared many of my interests. I worked with Paul Kang on my applications to two of the top schools (H/S/W). In our first call, Paul asked many thought-provoking questions to get me to think beyond the surface level. After the first call, he managed to get me to question many of the assumptions I had made about myself, my career direction, and my applications. Throughout the process, Paul was incredibly supportive and always responsive. The final products were definitely reflective of who I am but in a much deeper level than I had anticipated. I got admitted to both of these top schools, thanks to Paul & SBC. I highly recommend SBC to anyone serious about having solid, thoughtful bschool applications.

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Overall, I had an excellent experience with Stacy Blackman- both with the company itself and my consultant, Carol Grayson. I cannot overstate my satisfaction with the firm.

I got in touch with Stacy Blackman in the beginning of my application process- after I had taken the GREs and decided to move forward with B-school, but before I meaningfully researched schools and application processes. I didn’t know anyone with personal experience with the company, but it was consistently listed as a top five b-school consulting firm. I was immediately impressed by the Stacy Blackman staffs’ professionalism and this was consistent throughout the process. After I submitted basic profile information, I was connected with a representative within 24 hours. My conversation with the initial contact (Christina Woo) was substantive; she had already analyzed my basic strengths and weaknesses, assessed my profile, and suggested a Carol Grayson as a consultant match given my personal objectives and work style. I specifically appreciated Christina’s honesty- she was able to immediately highlight my strengths but provided an honest appraisal of the issues that needed to be addressed. I was reassured that my money would be well spent with Stacy Blackman.

Carol was an excellent fit and she worked with me on applications for HBS, Wharton, and CBS. Carol is a wonderful application partner- she provides straightforward and constructive feedback while remaining supportive during a stressful process. Similar to the rest of the Stacy Blackman team, Carol’s professionalism was outstanding. Carol is extremely knowledgeable about how the schools consider candidates and how they view applications. Carol made herself available at non-traditional hours to accommodate my schedule (weekends, holiday weekends, and early mornings) and was prepared before each conversation so our discussions were fulsome and productive and efficient. She always responded in a timely fashion was in touch about any potential delays or disruptions (none occurred, she was always on time). I am most appreciative of Carol’s assistance in translating the schools’ specific questions into concrete essay prompts that were more conducive to a 500-word writing exercise. She offered a high level view of the broader objective of the questions, suggested an overarching essay structure, and suggested topics highlighting details from my personal and professional life. Carol’s comments were insightful- she did not focus on nonessential details, but really pushed me to devise a compelling story and express myself in a clear an interesting way. I was always confident that my final product would be excellent as Carol would not settle for less.

In addition to her help on essays and applications, Carol was willing to read my submissions for the entire applications including resume, activities etc. Her consulting services are truly comprehensive.

Ultimately, with Carol’s help and that of the Stacy Blackman team, I was admitted to all three schools! I credit Carol with much of my success in the process.

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My conversations with Bill Chonis gave me the confidence to apply to a school I previously wasn't sure if I should even bother applying to; turns out I got accepted by that tap tier school despite a very weak 2.90 undergrad GPA. Bill provided insights into the application process, patient guidance in helping me shape my strategy, and expert coaching on focusing my message.

Other information on my candidacy: 720GMAT, engineering background, working for a small unknown firm in the unglamorous manufacturing industry, international from south east asia. I'm very sure Bill had a huge impact on me getting into the school of my dreams!

Stacy Blackman is a well functioning organization, which leverages up-to-date online tools to facilitate their Admissions Consulting services.

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I researched consulting services extensively and am very happy that I chose Stacy Blackman Consulting. Their methodology is very helpful, especially the personalized central plan that guides the application process. As I found that the top consulting services were comparable in price, I choose Stacy Blackman because of Sherry Holland, who became my consultant. She was kind, understanding, and always available. Sherry was fabulous at keeping me organized and on track - creating a timeline, developing a plan, and streamlining the many details and challenges of the application process. It was incredibly helpful to have her guidance throughout. I would highly recommend Stacy Blackman's comprehensive consulting services and particularly Sherry Holland.

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I decided to go for Stacy Blackman Consulting based on the online reviews and following the success that I have achieved in the last few weeks (Admitted to Kellogg with Scholarship and Admitted to Tuck), I definitely recommend SBC to potential candidates.

My kick-off call was set up with Esther Magna and this call in itself gave me the confidence in SBC's ability to guide a candidate through the application. Esther set me up with Seher Khanna and Seher brilliantly guided me through the entire process.

I knew my strengths and my weaknesses but Seher helped me to organize my thoughts into one single piece that was specific to each application. She continuously challenged me to improve and moreover kept me motivated whenever I felt tired or dejected during the application process (one of the very important elements of a successful application from my perspective). She was extremely flexible with my ad-hoc requests for discussions and very timely with her responses; Over those 3 months I never had to wait for her response. SBC additionally provided 3rd person peer reviews of my application and this helped me to further identify the gaps in my application.

I was honestly skeptical of SBC's claim of a "92% success rate in getting applicants into at least one of their four top schools" before I started but I can confidently state today that SBC and especially Seher's support was invaluable for me to achieve this success today.

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I decided to pay for 10 hours as I did not have enough money for the comprehensive service. I decided to work with Reene. she was very helpful and helped with my school selection. I decided to apply to HBS, Wharton and Kellogg- I initially had never considered HBS or Wharton. I'm glad to say I got into both Wharton and Kellogg and deferred to R2 at HBS. I've also got a huge scholarship from Kellogg and now have the wonderful problem of deciding what school to go to!
Reene was really helpful throughout and always got back to me promptly. She was great at helping me restructure my essays, which made them read much better. With what I learned from working with her, I went on to apply to Ross on my own and have now been offered a full tuition scholarship there! I doubt I would have been able to apply on my own before.
Thanks to Reene and SB, I now have to chose from 3 amazing programs with huge scholarships at 2 of them.

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The service provided by SBC was truly unparalleled. Highly professional and truly committed to the applicant. I did my first consult with Esther Magna. After a brief conversation, she was able to rightly identify the perfect consultant for my application- Jed Sturman. Working with Jed on my dream school, Chicago Booth, was truly remarkable. In spite of being an early career applicant, I was able able to bring forth a very strong application with Jed's help. He helped identify key stories in my life, instances I overlooked and helped me gain a deeper understanding of what I am to put forth in all my applications. The best part would be the faith he had in my dreams even when there were many around who felt it was beyond my reach. So I take this opportunity to once again thank you Jed and SBC, as a whole ,for your help in this journey and wish similar success stories for other applicants too.

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I worked with Ryan Barba at Stacy Blackman and had a fantastic experience. I worked with him on my Sloan application and ended up with an offer from Sloan! Ryan had a great sense of what the school was looking for in the essays, recommendation letters, and resume. He helped me always think about my materials in terms of how they highlighted the aspects that are important to Sloan, which I think made my application particularly good compared to others that were not perfectly tailored for the school.

I was working on a tight timeline, and Ryan was able to give me feedback really quickly so that we could move ahead at my pace, which was faster than the typical pace. He was easy to work with and was able to jump on the phone at a moment’s notice. For the interview prep, he gave me really candid comments on our mock interview, and the questions he asked prepared me well for the actual interview.

I highly recommend working with Ryan and the rest of the Stacy Blackman team.

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I'm writing this having received offers last week from both schools I applied to - HBS and GSB - so clearly a satisfied customer! Paul at Stacy Blackman has been a great help throughout the last 6 months. I have a traditional background (consulting/finance), and felt comfortable with the application process - what I really wanted was someone with the experience to challenge what I was writing and help tease out how to differentiate myself. I chose Paul over a bunch of other consultants who seemed like they would be more hands on - he pushed me only on the pieces that mattered, but pushed me hard on those. Thank you Paul!

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After my initial 30 minute call with someone from Stacy Blackman whose name unfortunately escapes me, the woman from SB suggested I work with Paul and I could not have had a better experience / it could not have been a better match for me.

From the first hour-long call with Paul it seemed like he understood the type of person I am and the right way to craft my application to (hopefully) differentiate it from all of the other private equity applicants. The thing I appreciated most about Paul was he was very objective and didn't seem to feel the need to change things / insert his thoughts just for the sake of it. He seemed to be much more focused on understanding the big ideas you could convey and pointing you towards the ones he thinks make the most sense for you. After our first two discussions to really drill down on exactly what it is I was going to write about, we exchanged 3 drafts and we were done. Based on a number of these reviews I've read, I was expecting it to be a tedious process, but after that 3rd draft, he said "any other changes would just be changing it from your voice to mine." I was so happy that when my family proof-read my essays they commented that they sounded like me.

Paul was of course very helpful in the other aspects of the process: creatively answering short answer questions to help your entire application tie together, resume review and interview prep, and in each case his approach was very much the same.

I am so lucky and fortunate to say that after working with Paul and applying to Harvard, Stanford and Wharton Round 1, this past week I was admitted to Harvard and Stanford (and am still awaiting notification from Wharton)!

I could not recommend Paul and SB any more highly.

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