You can stop your search here….seriously….Susan is the best it gets. Deciding to work with her was one of the best life decisions I’ve ever made. I started the process unconvinced that I was capable of getting into an M7. I ended the process with a big scholarship to my dream school: MIT Sloan.

Susan and the Sia Admissions process pushed me miles beyond what I thought I was capable of. Their process started with building the foundations necessary to build a good application. This involved a lot of reflection…more than I likely would have taken the time to do on my own, but this was the most important step!! Having Susan guide you through this process was incredibly valuable, helping to identify themes and connections in my story that I was too close myself to notice.

Susan’s feedback is direct. There were so many moments where I thought my essay was perfect with no way to improve it. Susan redefined where I set the bar, and has helped me build skills that will be valuable throughout my MBA and future career.

At all points during the journey, I could tell Susan was genuinely invested in my success. She has become a true mentor for me, and I look forward to staying in touch with her.

I highly highly recommend Susan at Sia Admissions to anyone serious about getting into a top business school.

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My journey with Susan and the entire SIA team reset the standard to which I will hold any consultant going forward. As I began preparing for round one applications, Susan's holistic and personalized approach stood out immediately across my conversations with other firms. She took the time to understand my background and goals for an MBA, which allowed us to be targeted and thoughtful in how we approached each program's essays and interviews.

With something as significant as the decision to return to graduate school, I wanted to work with someone who had my best interests in mind — and Susan exemplifies this perfectly. If an essay was falling short or missing a critical piece of analysis, she would identify it quickly and tell me candidly that I was missing the mark. Watching my writing transform from the beginning of the process to the end was remarkable: Susan helped me bridge the gap from merely having good anecdotes to articulating precisely why they were relevant to the program I was applying to.

The same holistic approach extended to interview prep. After receiving interviews at all five schools I applied to, I assumed a few mock sessions would be sufficient. As with the essays, Susan pushed for full execution — multiple school-specific mock interviews, each one calibrated to that program's format. By my last interview, I was genuinely comfortable delivering both professional and personal anecdotes, a dramatic evolution from the initial rambling.

Overall, working with Susan was the single wisest decision I made throughout this process. I was admitted to three M7s initially and ultimately accepted off the waitlist at my top choice. For anyone considering a consultant, there is no better choice. Her thoughtfulness, comprehensiveness, and care for her clients is second-to-none, and I am beyond grateful.

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Working with Susan was one of the highest ROI decisions I made during my application journey.

Before working with her, my story lacked clarity and strategic positioning. I had strong experience, but was not presenting a focused, compelling narrative. Susan transformed how I approached my candidacy and significantly elevated my storytelling. Every essay went through multiple iterations where she challenged vague statements, pushed for specificity, and ensured each example demonstrated leadership, impact, and growth.

The three biggest improvements were clear career goals, sharper positioning of my experience, and structured, high-quality storytelling across my applications.

The result was admission to all the programs I applied to, including Stanford, MIT, and Wharton.

Susan is deeply invested in her clients. She is direct, structured, and uncompromising on quality. She also genuinely cares about helping others reach their full potential.

I strongly recommend Susan and Sia Admissions to anyone serious about getting into a top business school.

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I could not speak more highly of Susan Berishaj and her MBA admission consulting services. Coming from a non-traditional background with a blip in my professional experience, I was worried about the prospects of getting into business school. With Susan's help, I was able to interview with Stanford GSB and was accepted to 6 of my 7 target schools (Wharton, Yale, Kellogg, Booth, Berkeley-Haas, and NYU), with full-ride scholarship from NYU, significant scholarships from Yale, Kellogg, Booth, and Berkeley.

After interviewing a dozen MBA consultants, I narrowed it down to Susan and another seasoned consultant who had worked in the industry for 10+ years. Within 2 weeks, I decided to switch to Susan because she took the time to call and understand what she could do better next time to win my business. I got the sense that Susan held herself to a standard of excellence that no other consultant carried for themselves. Because she works on a very personal level, she sees each client as a person, not as an upsell opportunity.

On an intangible level, Susan lives and breathes the term "mission-driven." She actively listens to every detail of your story, helps you shape your short and long-term career goals post-MBA, gives honest feedback that you may not always want to hear, and sticks with you every step of the way. During moments of vulnerability, such as a terrible essay, bad professional experience or weak test score, she supports you with an optimistic mindset and constructive feedback. Her ultimate goal is to elevate your story to the best version it can be.

On a tactical level, Susan is incredibly methodical in her approach. She takes the time to set up a strategy call, reviewed my resume as many times as necessary to get it to her level of perfection, and edited every draft of my essays with careful thought and care. She consistently made herself available for Brainstorm calls, weekly check-ins to ensure I had the right support and accountability. When it came time for the interview preparation process, we went through 3-5 rounds of interview preparation for each school. I felt so prepared by the end of the process, that my confidence naturally showed through.

I could not recommend Susan enough. As you consider investing in an MBA coach, remember that Susan will actually invest in you to be the best version of yourself in your applications. She is a lifelong friend and mentor now.

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I cannot recommend Susan enough as an MBA admissions consultant. With Susan’s help, I got in to all five schools that I applied to (Wharton, Booth, Kellogg, Haas, and LBS) with several scholarships including my top choice school. Susan led me through a thorough and structured process from start to finish, including personal story and goal development, school selection, application development, recommender support, interview practice, and even acceptance decisions and early recruitment strategizing. Susan was truly talented in her ability to identify a rich and thoughtful application story that was true to myself and my passions – a task that seemed daunting at first. Her feedback is succinct and effective, and she was willing to dedicate whatever time necessary to ensure my best application.

I chose to use an MBA consultant because I entered the application process slightly late and was overwhelmed by the amount of work in front of me. Susan’s role in distilling this work into actionable steps and helping to guide me through the decisions and priorities was invaluable.

Susan provided extensive, detailed knowledge specific to each of my 5 schools to help tailor to unique preferences, notable offerings/professors, and school culture. This encyclopedic knowledge of each school was invaluable in customizing each application and resonating with the schools’ interests.

I strongly recommend Susan as an MBA consultant to anyone applying. She offers specialized skills at each step in the process as well as an amazing ability to maintain the bigger picture and guide you through the process from start to finish (and even further than that).

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I was a re-applicant, applying to the same M7 schools that had rejected me in the previous year. I did manage to get some interviews during my first application cycle but fell short.

After the rejections, I wasn’t too sure on what I had to do differently the second time around. So, I decided to research for consultants and found Susan from Sia Admissions.
With Susan’s help, I obtained an acceptance letter to an M7 school.

It was a lot of work. We went through roughly 10 drafts before each essay and resume submission, and numerous practice interview sessions. But I am glad I worked with Susan because she possesses all the technical tools of a great admissions consultant, in addition to her strong ability in empathizing with applicants.

What surprised me the most about Susan was the huge amount of effort she put into understanding my full story from my perspective. We spent much time on self-reflection and this allowed us to go deeper into the stories from my first applications and even utilize stories that I dismissed as ‘useless’ in the past.

After celebrating my acceptance, she keeps in touch with me to help prepare for the upcoming school year and is there to help whenever I have questions.

I highly recommend her if you are looking for a personalized experience in the MBA application process.

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I had a great experience working with Susan. Not only was I accepted in my first choice, but I enjoyed the entire application process.
In February 2020, I decided to apply to 3 of the top MPP programs (Oxford, LSE and Cambridge). I was overwhelmed by the number of requirements for each school and confused about the entire process, so I started looking for help. I interviewed over 10 consultants and when I spoke with Susan, I knew I wanted to work with her. She is passionate about helping people achieve their goals, listens to them and understands them. This was very important as she was able to help me reflect my goals throughout my application. Even though I knew what I wanted, I didn’t know how to put that on paper, and she helped me to do it. She has a methodology in which I learned what the universities were looking for and how would that fit my purpose, increasing the chances of acceptance. We did a lot of work before we even started drafting the essays. This included creating a strategy for each of the applications and a timeline. While working on the essays, we had many iterations. All of Susan’s comments were very valuable to improve the content of my essays and to be able to include all the important things in a limited number of words. Although my programs didn’t require an interview, she recommended scheduling calls with relevant professors and alumni and helped me prepare for those calls. She also helped me select my recommenders based on what they needed to reflect on the recommendation letters. At the end of the process, she thoroughly reviewed each application before submitting them. I was accepted into two of the three programs I applied to. After the application process she continued following up on the results and after I got accepted, she has been helping me a lot to prepare to start the program.
In addition to the amazing experience I had working with her and the perfect results, I really enjoyed sharing this process with her. She knows how to listen and motivate you and if she agrees to work with you it is because she truly believes in your dreams and does everything possible to help you achieve them.

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I purchased the partner (comprehensive) package for the Wharton, Harvard and Stanford deferred programs.
Despite engaging Susan only the week before the Wharton deadline, she managed to craft a solid working plan for us. She worked with me even throughout the weekend and we managed to complete 7 essay drafts, a CV, including optional essays within the time constraint. Prior to this engagement, I spoke to several consultants who decided that either it was too much effort, or too little time. Susan made it work.
When it came to interviews, her preparation was thorough and assiduous. She practiced several mock interviews with me and we practiced contingency scenarios for Wharton's unique TBD.
For Harvard and Stanford, she similarly spared no expense and effort; starting the next application swiftly after completing the other.
On the personal side of things, Susan is dedicated to her craft and is a great story teller. She is able to suss, and flesh out salient points from experiences I dismissed as 'boring' or 'useless'. She is also a great listener and has a cheery disposition that makes working with her a relaxed affair.
I would unequivocally recommend Susan to anyone who is seeking a competent and personable consultant. I wish her continued success and definitely rate her highly.

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Coming from a non-business background, I was looking for a consultant to help me with all aspects of my MBA applications. I spoke with four companies before choosing Sia Admissions. Susan’s personalized approach sold me.

On our first call, Susan promised to be there every step of the way, and she meant it! From the initial stages of getting to know me and crafting my school list in the early summer to celebrating my acceptance in December, she was always on my side.

As a consultant, Susan is very meticulous. She goes through several drafts of all of your documents until they are perfect. She will constantly push you to do your best work and make sure you are telling your unique story. For example, we did eight drafts of my resume alone. I definitely got frustrated at times with how much she pushed me (re-writing the same paragraph over and over is not fun!), but I knew she was just doing it to make my applications as strong as possible. For interviews, she offers multiple mock practice sessions for each school to ensure you are fully prepared. Her all-inclusive package is truly all-inclusive.

Long story short, I am very glad I worked with Susan. An MBA consultant is an enormous investment, but with Susan’s help, I gained acceptance to my top-choice program with a partial scholarship.

Helping applicants showcase their strengths and tell their story is Susan’s genuine passion. If you are looking for both a coach and cheerleader on this crazy journey, I highly recommend her!

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Having Susan by my side proved valuable throughout my application process. She helped me overcome an absolutely terrible GPA (<2.7) to gain admittance at my dream M7 school.

When I initially reached out to several MBA consultants, Susan was one of the very few who was willing to work with me despite my glaring academic weakness. During our first conversation, she took the time to closely evaluate my profile and was honest about both my strengths and weaknesses. From the start, I already had a feeling I would be comfortable working with Susan. She gave me very thoughtful advice even before I officially signed up for her service.

Once I signed up, Susan made me go through a very comprehensive self-reflection process. I learned so much about myself – my personal journey, motivations, achievements. This set the foundation for crafting extremely deep and personal stories that would later pique the interest of 3 top MBA programs.

Susan constantly challenged me throughout the essay drafting process. I would usually write what I would assume were very compelling initial drafts, but Susan would leave comments such as “Why does this matter?” or “Explain what you mean” on certain sections. I would sometimes get frustrated, but I knew why she would do it – these are the same questions adcoms would ask while reading my work, so I have to make sure my essays are as clear as possible for them to understand. The final versions were all clearly stronger and more compelling than the initial versions, and I attribute that to Susan’s guidance.

Susan also helped me practice my interviews by making sure I’d be ready with responses that were true to myself and at the same time, speak to the school’s culture. I felt I gave a strong interview with my top school, and again, this is because of multiple practice sessions with Susan.

Overall, I had an amazing experience with Susan. I couldn’t have done it without her support.

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