Applying to business schools was a challenging marathon- especially for a lazy amateur like myself – and I am grateful to have had Square One Prep as my strict running coach.

I had had preliminary conversations with three prominent US consultants, before having my first conversation with Kathryn. In all three conversations, the consultants highlighted the importance of applying to ‘safe schools’, covertly implying my M7 ambition was a tad bit delusional. Kathryn- after patiently hearing my previous academic and professional credentials- gave me the much needed assurance that I should ‘reach for the stars’. In that same conversation, Kathryn was also quick to list down my weaknesses- some of which we really needed to improve, some of which we just have to live with. That conversation was the beginning of my business school journey with SOP and also my last interaction with any other prospective consultant.

Piersten- my co-runner on the marathon- was just amazing! She helped me think, she pushed me to work harder (after my 13 hour work days), she gave me the confidence to share certain vulnerable aspects of my life and she ensured I don’t get lost in brainstorming. Piersten would also very quickly switch from the role of a patient coach to that of a stern elder sister. And I would not have been able to successfully submit my application or sit for the interviews without that.

The process at SOP mandates every piece of work- the career narrative, goals, short answer essays, long answer essays- goes through two layers of supervision. Kathryn would always ensure the quality of work never gets compromised or diluted- even if the deadline sometimes is in 24 hours. The process pushes you out of your comfort zone, and really makes you think. I was very happy with the final essays and applications submitted to business school.

I have enjoyed the run- and I recommend SOP to you and to all my friends/ acquaintances applying for business schools. Thank you Kathryn, Piersten, Luis, Ashley, Bailey and the entire team at SOP.

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A good friend of mine recommended SOP and I’m so glad I decided to work with them! I had an amazing team including Kathryn, Yarden, Luis and Bailey, who guided and supported me throughout the entire journey. They were truly invested in my success, from the very first interaction to my acceptance celebrations. Applying to MBA schools certainly takes an enormous amount of time and devoted efforts. It’s an introspective process where you go through a lot of emotions as you look back into your past accomplishments and challenges. Kathryn, Yarden and Luis really took the time to understand my background and future goals to craft the most compelling and realistic narrative that showcases my strengths and passion. While working with the SOP team, you’ll quickly realize they truly care about their clients, beyond application preparation but deeply connecting with you on a personal level to bring out your unique story.

I was still preparing for the GMAT/GRE while working on my applications. The SOP portal schedule was essential in keeping track of the deadlines as I had a lot on my plate. I’m a perfectionist who puts a lot of pressure on oneself and I struggled with the test prep. Thankfully, Kathryn and Yarden were always there for me, as my biggest supporter, advisor and cheerleader.

Although I didn’t work on all of the schools I applied to with SOP, I can confidently say that the career narrative I worked on with Luis built a strong foundation for the other applications I worked on individually. I cannot recommend SOP enough, it’s an investment in yourself that you will never regret!

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The SOP team was a great resource throughout the application process from school selection and strategy development through admittance. The entire team including Wendy, Bailey, and Kathryn were always available and immediately responsive to all questions, large and small. The SOP team is extremely thorough and readily prepared with every detail throughout the process, ensuring timelines are met ahead of schedule. I believe SOP saved me an incredible amount of time throughout the application process, helping decipher "nice to know" information from "need to know" and prioritizing time spent in the areas of my application that would drive the highest value to an admissions team.

I also want to give a special shout-out to Allison Skinner for her help throughout the application process. Allison was incredibly flexible through changing schedules and application priorities, ensuring all details were accounted for ahead of submission. Allison facilitated a thorough application process, whether a particular essay took 2 drafts or 8, and always approached questions/application strategy with a 360-degree viewpoint to account for all potential perspectives and considerations.

I highly recommend any prospective MBA applicant to work with the SOP team.

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Going into the application process I knew I had a lot of work to do. With Square One Prep I had a team supporting me from start to finish. Kathryn, Wilson, and Wendy worked with me to make sure I stayed organized. The team was always there when I had questions and pushed me to do my best. The career narrative work was particularly helpful as defining your career vision is essential to craft strong applications and then do strong interviews. The team will push you to get very detailed and challenge you to think deeply about what you really want to do. I gained valuable insight about my interests and feel the vision I created with them could become my business plan post-mba!

The application process is not easy, but I’m glad I chose them to help me out with the process. Everyone is rooting for you and giving you the support you need to succeed.

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I got multiple offers (Kellogg, Stern, LBS) and I couldn't have done it without the Square One Prep team. I called up Kathryn just 1 month before my first school's applications were due - she told me I had the potential to get into some of the top schools, but I had to work REALLY hard - and she was not kidding. The first week or two were very intense - or "living hell" as Kathryn described it - especially if you are a RUSH client, but the team was super supportive and flexible with their timings to ensure you meet your tight deadlines (Bailey, who cracked the whip on your personal schedule, made sure of that).

The career narrative work was super critical to the whole process and the whole team was super involved, insightful and helpful in refining my thinking around why I wanted an MBA and how I can craft a great story for the adcom. I had 4 career narrative calls, each of them were attended my main advisor, Ram; a career narrative expert, Wendi; and Kathryn.

My main adviser, Ram, invested many hours over the phone (at every odd time time possible). The first few days involved 4-6 hours on the phone just to understand who I am, my background, education, accomplishments, and work experience. The work was so thorough that at the end it formed a very compelling resume - a resume I could have ever imagined drafting myself. Ram was always accessible and was ready to bounce around ideas and explore different paths to take on my essays. Most of all he brings a unique perspective, and thinks about positioning your experiences in angles that really differentiate your candidacy. Ram challenged me to always push myself harder and reflect deeper to develop authentic, vulnerable, and compelling essays and interview answers.

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As I began my MBA applications I wondered how I would navigate the entire process. After speaking to friends who had successfully completed the process the year before, I decided to reach out to a couple of recommended advisors. I had initial calls with 4 of them, and as soon as I completed my introductory call with Kathryn I was sure I wanted to move forward with Square One Prep.

I really valued the dedication my daily advisor, as well as the rest of the team, had. They really invested time in getting to know me, both personally and professionally, and pushed me to my fullest potential.

Working with the team I was able to successfully develop my career narrative, a process that helped me analyze and reflect on my career path up date and discover and build short and long term career goals, and complete MBA applications that truly demonstrated who I am and what I want to accomplish.

My successful MBA application process would definitely not have been the same without the guidance and advice of Square One Prep!

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My experience with Square One Prep was truly exceptional. Throughout a very stressful application process, I received constant support from a team of caring, experienced, and dedicated professionals. Every stage of the process was helpful: from the assessment of my strengths and weaknesses as an applicant, to the eye-opening perspectives on my career narrative, to the honest feedback on my essays, and finally to getting me across the finish line with interview preparation.

I’m immensely grateful to the entire team for their support and to Mary Winograd especially for her authenticity and commitment. After months of hard work, I’m proud to be enrolling at my dream business school this Fall.

Thank you to Square One Prep for helping me achieve my goals!

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Square One Prep was crucial to my success. From the beginning, the team provided a detailed timeline that broke down the daunting application process into a manageable schedule that I could balance while working full-time.

The entire process was extremely professional and methodical. With guidance from my career narrative expert Luis Bellon, I was able to reflect deeply on my career and passions and articulate my goals into words. This introspective process was essential to my application process: plotting out my short and long term goals allowed me to be very intentional in envisioning what I wanted out of my MBA.

I worked with Jessica Bell van der Wal as my day-to-day advisor, who was a phenomenal advisor. From the beginning, Jessica took the time to understand me holistically as a person. She helped me tie together and highlight the elements of my personality and background thoughtfully into different parts of my application. The end product was an application that I was very proud of that accurately represented me as a whole.

The interview process with Kathryn Lucas was outstanding and helped me land the offers once I had interview invitations. Having worked at the same place for several years, I felt anxious about my rusty interviewing skills. The mock interviews and detailed debriefs gave me the confidence I needed to succeed during this final step.
Throughout the process, the entire staff was always very responsive and helpful, no matter what the hour. Even through the holidays, the staff was with me every step of the way. Everyone I worked with was extremely passionate and invested in my success.

I recommend SOP to anyone seeking business school application guidance without hesitation. I truly believe there cannot be a value assigned to the guidance I received through this deeply personal and introspective process. Thank you to the whole SOP team for your help!

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There is simply no way I would be going to Wharton or have had my choice between there and Sloan, Kellogg, Tuck, etc. without using Square One Prep. I actually started my process pretty confused about what type of graduate program to even apply for or what career path made sense for me. If not for my first free consultation call with Kathryn, where she listened to my story and my confusion about what my next step should be, I would have never been pointed in the right direction or realized how much business school made sense for me. Square One came highly recommended to me by two previous clients, and I am so grateful that I took their advice!

Once I signed on with Square One, I had my choice of excellent advisors and chose Rahul, who was there with me every step of the way. We’d talk through all the ideas I had for different essays before I began writing, where he’d work with me for as long as it took to figure out which direction made the most sense and how to craft that specific story for each individual school. He then helped me through the many drafts of each essay, quickly giving substantial constructive and detailed feedback, which resulted in strong essays that I could truly be proud of. He was incredibly helpful with my interview prep, drawing on experiences I had mentioned in essays or on the phone with him to help me think of specific answers to questions and providing me with detailed personalized advice. I felt totally confident in Rahul’s ability to make my applications as strong as possible (and clearly it worked!).

A big part of the process was first figuring out my career narrative – the story of what I want to do in the near-term and long-term and why, and where business school fits in that. As mentioned, I was confused at the start of my application process – I mean, TRULY all over the place with figuring out what I wanted to do next in my career. Over numerous calls with Wendy and the team, where I was always met with patience and provoking questions guiding me towards a more and more clear story, we crafted my narrative. This was crucial for the application process, but it was also personally and professionally so valuable.

With Square One, you are going to get always attentive, incredibly personalized advice, no matter where you are in the process, how many questions you ask, or how many drafts you need to go through to get to the final best version. Bailey will keep you on track with a very detailed schedule, helping to make an overwhelming large process become manageable and attainable. I thought top 10 schools would be just a pipe dream for me, coming from a science background without a stellar GRE score, but with the endless wisdom and encouragement from Kathryn and her team, I got into numerous top schools with some humbling scholarship options. Make this investment in yourself and your future – it will pay off!!!!

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I started engaging with a number of admissions consultants a year before applying. After completing numerous 30min consultations it became evident that Kathryn and her team were the way to go. As others have mentioned, there was a degree of honesty from the get-go but what really set SOP apart for me was their willingness to leverage their expertise and impart advice before any payments were made. My initial call with Kathryn was scheduled for 30min but lasted over an hour, during which she engaged with me as if I was a client already - providing feedback and suggestions for improving my profile in the year I had before applying. When asking other consultants what I could do to better my profile, they all pitched me on some early bird package or mentioned they would be happy to provide such advise once I signed up/ paid the fee. This demonstrated the values with which SOP operated with.

Fast forward to R1: I took a four school package and was admitted to a T10; rejected after interviewing at an M7 and outright rejected at two other M7's. The quality of my application; the resume, essays, recommendations and overall narrative/ story (not to be discounted as this was crucial in the interviews) was well above what I could have crafted on my own. At the outset I definitely had my doubts given the price point of these services but in hindsight it was definitely worth it. Everyone is in a unique situation and should reflect on where they stand and what resources they have at their disposable;. For me I was an ORM coming from Finance with a 720 and a okay undergrad record, I had no close friends or family members who went through the process/ whom I could rely upon heavily. A few friends/ colleagues were attending my target schools and were great resources for learning about the programs/ culture but their time was limited for reviewing and revising materials. I knew I was also an absolutely horrible writer. As such - I believed I could greatly benefit from these services and I did.

What I liked most about working with SOP was 1. The structure 2. The Team. Starting with the structure - SOP has a well defined process that starts with a series of conversations to learn about you as a person i.e. goals, interests, career, background etc. This then evolves into a spreadsheet/ evaluation of your candidacy, with strengths and weaknesses laid out from the get--go. This is followed by career narrative development (again all written and revised numerous times by you, Kathryn, your consultant and the career narrative coach/ expert). Then comes the resume and the and recommendations and THEN each school's application/ essays. All the written materials that were actually submitted were revised 10-15 times. Second is the Team - it's not just you and your individual consultant going through the whole process. The leadership team reviews all final materials and will also make multiple revisions. This is valuable because your work doesn't just reflect the opinion/ thoughts of one person but a group of experienced individuals.

The guidance and support they provided throughout the process was also invaluable - outside of the main process Kathryn and her team were always available to talk. For me this included discussing a potential job change and how that might impact my application, dealing with rejections, strategizing about a potential R2 effort .

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