Square One Prep - One thing I like about them is the freedom of choice they would allow their candidates to think about school fit and career narratives.

From the start of the conversation either with Kathryn or with Dione, they were friendly, open-minded, collaborative and of a helping nature. They took that extra effort to understand my story and gave me suggestions.

While working with Dione, I always felt that personal touch to my application and clear response to my queries. It was evident that she was clearly thinking from my perspective. She took that extra effort to give me suggestions that would increase my overall chances of succeeding not only with the application process but in the real world, in my career.

GMAT - This is one factor on which the overall process is heavily dependent. It is in the candidate's remit to improve the score. I had the support I needed for my preparation, and I also hired a personal trainer based on Square One Prep's timely suggestion which allowed me to reach my target score on time.

School Selection - Initially my ambitions or goals were very high, and my ask was not realistic. Now, when I look back I can realise the patience both Dione and Kathryn had to get on calls with me to educate me at my pace about what schools were good fits and what schools were not as well as why. I was happy to change my school selection as we worked to build the narrative and as Square One learned more about my background.

Timely Response: Across the overall process, Dione put extra hours in to understand my narrative. She would respond to my emails quickly and always got work back to me within 24 hours. She would drive and urge me to save time and work on my application. I would have lost time and may have missed my application deadlines otherwise.

Admitted to Cornell - Finally, Dione was and is still in touch with me. . Her timely advice, her accurate reflection of my application, her suggestions and feedback were above and beyond all that I could expect as part of the services.

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Kathryn Lucas was incredibly helpful in guiding my through the process. From the beginning, she took the time to speak with me as well as provide several former clients as references so I could make sure that Square One was the right fit. I was familiar with the process and started my application in advance so I wasn't pressed for time. I thought I was ready for the process, but Kathryn was invaluable.

On our first call she listened and took detailed notes on my "story." This was incredibly helpful in the first step of crafting my resume and informed the rest of our conversations. While I thought my resume was in decent shape, Kathryn re-tooled it for business school applications (as opposed to job searches). I would not have thought to make several of the edits or include some of the activities / descriptions that she did.

For my essays, Kathryn helped me brainstorm and review numerous drafts. She was always quick to turnaround edits and point out what she thought didn't work. Her advice was always direct, honest, and usually correct (though it sometimes took me a while to come around!).

I needed Kathryn's help the most on strong letters of recommendation and the interview. Kathryn was able to strengthen the letters of recommendation just by changing a few key words and without changing the content. For my interview prep, she gave me question-by-question feedback after a mock interview. She took the time to do a second mini-mock interview and even commented on the difference her advice had made.

With Kathryn's help, I was able to get into my top choice! I would absolutely recommend Square One Prep. Knowing I had Kathryn throughout the process and could email her with any questions I had (down to asking what time acceptance emails would be sent!) was incredibly helpful.

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When I first began thinking about applying to business school, I felt completely overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start. Fortunately, a good friend had worked with Square One Prep the prior year with great results, and put me in touch.

Right away during our initial call, I could tell that Kathryn “got” me in that magical way you hope a consultant will. She understood my career progression and accomplishments of course, but she also understood the subtle qualities that make me unique as a professional and as a person. That’s the SOP difference—the ability to hone in on, fully embrace, and express what makes you special to an adcom. For those of us coming from overrepresented industries, that’s a game changer.

Working with a consultant should feel like a seamless partnership, and that’s exactly what I experienced with Kathryn. She spent countless hours with me brainstorming content and revising drafts together until we were both satisfied with the final version. She was available 24/7, even late at night or on the weekend, which was ideal (I have work days that regularly extend past midnight). Her responsiveness was incredible too, always replying within minutes regardless of the hour. 
Kathryn constantly challenged me to push harder and dig deeper, not just with my applications but also my career goals. I learned so much about myself through the process, and felt completely taken care of. For a grade-A overthinker like me, Kathryn was a lifesaver. 

With Kathryn’s guidance I was able to craft a clear and compelling narrative that expressed who I am. I will be heading to HBS in the fall, and fully recommend SOP!

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The help that I received from Square One Prep transformed my application from mediocre to great in just a matter of weeks. I thought I had it covered, but minutes into my initial phone evaluation, it was clear that my application was disjointed and I lacked a vision. Immediately, Kathryn, put together an action plan outlining the steps that I needed to take to strengthen my overall application.

We started with my resume. When I look back at what I was planning on submitting to my dream school, it’s embarrassing. Not only did I lack the specificity needed to demonstrate the impact I had throughout college and my career, even the format was horrendous. Kathryn was able to share a large quantity of successful resumes (with personal information removed) so that I could understand what business schools expect. After a few revisions, my resume was ready for primetime.

She then proceeded to review my letters of recommendation and gave incredible advice on how my recommenders could make them even better. This was really critical for me because one of my recommenders had never written one before. While my recommendations highlighted that I would be a great candidate, at times the language and examples were not specific or powerful enough. She gave concrete feedback on where the letters needed to be reworked so that admissions officers could attain a better picture of my potential.

With the essays, she gave me the hard feedback on when I lacked a clear vision, was not using my authentic voice or went too far and no longer seemed practical. She also questioned whether some ideas were right for the questions I was asked to answer. Her guidance helped me be true to myself while answering the exact questions from the school.

Lastly, the interview prep was so helpful! She gave me a list of 50+ questions to practice with. After our mock phone call she provided the critical feedback I needed to hear so that I could knock the real interview out of the park. She also gave tips on how to handle certain situations should they arise on interview day.

I highly recommend Square One Prep for anyone who wants to put forth their best application. Even if you think you are covered (like I did), I have no doubt that they would take your application to the next level. Without their help I would not have gotten into my dream school (Stanford!).

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Coming into the process with Square One, I was very concerned that I had little going for me outside my GMAT. I came from a small country, a university that wasn’t even regionally recognized, let alone globally, and had a middling GPA. However, talking to Kathryn and Natalie gave me confidence that my story was M7 material. I worked with Natalie for three schools and was able to apply what I learned through the process for a few more.

Natalie first got on a 3-4 hour call with me to discuss my positioning, strengths, and weaknesses. Afterwards, she provided me a detailed document analyzing each aspect of my application and action items to improve on, particularly me doing the legwork on research for the three schools we were working on. From this launch point, we worked on my resume, going through something like 13 passes to ensure everything was ironed out before moving on to my first school.

For each school, Natalie and I crafted answers not just for the essay questions, but also the short answer prompts on each application form. I have to give a ton of credit to both Natalie and Kathryn here. I found that I tended to gloss over a ton of things in my writing that would have been very meaningful and impactful had I expounded. Natalie found a way to make room for those items while cutting down on the clutter and helping my writing be more concise. Kathryn, on the other hand, gave me the tough feedback I needed to know and made sure that everything in my essay was bulletproof. She made sure everything I wrote was clear and impactful. Their one-two punch was incredibly helpful in ensuring that my essays were not only well though-out but also reflective of who I was and what they knew about me.

With their help, I was able to secure interview invites to 2 of the 3 M7 schools we worked on (with Harvard being the other). Interview prep was also excellent. Natalie gave me a thorough list of common interview questions to prepare for and gave me a mock interview and feedback session. In the interview proper, Natalie also threw me curveballs in the form of questions she didn’t have me prepare for to underline the need to be on your toes and thinking on the fly. With this, I felt like I was able to ace both interviews.
However, what really stood out to me was the concern SOP displayed. There were nearly 2 months between my interviews and decision release dates for the 2 schools we worked on with active applications. Despite this, Natalie was very active in checking up on my application status on even the schools I applied to independently.

Come decision day, I got a waitlist for 1 M7 and instead of letting me wallow in not getting accepted, Natalie and Kathryn immediately got down to business and let me know what the next steps were towards getting off the waitlist. Without a second thought, I had all their waitlist essay prep materials on hand and ready to help me prepare. While we’re still working on those essays, I have to say that I’m very pleased with our working relationship. They strike the right balance between care and concern and directness that keeps you working at optimum efficiency. I’m pleased to say that I got admitted to the 2nd M7 I interviewed with and I’m currently getting ready to place my deposit and secure my slot. While I don’t know if I would have gotten in without Kathryn and Natalie, I do know that they made the entire process much easier to navigate and gave me a lot of peace of mind in the midst of such a daunting process.

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I’ll never forget coming home after taking the GMAT. My wife and I began to celebrate and popped a bottle of champagne. My hard work had paid off. She smiled and looked at me and said “so, what’s next?”

“What’s next?” I thought to myself. “I have no clue”. That night I started researching schools, applications, and essays. I was overwhelmed. I called a friend who had just completed his MBA. His advice was clear – find a consultant.
After ‘due diligence’ calls with nearly ten firms I researched on GMAT Club, I met Kathryn at Square One. I’ll never forget that call. I felt like I was being interviewed. It was evident that Kathryn was very deliberate in finding candidates who were committed to the process. After our call, I met with several folks at her firm and chose to work with Sunny.

We spent hours on calls and exchanged tons of emails. Sunny worked with me to beautifully articulate my story. She challenged me to reflect on my experiences and distill who I am and what I truly want out of not just my career, but also my life. The months of quiet thought and reflection- followed by the months of working with Sunny (and Kathryn who scoured my work as I developed it to ensure it did the job) - helped me craft a captivating story, and I can truly say that the end product was nothing less than phenomenal.

Sunny was my thought leader, my cheerleader, and my tour guide on this adventure. From interview advice to random check-in emails, I could not have asked for a better partner in this process.

I’ll let the results speak for themselves, next year I will be enrolling at HBS.

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I am still reeling from the second denial notification I received from NYU Stern (which follows the rejection from Columbia just few weeks before) two weeks ago and as such, my dream of attending an MBA in NYC has been wiped out (at least for this year). Now, if I told you that I applied with a 650 GMAT score , you may say that I should have expected such an outcome. Fair enough. But what you may not know is that I hired the consultants of SOP Advisory service to help me through the application process. I fell for their wonderful website where they brag about their incredible, high admission success-rate for their clients as prospective MBA candidates. Unfortunately, I experienced that their service was not wonderful at all: I can't know whether my poor GMAT score was the deal breaker in my application, but I can definitely say that the SOP ambition, to make your application as strong as possible and make up for other weaknesses in your profile, (among others a low GMAT score, it is one of first mentioned...take a look at their website under the most common application challenges list) has totally failed.

On top of this, every time I sounded the consultants out on any advice, I was treated with haughtiness and talked down to, both in the emails sent to me and during our Skype conversations. For example, I sent an email to my consultant last week saying that I has also been rejected from NYU and I am still waiting for his reply!!
On the other hand, the monthly payment reminders were sent like clockwork.

All in all my personal experience with SOP has been disastrous, not only for the very questionable service standard but also because of the poor customer care .
The service was very expensive and not value for money at all (LORs, essay and resume advisory for two business schools totaled 5,700 USD). Furthermore, the service should have included interview training as well. In the end I was rejected and did not benefit from the service. On top of this, I have never received even a partial refund from them.
I discourage future applicants to resort to this service: in hindsight I would never ever hire them!

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Kathryn and her team played a pivotal role in my acceptance to both schools that I applied to. With their help I’ll be attending Columbia!

Overwhelmed by the MBA application process, I first reached out to Kathryn in the fall of 2015 after reading the raving reviews on GMAT Club. During our initial 1 hour consultation Kathryn focused on understanding my personal history and immediately began building a framework for my personal narrative. With my GMAT exam a couple a couple weeks away and first round applications due in less than a month, Kathryn developed and outlined a strategy to tackle my applications for my target schools. With a plan in place, she left me to focus on studying for the exam. I took the GMAT a week later, and disappointed with my score, I scrapped my plans to apply to business school that year.

Fast forward to the spring of 2016. Destroyed but not defeated, I was back on the horse studying for the GMAT. Out of the blue Kathryn emailed me asking whether I ended up applying to business school last fall. We informally caught up and I confided in her about my struggle with the GMAT. Kathryn was able put things into perspective-that I was psyching myself out-which allowed me to take a deep breath and realize that the GMAT wasn’t do or die. While I still wasn’t satisfied with my results, this time I followed up with Kathryn after my exam. She did offer sobering news, that my GMAT score will work against me but assured me that my narrative and work experience would stand out to some select schools. She urged me to put the GMAT behind me and take a shot at applying this fall.

I took her advice and I was partnered with one of her advisors, John, who took the lead in managing the application process. John not only kept me focused and on top of a tight schedule, but also, through dialogue and self-reflection, got me comfortable talking about not only my past but also the obstacles that molded me into the person I am today. Most importantly, with his help, I was able to craft powerful essays that created narratives to interpret my past and link an MBA degree with my future. The finished products, from the resume to optional essays, were captivating, to say the least.

Kathryn and her team are relentless in their effort to make their clients shine to admissions committees and I can’t recommend their services enough!!

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I have nothing but positive things to say about SquareOne Prep, Kathryn in particular.

From the very beginning of my process (which started a year before I actually applied), Kathryn spent an enormous amount of time with me on the phone addressing my concerns, reassuring me and giving me extremely honest advice about how I should think about my candidacy. This was before she even signed on as my advisor. After multiple phone conversations, we agreed that I ought to wait, re-take my exam (I was barely crossing 300) and strengthen my profile for first round the following cycle. When it was time to kick off the application process, Kathryn reached out to me unprompted and asked if I was ready to begin our work together. Initially I was wary about hiring an advisor but after speaking with Kathryn and learning more about her curated approach to the application process, I knew I would greatly benefit from her coaching and acute knowledge of the admissions committees. I could tell she was truly invested in my success and was as intent on me getting into the school of my dreams as I was.

After our first official introduction conversation, for the first time I was excited about the cumbersome journey of the b-school application process. Kathryn made the process seem less daunting and more of an exciting road that we would be on together. Kathryn always made herself available, even if it was just to hop on the phone for 5-10 minutes. She gave me encouraging, honest and incredibly detailed feedback about each aspect of my candidacy – where I was strong and where we needed to strengthen. After taking my exam multiple times and still receiving a low test score of 305, I was convinced that going to a top b-school was not a reality for me. Yet, Kathryn believed in my potential and promised that we would overcome my low score by strengthening the rest of my application. When I was doubtful about applying to only top schools, Kathryn pushed me to go for it because what she believed in what I had to offer. With a strict timeline and thought out plan, I began my applications very early which eliminated last-minute haste and stress. Ultimately, I got in early to my top choice program – Columbia—and owe much of this success to Kathryn and Square One Prep.

I highly recommend Kathryn & SquareOne Prep to anyone going through the b-school application process, it is a wise investment.

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As someone who was looking to transition careers post MBA and with just over 2 years of work experience at the time of application ( not to mention the fact that I belong to the most competitive application pool ), I knew I needed help to differentiate myself and present the best version of myself to the adcom.

After much research and many free profile evaluations with several agencies, the call with Kathryn was a breath of fresh air. I was looking for someone that really understood me as a person and my motivation for this degree and could help me build an application around that. Square One was the perfect match. My career path post-MBA is fueled by my passion for a particular industry that isn't a tradition one for business school. Still, Kathryn was able to help me understand how I could channel that passion to create the perfect B-school application. Even during our free consultation, we spoke for over an hour ( was supposed to be a free 30-min consultation ) and Kathryn gave me some great feedback. In fact, Kathryn readily hopped onto Skype sessions for free for well over two hours in total even before I decided to work with Square One.

I think the Square One system of working with one consultant full time and then getting a second pair of eyes in the form of Kathryn to provide fresh perspective/feedback is excellent. I worked with an SOP consultant on my applications and he made the entire process so much easier. He tells it like it is and is incredibly patient from start to finish. As someone who was introspecting through the process, I found that immensely helpful. He encouraged me take my time with the essays ( I started the application process fairly early ) in order to get my content just right. Even when it sometimes took over 20 revisions to get my essays right, he would never lose patience with me and made sure the essay was exactly that, just right. His ability to take every sentence and transform it into impactful text made a huge difference in every essay. Additionally, I was particularly impressed with the finesse that I was able to gain on my resume with his help ( Nailed a few job interviews with this too! ). I distinctly remember sitting down to compare the first draft of my resume and the final version and the difference was remarkable. Kathryn is a stickler for authenticity and this not only speaks for the kind of work Square One does but also helps build the perfect application in my opinion.

My process was certainly not straight forward and I received a ding in R1 from a top 4 school. Kathryn was extremely supportive in making sure my head didn’t drop and reassured me that I was a strong candidate and that I would definitely get the call I deserved. It didn’t take long for that call to arrive! I got admitted to Fuqua EA ( Class of 2019 ) and I could not be happier! Fuqua was a dream school for me and to matriculate there next year is a dream come true. Safe to say, I would not be in this position if it wasn’t for Square One.

You guys are the best!

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