From my very first free consultation call with Kathryn, I knew I found the right group of individuals to help me through this process. I engaged with SOP based on the suggestion of a friend going through the application process and reached out shortly before my first interview. After my first (free) consultation, Kathryn and I had already come up with a game plan on how to get me ready (an aggressive plan but one that would position me best for my top choice school). I appreciate the level of attention and check-ins to make sure all the pieces of the application were moving forward. This was particularly helpful while life and work were picking up for me.

Quickly after my consultation, I knew I was committed and soon after interviewed my advisor. My advisor not only became a friend during this process but a real confidant. Afiya was transparent, accessible, understanding, but always kept me honest when I needed to get back on track. I really appreciated the support throughout the whole process. Overall I'd highly recommend the services of Square One Prep. Their unique portal helps organize the pieces of the application in a way that is easy to digest and keep up with during this stressful time!

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My primary advisor was Eden and I cannot speak more highly of her. From the get-go, I knew I wanted to target EU schools only, so I wanted someone with experience working with successful EU admits. I applied to three schools; Judge (Cambridge), Oxford (Said) and INSEAD.

I first heard of SOP through a referral from a peer; a Forte Fellow who got an admit from Booth. I'd spoken to 3-4 other consulting companies by this time, so I thought I have nothing to lose by setting up a 30 minute video call with Kathryn, which turned into a 60 minute call. I wanted a partner who wouldn't just help me develop my application, but was going to be 100% honest and give sincere constructive feedback throughout the process. I asked her the hard questions; "A 93% success rate for interviews overall, what about the SPECIFIC schools I'm applying to?", "How many clients have you worked with, with non-traditional backgrounds?", "These are my worry points, what would be your suggestion if we worked together?".... She answered each one perfectly, personally, and with the utmost confidence in me.

I think that was the differentiating factor throughout my four month engagement with them - Confidence.
1. Kathryn, Eden, Wendy, Bailey and Jenny had an unwavering confidence in my candidacy (even at times when I had little confidence in myself!). This rubbed off on me.
2. Confidence in their work - and they should - they know what they are doing!

I'd specifically like to highlight the below;

*ESSAYS*, essays, essays. After trawling my files, this is what Eden and I have come to...
3 schools/ 19 essays/ 188 revisions (~9.89 revisions per essay). Eden was extremely professional. Despite the time difference (US and EU), she would make sure she had each revision back to me within 24 hours (but most of the time <12hrs). Toward the completion of the essays, we would often send three versions within a 24 hour period. The hours she would have put into the essays easily would have amounted to over 100 hours. Her attention to detail, her passion to keep my 'voice'/authenticity, her professionalism was more than I expected. Eden was with me every step of the way (school selection, background analysis, essays, LORs, interview prep.. the list goes on). Honestly, she wouldn't be doing it if she wasn't passionate about who she was working with. By the end of our engagement, Eden was more of a friend and mentor than an admissions consultant and I give her credit for my success (and the many others she's helped get into top MBAs).

On top of that, each of my 19 essays were reviewed by the Leadership Team twice. I truely believe that everyone at SOP, whether an advisor or the CEO, was committed to making sure I put my best foot forward.

Career Narrative/Career Vision
I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but Wendy, Eden and Kathryn made me realise how many gaps I had in my plan. By guiding me to think deeply into who I want to be, what I want to do, and what I want to stand for, I was able to craft a strong, compelling career narrative which is 100% me. This required hours of introspection (and psychological might from all parties) but ultimately I was able to explore, research and decide on career prospects, geographical moves and timelines, the skills I'll need, and the impact I'll have.

Systems Approach
Lastly, I wanted to give credit to the strong systems that SOP has established for clients, like you and I, to utilise. This includes the personalised Schedule which visualises (in a calendar graph format) when each component of the application (each essay, LORs, Career Narrative, etc), who is currently working on it, and their deadlines. They also provide sample essays only from past successful admits (anonymously) specific to the school. Both these tools kept me accountable, while expanding my thinking and truely appreciating that not one essay/application is the same, just like not one person is the same.


I'm happy to report that I'm off to INSEAD starting in September. I am still waiting to hear scholarship decisions (I will update my review once I find out).

I recommend Square One Prep and Eden wholeheartedly for any aspiring MBA candidate.

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Square one prep is one of the best investments you can make in yourself. The MBA application can be extremely stressful and square one prep takes out all the stress through their structured approach.

Jeannice, Kathryn and Wendy helped me immensely throughout the application process. From brainstorming my career narrative to my interview preparation, my team was always pushing me to give my 100%. My consultant, Jeannice, was extremely responsive to all my emails and made sure I completed all my deliverables on time. I was so happy with the quality of service that I decided to purchase another school package.

Square one prep worked with me till the very end and not only helped me get off the waitlist but also helped me secure a scholarship to my dream school!

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I am so thrilled with my results after working with the amazing resources at Square One Prep! There is no way I would have been able to have received four acceptances and two scholarships without their help every step of the way. They broke down each component of the overwhelming process into doable, bite-sized steps, and kept me on a schedule which was truly invaluable.

One of the most helpful parts of the process was working on my career narrative with Wendy and the team. As someone who plans to make a substantial career change post-MBA, it was vital to form a clear story and define my short- and long-term goals. The team was very patient with me as I went through multiple ideas and figured out what exactly it was that I was trying to convey to adcoms through my applications. They helped guide my thought process until I had what felt like the most authentic narrative for me, and they never dictated a certain story that they thought I should tell.

Annie, my individual advisor, was incredibly helpful as I went through the essay writing process, particularly as I generated compelling and thoughtful ideas for each essay. She was not afraid to push back on me when the ideas or content was not strong enough. She really got to know me, my interests, and my stories in order to help me craft the strongest responses to each school and their unique prompts. She also was very helpful when guiding myself and my recommenders through the recommendation process.

I would absolutely recommend Square One Prep as you take on the MBA application process!

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I have consulted with quite a few consulting services at the beginning of the process. At the time I felt very uncertain about how strong my candidacy was with a background from the arts in a startup environment. Time was ticking to hit R1 deadlines when I decided to apply. Kathryn and SOP were swift, honest, genuine in giving a thorough initial assessment and providing great insights right away on the free consultation call. She was generous with her time, educated me, and immediately instilled confidence in me, while some firms were really no shy of crushing your faith in yourself. It was so important to feel that your consultant sees you and has your back, with the support of experiences and insights.

My primary consultant Mike White was extremely hands-on and made himself very available. The response time is usually within hours the entire time. He adhered to a unique SOP process while adding his own perspective and professional input to sculpting your story.  Rather than asking clients to submit a self-reflective questionnaire that requires a majority of the introspective heavy-lifting already been done, SOP’s process makes the crucial reflection process an active intake and conversation between the client and the consultant. To me, that takes a lot of psychological burdens off and makes it much less daunting to start the process.

I deeply appreciate the career narrative process with Wendy and Kathryn. They really challenge you, again and again, to think hard and deep, at micro and micro, personal and market-level on why a certain career path makes sense to you. Such work is so worthwhile and necessary that bleeds into everything that you write from there.

For anyone who seeks the sense of security that someone is always there for you at any moment (literally picking up a phone late a night if an emergency happens) and have the option to solicit opinions from multiple perspectives from your support system SOP is really a great choice.

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Thanks the Square One Prep team (Matteo, Kathryn, Wendy and Bailey) so much for helping me get into my dream school! I believe MBA will be a life changing experience for me and SOP plays the most important part in this application process. I'm a re-applicant and SOP is the key to help me rebuild my confidence.

Thanks Matteo, who spent great amount of time, kept revising and refining my version again and again.

Thanks Kathryn, who's always critical and popping out the key questions for me to think about and work on.

Though the application process is definitely a tiring process, I'm so lucky that I have SOP to accompany me along the way! I'm not alone!

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The Square One team was extremely supportive of me throughout the entire application process. Back when I was still considering whether to apply to MBA programs, Kathryn carved time out of her schedule on multiple occasions to help me talk through my career path, my professional goals, and how an MBA might fit with these goals. She made me feel comfortable and I truly felt that I could completely be myself around her and the Square One team. I had a pretty aggressive timeline from the time I started my application journey to the application due date, but my advisor Kathleen created and guided me through a plan that was manageable and effective. The team's style involves really getting to know their client, and I appreciated how much effort they put into bringing out the best in me. In addition to just creating the application, I also learned a lot about myself, and I had fun doing it, too! Without Square One, I would have struggled to create an application and conduct an interview that so heavily emphasized my strengths and limited my weaknesses. I would recommend Kathryn and her team to anyone who is kicking off their MBA journey!

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I was initially very nervous about by MBA application especially given how competitive this year was going to be. I had my first call with Kathryn as an initial assessment and the one thing that really got me interested in Square One was the honesty with which they evaluated my profile and picked out gaps. I wanted a partner who could not only help me develop my application but also give me honest and constructive feedback throughout the process. The team at Square One Prep believes in developing a 1-1 relationship between the applicant and the consultant and this allows you to freely discuss your thoughts, brainstorm, work collaboratively and understand and rectify your gaps.

My partnership started in July with Varun and the initial check-ins really helped me lay out all my significant life incidents that could play a role in my B-School story. The career goal development process is something unique to Square One where they focus on developing your short, mid, and long-term career goals before you even get into your applications. This process helps you identify different career prospects, the journey you want to take on, skills you need etc. The output from the career narrative process really helped me build a strong foundation for my applications.

The application development process became a lot easier because I had someone like Varun to work with. He was always open to collaborate with me, brainstorm about the smallest of things and gave me feedback at every step. The relationship became more like that of a friend than that of an applicant and a consultant. He was always accessible and ready to have chats when I was feeling down or demotivated. A big credit for my admit at Kellogg goes to Varun and Square One for providing me the best support system I could have asked for.

For the highest level of collaboration, amazing partners, and brutal honesty, I would recommend Square One and Varun Uttamchandani for all aspiring MBA applicants.

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I interviewed several firms and independent consultants at varying price levels. SOP stood out immediately for a few reasons:

1. Dedicated attention: Weighs quality of applications over quantity of applicants, and it shows. For the free consultation, Kathryn took the time to review the material I had sent over beforehand and really listened. The call was over an hour; she gave me an honest assessment of my profile and her recommendations. This dedication was consistent at every step of my application process working with SOP; you can tell Kathryn really puts her heart into her work and the applicants.
2. Systematic approach: SOP was the only firm that could clearly explain to me how I would be working with them. I really liked their approach and just knowing a very structured process was there helped relieve a lot of stress. All the advisors at SOP I spoke with (some of whom used to be independent MBA consultants) commented on the rigor of SOP’s process.
3. Team-based: SOP was the only firm I found that took a team-based approach. You work with an advisor + the leadership team + career narrative advisor (Wendy) + coordinator (to help keep you and your advisor on track). This means Kathryn/leadership reviews everything that goes out and you get multiple perspectives between your advisor and the leadership team.

Jeannice. I immediately clicked with Jeannice. Applications are a very trying process and you need someone that will be real with you! I won’t forget that one essay where Jeannice/Kathryn and I went back and forth for weeks until Jeannice ultimately suggested to scrap it, and I was so relieved she did. I appreciated that she didn’t just let it pass even though that would have saved her much time/effort. Jeannice’s professional background is what initially drew me to her and I couldn’t have made a better decision. It was extremely effective that Jeannice related to all aspects of my professional background. She helped me tell my story in a way that adcoms would fully understand the impact of my achievements.  She helped me uncover my own biases in my personal examples. Schools are looking for introspection, and my content was stronger/more relatable because of it. When it came to interviews, I couldn’t help but try to over-prepare content, but Jeannice helped me take a step back and focus on the delivery as well. Her feedback helped get me out of my head. My interview responses weren’t perfect, but it wasn’t canned. It made me seem human and show my interviewer who I really was (I was admitted to both schools that I interviewed for).

Wendy. The career narrative you write with SOP isn’t a part of the application process; it’s essentially a write up of your story/goals and the foundation to all your essays, especially helpful if you’re applying to multiple schools. Like many applicants, I was nervous about writing what I actually wanted to do post-mba thinking it wouldn’t fit the “profile.” I intially drafted goals that I felt made more sense, but Wendy helped me realize I couldn’t write about it with enough heart. Not to sound exaggerated, but the application process was very reflective for me and Wendy + team helped encourage me to pursue what I really wanted to do; it made my story more genuine at the same time.

I’m so excited to be attending my dream school!

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My experience working with Square One Prep was absolutely amazing. When I first approached Kathryn, I had only a few weeks remaining for my application deadlines and I had barely any idea on where to start. I was extremely anxious about the application process. But as I began working with Kathryn and the SOP team, my mind was put at ease. My initial consultation call with Kathryn gave me the confidence I needed to believe in the strength of my profile. Unlike other consultants I'd approached before, Kathryn gave the time to hear me out completely and understand my expectations.

I was especially delighted by my experience working with my SOP advisor. She left no stone unturned to make sure that my application was perfect. We worked on several iterations on my resume and essays, until we were truly satisfied with the result. Moreover, she acted as a constant pillar of support throughout and kept me motivated during the entire process. I was amazed by her meticulous approach and her prompt response while working on my application. Her invaluable feedback at each step really helped me put my best foot forward.

I worked with SOP for 2 schools - HBS and Wharton. I received an interview invite for both and was accepted to Harvard Business School, which was my dream school. I just could not have done this without Square One Prep. Working with Kathryn and her team was the best decision I made during my MBA application process. Looking back, I would not have done this differently

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