As an individual from a science background hoping to transition into the business world, a top MBA seemed the clear choice. What was perhaps less apparent was the route to entry. Indeed with CV's, multiple essays, recommendations and detailed written applications the process was daunting to say the least. Square One Prep, and Kathryn more specifically were truly invaluable in guiding through this process and achieving success.

Kathryn provided a rigorous, systematic approach to tackle the application. She truly got to know me as an individual - beyond the numbers, and in the process enabled me to find and express my voice throughout each and every essay. Further unlike many admissions consultants Kathryn genuinely cares for her clients, and was available day and night for advice and support!

With her help I achieved admission to my top choice business school and could not be more grateful. If your contemplating the use of Square One Prep, pull the trigger and go for it - I guarantee you won't regret it!

Read More

I am thankful to have worked with Kathryn and John because the MBA application process is an arduous process. The time and effort they took to help shape my story and career narrative speaks to how much they care about their clients.

My free consultation call with Kathryn, the founder, demonstrated how Square One Prep does not rush with potential clients but are committed to building a partnership. She even recommended the best pricing service for the schools I selected to save me money.

I am glad to have chose John as my advisor. John took the time to address my questions and concerns and made himself available to me - he did not hesitate to talk over the phone. I appreciated his creative writing background and even-keeled personality. Kathryn's extensive knowledge and strategic advice were invaluable to my narrative and school selection. Despite a gap in my resume, they helped me get into two great schools.

I would recommend starting the process as soon as possible. Think about your story - what's driving you to get a MBA and what career field you want to get into. Good luck to future applicants!

Read More

I was initially hesitant to use an admissions consultant, but after speaking with Kathryn I knew it was the right move. Unlike other consultants who use free consultation calls as a means to sell their services, Kathryn used the intro call to get to know me and provide thought provoking insight into my candidacy. After speaking with with a couple of Square One Prep consultants, I decided to go with Joey Siesholtz. To be clear, Joey was my main point of contact at Square One while Kathryn provided a second set of eyes and comments on all of my essays.

The rationale for selecting Square One Prep is quite simple:

They make the process manageable: The personalized schedule Kathryn and Joey made for me was invaluable throughout the process. If you’re like me and are working full-time while applying to school, the personalized schedule is an extremely helpful tool that helps ensure you’re on track to meet application deadlines. The personalized schedule also breaks down each application into manageable workloads.

They push you to dig deep: If you’re coming from a traditional background like me (e.g., finance), it’s extremely important to highlight the qualities and experiences that set you apart from the rest of the herd. Both Joey's and Kathryn’s rare ability to ask the right questions will help you do just that. I came away from our 3+ hour assessment call with tons of ideas on how to differentiate myself from the rest of my finance peers.

They are experts: If you’re like me and struggle to truly understand what admissions committees are looking for in applications, you’ll benefit from having seasoned veterans in your corner. Both Kathryn and Joey are extremely knowledgeable about all that goes into applying to b-school.

They are always available: When they say they’re available 24/7, they mean it.

For all of the reasons mentioned above, I highly recommend Square One Prep to any applicant trying to get into a top school. I can say without hesitation, I wouldn’t have been admitted to a top MBA program if it weren’t for the help of Kathryn and Joey!

Read More

I interviewed several admissions consultants and Kathryn immediately stood out for how much time she took to get to know me and the insightful questions she asked in our initial call. These questions (describe one of your happiest moments/describe one of your saddest moments) were key in setting the tone for the self-reflection that informed my business school application process. She also gave me the confidence to apply for my dream school, HBS, with her frank assessment.

I worked with Melissa on applications to Wharton and HBS. Melissa gave thoughtful feedback and kept me on track despite illness/crazy work. Melissa was instrumental in helping me clarify my story and reason for applying to business school through the MANY drafts we did of my Wharton essays. I am not an inexperienced writer, but her feedback and revisions made my essays truly shine and took them to the next level.

The thing that stood out to me most about Square One was their care. I decided not to apply to Lauder very late (mid-Dec - after finalizing my essays!), and both Kathryn and Melissa took time to understand my thought process and for me to feel 100% comfortable in my decision even though this meant completely revising my application for Wharton.

I'll be attending HBS in the Fall and am very grateful to Kathryn and Melissa for their help in getting me there.

Read More

Square One Prep was very helpful and a great resource throughout the application process. I started working with them in November and they helped me get together 6 applications for round 2 deadlines; which I wasn’t even sure was possible. During my introductory call with Kathryn, she pointed out some holes in career story and how I might struggle with a 690 GMAT score. These were useful, necessary things for me to hear.

I worked with Anya throughout the process and she was great. We got along very well and she was on call for me 24/7 during those 2 months. She helped me craft great stories for my essays, radically improved my resume with a lot more detail and always provided useful comments. By the time interviews came around, I felt confident and very prepared.

I ended up getting into 2 of the 6 schools with substantial scholarships, and being waitlisted at 2 others. I was very happy with the result and am eager to start in August. I know that I could not have completed all of the applications with such diligence without Kathryn and Anya’s help.

Read More

I recently found out that I was admitted to my dream school, NYU, and I couldn’t have done it without the help of Square one Prep starting with the founder, Kathryn Lucas. Since the day that I inquired about the services that Square One provided and even though I didn’t end up using her services at the time, she stayed in touch with me and was a soundboard to me for the next four years - all for free.

When I decided to start the grad school application process, the first person I thought of was her, and although I didn’t immediately contact her she followed up with me, and her timing of reaching out to me to see how I am couldn’t have been more perfect.

I knew that I was in good hands from the beginning of the application process till the end making an overwhelming process easy to navigate. I was matched with an excellent consultant, Kunal, and he was nothing but encouraging and excited to work on my application. He took his time to understand my background in order to help me create the right tone for my Statement of Purpose. I could not be more thankful to him for keeping me focused and for providing invaluable advice and feedback as I crafted my essay and resume. He was also indispensable in guiding me and my recommenders through the LOR portion of the application, which was much trickier than I thought it would be.

I’m so happy and beyond thankful that I never lost contact with Kathryn and that she never lost interest in following up with me, a true display of rapport that speaks volumes of her and Square One Prep. Thank you Kathryn and Kunal for helping me reach my long term goal at my dream school!

Read More

Square One Prep was instrumental throughout my application process! I started the applications under an extremely tight timeline and extra pressure from transitioning into a new job. I knew I wanted to apply for b-schools during round 1, but was very lost and had no idea how to achieve my goal. Kathryn convinced me that submitting my applications during round 1 was possible, crafted a detailed game plan and gave me a lot of confidence about myself. Not only is she amazingly knowledgeable about every step of the application process, she is also passionate about admissions consulting and stepped out of her way to support me throughout the process (including the pep talks that I'm so grateful for!).

John was my advisor and was also fantastic to work with, as he is a talented story-teller and really helped me to reflect and present my own story to the adcom. He was also amazingly calm, patient and approachable throughout the stressful application process. I couldn't imagine applying without SquareOne's support. Thanks to their partnership, I am now happily looking forward to attending a top b-school - with a partial scholarship! I'm forever grateful.

Read More

Coming into the business school application process, I was a bit overwhelmed. With so many fast moving and detailed components that come with this competitive process – shaping your personal story, selecting the right schools, highlighting your unique strengths on your resume, choosing and managing recommenders, writing original essays, keeping track of various deadlines, and more – I needed an experienced, objective and insightful guiding hand to keep me on track and help me be successful in this journey. Square One Prep (and specifically, Kathryn) was just what I needed.
We started out with an in-depth conversation, where Kathryn was really able to get to know me personally and professionally. By understanding what was important to me, what professional and community experiences I had, what my career goals were and what my strengths and weaknesses were, together we identified areas to stress throughout my application as well as areas to mitigate or explain further. Coming from a background in management consulting, which is not especially unique in the business school applicant pool, it was very important to identify how to standout and Kathryn helped me do just that.
Next, Kathryn helped me assess which schools would be the best fit for me based on my interests and helped pull together a very useful timeline that would allow me to take a methodological, step by step approach to the application process. Over the course of the next few months, Kathryn worked diligently with me to stick to our timeline, answer my questions and craft six applications that I felt confident submitting.
When it came time to start preparing for interviews, again, Kathryn was there for me. We conducted several mock interviews, where she prepared me for any questions that might come my way and gave me honest and direct feedback about the strength of my responses. This was truly invaluable in allowing me to feel confident going into the live interviews.
There were many times throughout the entire process where I thought I knew almost everything on my own about a specific component of the application, for example, what a good essay topic might be, but then Kathryn helped me to think outside of the box and push myself to come up with something even better. She was a sounding board I could rely on to bring out the best of myself in my applications.
The results of our work together, I believe, speak for themselves – I was admitted into three of my top choice business schools (Fuqua, Tuck, and Columbia). I would highly recommend Kathryn and the services of Square One Prep to anyone who is going through this process.

Read More

I was initially very unsure if I wanted to hire a consultant to help me through the MBA process. I had a number of coworkers that were graduates of top MBA programs that offered to help when they could and I had heard mixed reviews on the value consultants actually add. I was skeptical if they would be worth the money.

I did a number of free consultations with many of the bigger admission consulting firms and Square One Prep was a clear stand out in my mind. From the first call with Kathryn I could tell she cared about her clients. She was very flexible in finding a time that worked with my crazy schedule and spoke with me for over an hour during our "30-minute" initial consultation. I appreciated her candid evaluation of my profile and how she identified weaknesses. I walked away from that call knowing what schools are seeking and feeling like an M7 school was well within my reach if I tackled the applications with Square One's help.

My Square One consultant was great. Kash worked hard to understand my story and by the end of working together I felt like we had become good friends, despite never actually meeting in person. Although it may seem minor, he was also able to offer much needed encouragement and motivation when I was feeling overwhelmed by the process. He helped me organize and present my story in a clear, compelling way that highlighted my strengths and what I would bring to the program. His help on my resume was invaluable. He was able to assist me in crafting bullets that clearly explained my impact to people who weren't at all familiar with the niche industry I work in. On the essays he helped me make sure each sentence made an impact and that I was not wasting precious space. Having Kathryn do reviews of the work was also extremely comforting. As a team, Kash and Kathryn made sure I was doing all I could to present myself sincerely and effectively.

Working with Square One Prep was wonderful and I have no regrets, despite initial hesitations about consultants in general. I ultimately got into one of my top choices, Haas, and I could not be more excited!

Read More

I will begin by saying that I was accepted into each of the six schools to which I applied including Stanford, Harvard and Wharton. I was apprehensive about using an admissions consultant because of the cost and what I perceived as an impersonal formulaic approach. All of my fears we assuaged after I spoke with Kathryn, the founder of Square One Prep, for a free consultation and fully understood the value of the Square One Prep process. Kathryn was completely real with me about the difficult journey of achieving my goal of getting into a top business school with a lower than average GMAT score but she was encouraging and immediately able to pick up on my strengths versus peers.

For months I worked with my advisor, Joan, to dig deeper on my story and career goals. It was not an easy process. I worried about my narrative not being good enough, I cried when sharing personal stories and I spent a significant amount of time reworking my essays. During this entire period both Joan and Kathryn were there every step of the way, providing thoughtful feedback and getting back to me quickly so we could meet deadlines. Their advice and structured process was invaluable to ensuring I met deadlines for school applications and felt confident when hitting submit.

Ultimately, as I stated initially, I was accepted into all of the schools to which I applied. I received a $75,000 scholarship to Kellogg and $95,000 fellowship to Wharton. Schools were interested in me due to the strength of the applications that Square One helped me to hone despite my lower than average GMAT score. I am overjoyed to say that I will be attending my dream business school, Stanford, in the fall!

If you're considering Square One, do it! There is no better investment you can make in yourself and the process of getting into the business school that best fits you.

Read More