I received quotes from 3 or 4 consulting groups and went with SBC because I felt the most comfortable with them. Though they were the most expensive, I didn't feel as though a few thousand dollars would be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, especially if it made the difference of getting into a reach school.

1. All in all, I got into my two reach schools and do not feel that would have been possible without SBC.
2. If I were to do it all again I would most likely go with the hourly package. I just felt like for the price the number of hours was not there. This is not a comment on the quality of work, I just feel it may have been more economical in hindsight.

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As I started my MBA journey, I was very keen on hiring a consultant since I wasn't an "easy" candidate. I started researching and had conversations with at least 7-8 different companies before settling on SBC. Going into the process I was looking for a company that would not sugar coat things and would take a personal interest in me. Two things sold me on SBC:
1) An initial conversation with Esther Magna. She gave point blank and honest advice on my application, which is exactly what I was looking for. I was also struggling between which consultant, and Esther was incredibly transparent about who would fit my needs best
2) Lisa's persistence of exploring the why behind each question. I made a point to have a conversation with her before officially signing on, and she really helped ease my nerves. Also, I'd read solid reviews on Lisa being a great consultant for difficult candidates (by difficult, I mean applicants aiming for Top 10 with lower GMAT scores). She was fantastic throughout the process, and I could not be happier!

Ultimately, I had a great experience and got admitted to 3 of the 6 schools I applied to. Highly recommend SBC!

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SBC is great as compared to their competitors, because they gave me the option to have 1 hour chat with a different consultant. So, I chatted twice with a Booth former adcom member and once with a Ross adcom member.

The SBC staff was in scheduling consultants with only 24 hour notice, as compared to the competitors which required one week notice.

I took SBC mock-interview for 1 hour. It was great because it gave me an opportunity to dry run my story. I got good feedback on how to slightly improve my story. I presented the improved story during the actual interview at Booth. The Booth admission com feedback later during the admitted call feedback was that I did very well in the interview.

I also obtained Booth essay feedback. The feedback was good, but, could have been better. The feedback was good because it prevented me from going down the wrong track. However, the consultant was unable to offer me ideas on how to improve the essay.

I also obtained Ross essay feedback. This was really good as the consultant both helped me improve the matter as well as we together brainstormed what stories to tell in the essay.

Overall, great experience. I owe some credit to SBC for helping me get into Booth. They helped me gain confidence and polished my story, which was beneficial for the interview and essays.

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I had an excellent experience working with Erika on a 4 school package. I was initially referred to SBC by a friend who also worked with Erika the previous year and was ultimately admitted to her top choice school. After hearing how great her experience was, rather than shop around at other companies, I immediately signed up for SBC.

Right off the bat, I felt that Erika's personality was a great fit for me. She was honest, had a sense of humor and made what was quite a stressful process a bit more enjoyable. Throughout the process, Erika was a great sounding board for all questions both large and small, and she provided useful feedback on both my essay content and writing style. Turnaround time was always extremely fast yet her edits were always thorough and appreciated. My flight test with Rebekah and the rest of the team at SBC also offered additional value support that can't be matched by smaller companies. Plus, the entire suite of SBC resources from interview guides to essay samples provided an additional edge that I greatly appreciated. Lastly, the mock interview with Erika was one of the most valuable parts of the process. Prior to our mock, I was experiencing severe interview anxiety and did not feel prepared. With Erika's help, I fine-tuned answers to key questions, built my confidence and truly felt like I aced my interview.

I do want to share a few minor points of feedback that I hope SBC will continue to work on. Firstly, I wish we had spent more time crafting an overall strategy to my applications. In speaking with other friends who used consultants (both within and outside the SBC family), it seemed that other consultants spent more time developing a strategy of how best to position their clients and pinpointing the qualities to highlight in essays. While Erika did mention a few strong points in my background in our initial call, we did not ever circle back to these. In most cases I would write my first draft on my own and Erika would edit from there, but I would have preferred to spend more time brainstorming initial ideas together to ensure I was positioning myself best. Additionally, I sometimes felt that my doubts were not taken seriously or I was not being held to a high enough standard - being told that my essays were "fine" was not exactly reassuring as I applied to schools with sub 10% acceptance rates. To this point, I was surprised to find that my flight tester offered almost zero negative feedback and said I was an "interesting candidate" for a school to which I later did not even receive an interview (a school that I was directly told I had a solid chance of admittance at during my initial consult)

With all this in mind, I still wholeheartedly recommend working with Erika and the entire SBC team. With their support, an extremely daunting experience became manageable and I gained insider knowledge that I could not have gotten elsewhere. After a long process, I am excited to be attending Booth this fall and I could not have done it without Erika's guidance.

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Choosing to sign up with SBC to assist in my B-school applications was definitely the right decision! The perspective & guidance that my SBC consultant was able to offer through the application process was invaluable. While I saw myself as an acceptable MBA candidate before hiring SBC, my applications and essays would have not been anywhere close to the final product that my consultant worked with me to produce.

My consultant was Jessica and she was a great individual to work with during this time. Jessica put in considerable time to understand who I was / where I came from / where I wanted to go, which then helped us to develop my complete profile and highlight my candidacy in the best possible way. We went through multiple rounds for each essay and my resume, getting a ton of feedback from Jessica that helped me to dig deeper within each draft. This led to the final drafts being a collection of refined ideas and themes that had been developed through hours of work between us. After we were through with this part of preparation, we were then able to submit my total profile to their “Flight-test”, where a former MBA admissions officer is able to review your profile and provide any feedback. Getting this final sign-off & feedback from a former admissions officer was a huge win and helps to give a high level of confidence when submitting applications.

Overall, my experience with SBC wasn’t about filling out applications, writing essays, or resume edits…. Instead it was about how Jessica was able to work with me to make me a complete candidate that was able to holistically demonstrate who I am through each & every step of the way. All of this culminated with me being admitted to my dream/target school (top-15 B School) along with a notable scholarship.

If you are like me and want nothing less than your best application possible (no regrets, no what if’s), I highly recommend hiring SBC.

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My profile goes like this:
An older candidate, belong to an over-represented group of applicants, belong to an under-represented industry, 690 GMAT and 3.15 CGPA and an average work experience with a few interesting bits and pieces.
I knew, I needed help. I talked to a few services and realized that SBC would work nice, with their experience.
First call wasn't the best one (not to Ryan, someone else) and was told that with my profile I might be shooting for stars and may not work well. But after that, from second call onwards, things were on the track.
We discussed schools and aspirations, reasons and other details. When time came for Brag Sheet, that was really the time I realized what I had lacked in preparation for an MBA so far. Finally, the countless hours of editing essays, resumes, interview prep, etc. But Ryan was on it all the time. I slipped from original schedule and my job gave me a few jitters, but he didn't let go of the end.
Today, out of three schools, I have one admit, 2 waitlist (all ranked among top 20 - P&Q - including one in top 10).
I can't be more happy. Ryan delivered what he promised.

Suggestions to prospective students:
Be aware of why you want an MBA. Use the resources available, as much as you can.

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I was paired with Sherry and I appreciate her transparency and honesty during our first conversation. I remembered being told that - every applicant has his / her reasons for selecting certain schools, some may choose not to pursue an MBA if not admitted to these schools as the opportunity cost of going through MBA is high. Her opinion resonated with my thoughts and she took the time to understand my priorities for school selection and proposed another school for my consideration (which I eventually applied to on my own).

I worked with Sherry on 2 schools. The list below calls out the reasons I enjoyed working with Sherry throughout the whole application process:

1.) Resume
- Thorough and iterative process (approximately 10 drafts) to highlight key achievements, roles and responsibilities
- Detailed explanation from Sherry on how to refine and summarize my achievements

2.) Essays
- We worked closely on 4 long essays and also a few shorter question prompts
- Started off with brainstorming sessions during which I explained how I plan to approach these essays followed by her comments and we finished off with a plan and structure.
- With the structure established during the brainstorming, we went through a few drafts to refine details and highlight key messages

3.) Interview
- Some practices before the mock interview with Sherry. I find the mock interview really helpful as she thoughtfully pintpointed weaknesses that I need to work on such as use of jargons, abbreviations and inconsistency in messages between questions

4.) Other
- She is very responsive and prompt. Throughout the application process, she reverted to me timely (I think she has always responded by the dates she promised)
- She is really good in guiding my thinking process, funnelling my ideas so that I can succinctly articulate them in essays and also during interviews
- Having a big picture i.e. knowing the theme of my application

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A quick summary of my profile - liberal arts undergraduate university, double major in business/econ, IB then PE, white, male.

After evaluating a number of consulting firms (MBA Mission, Paul Bodine, Critical Square, Square One Prep, Personal MBA Coach), I chose to work with Dawn at SBC. I also liked Square One Prep and Menlo Coaching.

As an HBS graduate, I felt Dawn was most comfortable with HBS but had a good handle on Wharton and Columbia as well. Dawn's strength was helping me evaluate my profile and craft a story. She then worked with me to develop the high level structure / flow of the document. Thereafter, the heavy lifting was on me to develop a detailed outline of each essay and ultimately write the essay. Dawn explained that I was a strong writer so she essentially provided zero edits on most essays after I wrote the essays (this is in part because we got so detailed on the outlines).

Overall, I enjoyed working with Dawn. She is extremely positive and supportive. She is great at helping you craft stories and I am sure she can dig into the language / grammar if need be.

I used the comprehensive package for 3 schools. I was accepted to my top choice.

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With the presidential campaign in progress, I thought it would be relevant to share this scenario: let's take a minute and imagine you are running for political office. You are going to need a campaign manager to help you organize, to plan your campaign route (schools you want to apply to), and to help you articulate your speech and platforms. Applying for business school is no different from running for office; you are trying to tell admission committees that you are the best candidate to vote for. In my case, Ryan was my campaign manager; he did a very thorough job understanding my background and what makes me tick. While I have a strong undergraduate GPA , a master's degree, and solid work experiences, there are weaknesses in my profile, e.g. my average-at-best GMAT score, traditional work background, etc. Ryan helped me capitalize on my strength and on my diverse upbringing. I enjoyed working with Ryan, because he is organized, thoughtful, and honest with his review comments. As a busy professional, you would want someone there to hold you accountable, keep you on track, and provide guidance. While the process was very stressful, Ryan made it bearable and painless. Most MBA admission consulting services come with a hefty price tag; the way I think about it is - why do you think Fortune 500 companies hire consultants such as McKinsey, Bain, and BCG to help solve their problems, despite very high fees? I would recommend SBC and Ryan because they do a very good job creating a admission strategy, one that's specifically tailored for you. A daring entrepreneur, Ryan has a wide variety of experiences; he had experiences in MBA admission at top 20 schools, management consulting, personal coaching, and local political campaigns. And that's exactly why I chose Ryan to be my partner during the MBA admission process. I would highly recommend Ryan to any aspiring MBAs.

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I worked with Yvette during my SBC experience and it was thanks to her guidance that I developed a successful application package.

I knew the MBA was the next step in my professional development, but coming from a non-traditional background (e.g. non-business undergrad, GRE, non profit work) I needed help creating a compelling story that tied my background to my career goals.

Yvette's feedback and insights helped me refine my career vision and brought focus to my keen interest in international brand development. It's thanks to the hours we spent reviewing and refining my application that I'll be joining an Ivy League MBA program this fall!

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