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 decided to use the services of SBC after having a not so good application season when I got rejected from all my top choices. I had previously worked with a different consultant and I felt cheated when a lot of current students reviewed my essays and gave me a long list of flaws in my essays.

That's why I decided to go full monty and work with the best in the business. I talked with some of the best admissions consultants, but it clicked with SBC and I went further ahead to work with SBC for a comprehensive service. I decided to apply to around 4-6 schools.

The initial call with Esther was pleasant and she, in fact, traced back our previous conversation dated back a couple of years. She listened to my professional goals and achievements and gave me excellent feedback on my last year's application. As I come from a country where the exchange rate vs USD is comparatively high, Esther gave me a generous discount and allowed me to sign up for 2 school contracts and keep on upgrading as per the need for the entire application season.

Esther paired me up with Sherry Holland and in our initial call, I liked Sherry's approach and honesty. She drew a clear picture for me and helped me understand the strategy for school selection. She did not try to convince me to go for schools which do not match my professional ambitions just for the sake of getting an admit.

I kicked off my application with Sherry and we quickly worked through my Resume. With Sherry's excellent advice, we exchanged more than 6-8 Resume drafts and I could see the difference between the quality of two version of my Resume. Sherry also prepped my referees and they, in fact, told me that Sherry guided them really well as it was a new experience for them as well.

The thing I like most about Sherry is that she is very professional and responds immediately. She always gave me a timeframe and always replied within that. Even when she was on holidays, she made sure that my essays are going on nicely. She always encouraged me to write as much as I could in initial drafts and in fact for one such school we brainstormed more than 6 stories for a 500-word essay. She would always listen patiently to my views and gave her important insights.

Because of Sherry's professionalism, I was able to complete my applications in strict timings, and in one instance I managed to prepare probably the longest application amongst all the schools (10 long essays), in a fortnight.

She gave me good interview tips and her waitlist guidance was excellent.

Sherry also helped me with my scholarship application as the school I am matriculating asks separate scholarship essays and they itself are time-consuming. Sherry helped me prepare the application for 3 different scholarships and I received a generous scholarship from my school.

She is a very kind and gentle person and talking to her always helped me get over with the pressure of all the applications. Working with her was a wonderful experience and I would recommend everyone to talk to her before embarking on their application season.

P.S. I would also like to thank and express my gratitude towards Bill Chionis, who was my Client Liasion. He took out time for me very close to the deadlines and gave some excellent tips on my final essays.

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I decided to sign up for 2 schools with Blackman and do the other 2 (easier ones) on my own. So I applied to MIT and Booth with Lisa my consultant and then NYU Stern and Michigan separately. Lisa came from MBA Admissions and SBC has so much knowledge across all the top MBA programs with respect to Admissions focus areas. I am very happy with the results. Booth was my first choice and I was accepted with scholarship money. I was also admitted to MIT and Michigan. I was waitlisted at Stern. I had a great experience with Lisa and really everyone that I worked with. They were all very professional and cared a lot about my satisfaction and success. I worked hard but I learned a lot about myself in the process and ended up with great results. I think my results at the tougher schools were better and that was great proof of how good the Blackman services were. I had a very rigorous work schedule during the time I was applying and traveled a lot so I needed Lisa to bend to my schedule - which she 100% did. She also helped to keep me on track because I was scattered with all of the travel. So I am really appreciative of the service that was provided and highly recommend the SBC team.

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Bill has a very good expertise of what the Adcom really wants. He helped me focus on my strengths in the application process instead of asking me to retake GMAT. Instead of directly jumping on to essays, he came up with application strategy that gave me a clear picture of what we are going to present to adcom. His feedback on mock interviews was excellent and helped me to present the information in right way. Overall, he created a great application strategy, helped me in coming up with excellent essays and helped me with good interview strategy. Thanks to Bill Chionis and Stacy Blackman consulting.

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I used SBC over the course of multiple applications, and they were a very supportive, and encouraging team. Specifically I used Sherry for my Essays to Ross and Fuqua and when my plans changed and I deiced to refocus on EMBA programs, I did not hesitate to enlist her services again, with outstanding results! I have used other services, and the level of engagement, professionalism and genuine desire to see you succeed are unrivaled by the other groups I used. I would not hesitate to use, or recommend Sherry and the SBC team to anyone who is looking to put forth the best application possible.

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The service that I received from SBC was excellent. I truly felt like they delivered more than I expected at every touch point. From the minute I signed up, I received access to many very helpful documents as well as the resource center and their guides. Most importantly I had my amazing consultant by my side. What I liked most about Karla is that she challenged me at every turn, She kept saying "you can always make it better" and she would push me to think deeper, ask more of myself. She was always asking me questions - why? why? that caused me to develop essays that were a lot deeper than the surface level stories I initially thought of writing. I also found the interview prep to be extremely helpful. I took advantage of many resources. I used their video platform, which gave me many practice hours. I also did mock interviews with Karla and did the group interview with Rachel. I was extremely confident (but still nervous) going into my interviews because I had practiced all of my stories so many times. As it turned out I was very prepared - I had several identical questions to what we had practiced.I knew that I was going to sign up for a consultant because I was going for top schools and wanted to give it my all. Upon researching I settled on three firms that were clear leaders. Once I talked to them all, I had no doubt I wanted to go with Stacy Blackman. It was a big investment but one that I knew I wanted to make and one that absolutely paid off as I am now going to Wharton next year.

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Briefly about my background
My GPA is 3.56 and my GMAT is 700. Most of my career I had worked in finance sector as a financial analyst and later at EY Georgia (Ernst & Young) as assurance auditor. With MBA I wanted to make a transition into Investment Banking and I wanted to get into a good finance school. Guys like me with Auditor background (even though I was quite successful at it, being in charge of some of the most complex projects) and not that high GPA and GMAT find it quite difficult to get admitted to a good school, which is why I thought that some help from a professional would do me a great job. Additionally, I was struggling with formulation of my goals: if someone asked me what I wanted to do short and long term, I could explain this in 10 minutes, whereas business schools require that you convey your message in much less time with limited amount of words. Additionally, I knew I had some really good stories which could truly strengthen my candidacy, though I could never achieve to formulate this story in way that it would be easily readable and enjoyable. Alongside these problems, I did not have enough money to pay for the MBA consulting services and I was thinking whether it was worth taking this amount as a loan. I was sure I wanted to apply to Booth (because last year I was invited to Booth interview and because of this I wanted to try again) and Cornell (my dream school). Finally, I applied to 5 schools: 1) Booth 2) Duke Fuqua 3) Cornell Johnson 4) Columbia 5) Georgetown and was accepted at Cornell and Georgetown.

Choosing comprehensive package at SBC
Before deciding on SBC, I had interviews with several MBA consulting companies (including SBC) from top 10 list. From SBC I first talked with Esther Magna, who, after analyzing my profile, immediately suggested Ryan as my consultant: as Esther explained, Ryan had extensive experience in working with international students and had success rate of getting them to desired interviews above 90%, which had really big effect on my further willingness to chat with Ryan. I liked the dialogue with Ryan immediately, because, even after a brief chat, I got the feeling that he understood what kind of personality I was and how I wanted to present myself in MBA applications. I chose comprehensive package because it allowed communication with less time limitations compared to hourly packages.

Working with Ryan
I will start from the end by saying that working with Ryan was absolutely amazing. First, we had a warm-up call which lasted 2 hours, during which we discussed the schools which I wanted to apply to and I received Ryan’s feedback on whether it was worth applying to them taking into account my chances. I wanted to use Ryan’s help for Booth, Cornell and Georgetown applications, whereas I was going to do Columbia and Duke myself. During warm-up call we went through my brag-sheet (this is a document which I filled in several days prior to the warm-up call). Brag sheet included questions mostly asking about my achievements and life-stories and this was a good opportunity to recall all the stories which could be worth mentioning in the application. After this call we started working on applications, first we did Booth, then Cornell and lastly Georgetown. The process was amazing and Ryan was tireless in writing notes to the drafts I sent to him. At the end, when I counted, we had 5-6 drafts for resume and each essay and final versions were really up to application level. Ryan was really very flexible regarding scheduling our calls; for example, if I wrote to him by email that I needed a call with him, he was ready to make the call the same day and I really did not need to wait long. Except for that, we had really productive discussions about my goals, about how to present them and Ryan really made me think through some fundamental issues, which partly changed my vision. Additionally, Ryan would never give up pushing on me to write one more draft of my essay, so that we achieved a better presentation of my stories and personality.

Conclusion
My final word is that service received from SBC and Ryan was worth every penny I paid for it and most importantly I got admitted to Cornell, which was my goal from very beginning. One additional great benefit was that I freely used materials from 3 applications (which Ryan helped me with) for two other applications, which I filled in myself. I highly recommend Ryan to every student wanting to do MBA, especially to internationals and to those wanting to get into Cornell.

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After interviewing representatives from several admissions consulting firms, I chose to work with SBC and was matched with Stephanie. From our initial call, it was clear that we had similar backgrounds and that she had a lot of experience with my post-MBA goals.

After filling out the initial paperwork, Stephanie scheduled a call to review my goals and possible target schools. We spent well over 2.5 hours on the phone, with Stephanie answering many questions along the way and pushing me to ensure that my goals were clear. Based on our conversation, Stephanie developed a week by week calendar with all due dates and other requirements. As someone who as limited time outside of work, this calendar proved to be invaluable in keeping me on track throughout the process.

Throughout the application process, I found Stephanie very helpful at all times. Her prompt reviews of my writing and responses to my questions eased some of my stress, and I'm sure that I presented the best possible case to each program based on her advice. Her interview preparation was also helpful, as the questions she predicted nearly always came up in interviews.

I found that Stephanie's greatest strength was her ability to guide me towards presenting a consistent message and goal throughout each application. Her assistance allowed me to demonstrate my credentials and goals, while also showcasing my personality in a sincere manner.

Overall, Stephanie exceeded my expectations and I would not hesitate to recommend her. Her professionalism and care throughout the admissions process was a great help. Considering the extraordinarily competitive nature of MBA admissions this year, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to be accepted to two choice programs without her help.

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Investing in Stacy Blackman's comprehensive package was a wise decision, to say the least. I was admitted to two M7 MBA programs with significant scholarships. I do not believe that I would have been accepted to these programs without the help of Caryn and the SBC team, let alone with scholarships.

Sure, I spent a lot of money on the comprehensive package and some family members thought I was crazy at first, but what I spent was less than 10% of the scholarship I was awarded and less than 5% of the total cost of business school (2-3% if you include lost wages). It was well worth it.

From the start, the SBC team provided the structure, guidance, and strategy that I needed to gain admission to a top business school. At first, the application process was complex, confusing, and overwhelming - Caryn's wealth of knowledge made it feel surmountable.

From the high-level application strategy, timeline, and list of schools, to the nitty-gritty of editing essays (sometimes up to 15 times), Caryn far surpassed my high expectations. Any work that I submitted to her was edited and returned within 24 hours, she was not afraid to give harsh/blunt feedback, and she was very strategic about how to highlight my strengths based on the specific questions being asked.

Throughout the process, Caryn, Esther, and the rest of the SBC team were a pleasure to work with. They were very professional and, in speaking with friends who have worked with other firms, I can confidently say that they are the gold standard in admissions consulting. One important note is that SBC will not do the work for you, but they will help you structure your time and energy and help you hold yourself accountable.

If you are on the fence about hiring a consultant, I would not hesitate to set up a call with Esther and discuss your candidacy. From the very first conversation, I felt more at ease with the process and, needless to say, am very happy with the results.

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After rejection to the MMM Kellogg program in R2 last year, I made the personal decision to work with a consultant to give me a third-party perspective about how to build a compelling story. I was matched with Jessica due to my background, post-MBA goals and top choice school (Kellogg). Immediately, she helped focus my MBA goals by asking incisive questions. Our phone conversations and emails back and forth made me consistently feel like she was in my corner. The relationship was completely what she had defined at the beginning - she was the coach that could help with strategy, but it was up to me as the 'player' to execute.

Without Jessica's support, detailed eye and big-picture thinking, I couldn't have gotten through applying for 4 schools Round 1. Moreover, SBC resources were invaluable. The video essay practice was especially meaningful for Kellogg's application, and I was able to practice a group interview before the Wharton interview. At each step, I felt the full value of the company.

While I look back and realize I had all the 'assets' (resume, scores, etc.), I didn't know how to package it well. As a 'non-traditional' applicant, I needed the SBC perspective to differentiate myself. I think that was invaluable and led to 4/4 interviews. And at the end, I happily got into my original goal - Kellogg!

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