Working with Donna and Stratus was one of the best decisions I made while applying to business school. Donna came highly recommended by a friend, and I could tell that she was fully committed to my candidacy from the get-go. The Stratus model is vastly different from other admissions consultants'. I really appreciated the time spent on introspection early on — it helped me delve deep into who I am and what motivates me. Donna provided plenty of additional resources to help me along the introspection process.
Stratus also has an external school-specific reviewer for each application, and that allows your application to be judged by an independent reviewer who knows the school well.
Over the course of my 4 applications, Donna went above and beyond. She organised a storytelling workshop for a few of her clients, and sometimes even used her personal network to help connect me to MBA students with similar backgrounds to mine. Most importantly though, she was organised, patient and always available. The application journey is stressful (with many many moments of doubt and uncertainty), and Donna is the right person to have in your corner to navigate the process.
All in all, as an overrepresented candidate with a middling GRE score, working with Donna helped me gain an admit to a top-10 MBA (also my top choice!).

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I had a somewhat unconventional application being an international student with an average-ish undergraduate GPA, a decent GRE score, and 4 jobs in 5 years due to traveling around the world. Donna motivated me to get a higher GRE score and guided me from the ground up in terms of my career direction and school alignment. The discovery exercises were very beneficial to help you explore what you want to do and how that matches up to each school. In a competitive COVID year I managed to get three round 2 responses; including a scholarship. The guidance through the essay writing phase and interviews were extremely valuable.

I am very excited and thankful for Donna's help which definitely lifted my applications.

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Susan and the rest of the Stratus Admissions team were instrumental in helping me identify my strengths and shape my narrative for business school. When you begin working with Susan, she takes you through several introspection exercises, which alone are worth the interaction and are tremendously helpful in creating your unique story. Susan and Co. also bring in-depth knowledge of the individual characteristics of each school to ensure you find the right program for you. Additionally, Stratus deploys a team effort. While Susan was my main counselor, she brought in many of her colleagues at various stages of the application to get a fresh set of eyes. Susan also connected me with some of her old clients at the schools I was interested in, providing me an opportunity to learn even more about the various schools. I fully recommend working with Susan as she helped me better understand myself and, just as importantly, get into my top choice program.

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I had an amazing experience working with Donna. She was extremely useful in helping craft my story and establishing my goals. She provided me with some valuable insights. She has also very responsive throughout the entire process and even made herself available during the holiday period to help me. Donna is able to ask you the right questions to trigger self-reflection and she is gifted at getting the best out of you. I highly recommend Donna and I am very satisfied with the investment. In the end, I was admitted to Anderson with a scholarship and a Tuck. Thank you again for your help Donna!

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I got into my two top schools and could not have done it without Melisa's guidance. I was very confused at the start of the process but she was super organised and guided me meticulously through every step of the process right from choosing your recommenders to interview prep. The brainstorming exercises she gave me really made me think and present a well rounded and genuine story. Also the fact that stratus have a team based approach was another big plus! She was also very efficient with time and got back to me the next day in most cases. Highly recommend!

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TLDR version: Donna and Stratus are just incredible to work with and I could not be happier with my outcome of being admitted to Yale SOM.

Now the longer version: I have to admit, mostly due to the high price of a typical multi-school package, I was seriously considering not using a consultant at all (in hindsight, that would have been devastating!!). Once I talked myself into hiring a consultant, I spent more time than I would like to admit reading these very reviews and obsessing over ’top consultant lists.’ I finally came up with a short list of ~5 consultants to have intro meetings with and quite frankly was underwhelmed with most as they were much less personal and much more transactional than I had anticipated. It took no more than 5 minutes of speaking with Donna for me to decide that she is the one I would enjoy/benefit working with the most. Not only is she extremely well-versed in the admissions world, but also it is extremely clear that she genuinely cares about each of her clients – and that is what mattered most to me. Donna made what is a very daunting process a breeze. Add on top of that me having to take the GMAT THREE times and finally hitting a score beyond what I thought was possible for me only a week or so before R1 applications were due. She was able to connect me with the right folks in order to get my GMAT score up and, most importantly, stay sane throughout the process! I could not imagine having to go through the application process with anyone but Donna and would 1,000% recommend her to anyone that is deciding on who to work with!

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Donna and the rest of the Stratus team were a joy to work with and I can not imagine going through the MBA application process without them. Donna's assistance was crucial in making sure that I submitted the best possible application and helped me find tutors to increase my quantitative GMAT score. Her honesty, organizational prowess, and experience within the field were what helped me get into my target schools and set clear goals for myself. I will not hesitate to recommend their services to anybody that is going through the MBA application process as I know she is the best available consultant on the market.

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Soterios is an expert consultant. He provided hands-on guidance and feedback throughout every step of process and got me into HBS. While working with Soterios, I always felt supported and that he was 100% dedicated to getting me into my dream school.

Key Strengths:
Crafting My Story - Provided a framework for identifying my top selling points as an applicant and advised on how to build those into a compelling story (that helped me overcome weaker parts of my application).

Maximizing My Essays - Offered detailed, iterative feedback on my essays to maximize every sentence.

School-Specific Tailoring - Leveraged his expertise and Status’s community to recommend alterations to essays that fit what each Admissions Office is looking for.

Rigorous Interview Preparation - Soterios prepared me for the stress of the interview process by pressure testing me in mock interview sessions. Without this I would not have succeeded in the real thing.

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When applying for business school, I was most anxious about writing essays that had the power to tell admissions exactly who I was in the matter of a few hundred words. Working with Stratus, and Lisa in particular, gave me confidence knowing I put my absolute best forward in a clear and coherent way for admissions. Lisa was an easy choice given her extensive experience working in admissions herself. Her feedback not only gave me a second set of eyes on my essays but more importantly, comments and questions an admissions rep at my target school would also have. Lisa was instrumental in keeping me on track in terms of deadlines and really lessened my anxiety around the process, knowing I had someone to provide unbiased, holistic feedback on my application. Lisa took me through every step of uncovering my whole story for “why business school” so by the time I interviewed I could recite my true “why” like the back of my hand with confidence. Outside of essay and story strategy, Lisa also helped me finetune my resume and interview skills – both things I already felt really strong in. She added value where I did not think I needed any help and was there as my support cheering me on through the daunting process. I worked with Lisa on 3 schools and was accepted at all 3 (Tuck, Booth, Kellogg). Finally, I would say Lisa is flexible in her working style and will tailor her approach to your needs (i.e. working independently, following strict deadlines etc.) which really helped to be able to personalize the process. I would highly recommend Lisa and the full Stratus team.

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Meeting Melisa via Stratus to help me with my admissions process to a top part time MBA program was hands down one of the most memorable experiences. Having worked with Melisa for over 6 months on my application, simply saying I found one of the best admissions counselor is an understatement. Melisa took genuine interest in not my application - making the entire process a self exploratory process about oneself. She places emphasis on the initial process which eventually makes the other parts of the application much easier to put together.

I was focussed on applying to only a single program MBA program. Coming from a technology background, I was not sure how I would convert my deep technical experience understandable to an admissions reviewer. Melisa was super insightful, taking interest into understanding my background and making me answer my own question about how my experiences might be translated to something more understandable by everyone.

Melisa was super responsive with helping me with reviews on my essays and my resume and would usually get back to me within a day or two and not only communicated with my via emails but was available to chat via phone at a time suitable to both of us. Melisa went above and beyond in getting my essays to the best version of themselves even if it meant 4-5 extra edits. Melisa spent so much time and energy into my application, make me feel confident at every step in the process and really brings out the best version of myself throughout not only the essays and the resume but the interviews as well.

Having managed to get into a top EWMBA program, I attribute an equal portion of this stepping stone to success to Melisa. I will miss is working with Melisa. I am very blessed to have gotten the opportunity to work with Melisa and the Stratus team. Melisa was not only super helpful in helping me with admissions but her wealth of knowledge and experience having gone to a top MBA school herself helped me with providing for a mentor who ensured that I made the right choices even after admissions. I highly recommend Melisa to anyone looking for an awesome person to work with, a super friendly, genuinely caring and super informative admissions counsellor.

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