Avanti Prep Admissions Consulting Reviews

Background:

• White Male – US with military experience
• 5 years work experience mostly in military and <1 year engineering
• GPA: 3.5 Engineering from large public university
• GMAT: 730
• Reapplicant to both schools

Greg’s Dedication:

I fully recommend Greg to any applicant to business school or any person looking for professional advice. I was connected to Greg through the recommendation of a mutual friend and his help guided me through an incredibly stressful time in my life. Beyond gaining acceptance to two of the best MBA programs with large scholarships to both schools, he also helped me through my transition out of the military, navigate several different job offers and strategies, and provided professional advice to help me achieve the best outcome for my situation.

This allowed me to make a significant career move nearly doubling my salary while also completing my applications. This assistance was outside of the terms of the Tier 3 Package, but it is representative of the dedication and excellent service Greg provides. Even before I enlisted his services contractually, Greg had already spent 3 hour-long phone calls strategizing with me to determine the best time to apply to school, free of charge. I highly encourage anyone who is remotely curious about business school to contact Greg. He will tell you honestly what he sees is the best option for you.

Our Work on the Application Process:

Specifically when working with Greg on the application process, the Tier 3 package is truly all encompassing. We worked on the two M7 applications together, and they were the only schools to which I applied. I would categorize our work in two phases: pre-application deadline and post-application deadline.

Pre-Application Deadline:

We started with filling out a comprehensive worksheet and then moved into Strategy and Brainstorming calls. After Strategy and Brainstorming, we attacked the process in 5 distinct streams: School Engagement, Resume, Essays, Recommendations, and Short Answers / Application Questions. In each of these streams Greg and I meticulously went over each detail and tried to highlight different portions of my background, experiences and passions to give a complete and honest view to the application reader.

Greg is not only extremely detail oriented in proofreading grammar and word choice, he is also an expert at bringing out nuances in your experience that might easily be overlooked. He can help you discover not only why a certain program is best for you, but also how you would uniquely contribute to that specific program. All of this comes out during several detailed reviews, phone calls and countless emails.

Greg is even a master at helping advise you in your communications with recommenders, thank you notes, and any other correspondence that might be crucial to your application. He is extremely timely in replying to all correspondence and has great organization maintained through independent email threads and calendar invites. And he is active in preparing you for on-campus visits, which can be a key part of an application and play a role in essay questions or future interview questions.

Post-Application Deadline:

Once the applications were submitted the work and Greg’s dedication did not stop. Almost immediately we had to prepare for the next phase of the application, the interviews. The first hurdle was the Kellogg video interview, with three one-minute questions. For the videos, we brainstormed, I mapped out thoughts that Greg reviewed, and then we had a one-hour mock video preparation session until I was comfortable with the format and ready to answer the questions.

We then started preparing for in-person interviews. Greg was extremely flexible when working with my schedule and navigating our time difference. We prepared with 10, one-hour sessions over video call, generally taking the form of 1 mock interview followed by 2 feedback sessions. The mock interviews and questions Greg prepares you with are targeted, detailed and specific to each school. Greg also provided a bank of potential questions, also specific to each school. We spent a long time discussing key points of each question and question type to ensure I had quality and genuine answers. I did not memorize any answers, but when I was in the interviews none of the questions caught be by surprise, and I had very positive experience. Having prepared with Greg, the interviews felt more like a conversation, and I felt 100% confident and prepared.

After completing both interviews, Greg encouraged me to reach out to the connections (current students and alumni) I made during the past few months to update them on my progress. When the results finally came back I again turned to Greg to help navigate the admission offers I received. My first-choice school originally did not offer a scholarship, however my second choice did. Greg helped me shape an email to admissions and encouraged me reach out to my contacts to help get a match from my top choice. The strategy worked and I am excited to start at my top school with a large scholarship in Fall 2020.

Overall:

Working with Greg was an absolute pleasure. He was always on time and responsive, and the personal attention he afforded me was unparalleled. From the time I we first spoke in April 2019 until being accepted almost 12 months later, Greg has always been honest and available. He truly provides a comprehensive service with the Tier 3 Package, and I believe it is absolutely worth the money. My results in going from applying to these schools and others last year and receiving no admission offers to being accepted with a scholarship to two M7 schools speak for themselves, and those results more than justify the investment.

Even still, I believe there was more value to Greg’s service than just a better application. I learned about myself. I discovered what my career passions truly are and focused my professional goals. I improved my writing technique, my interview skills, and my business communication acumen. In those ways enlisting Greg’s services gave me crash course in pre-business school preparation. I feel ready and excited to start in Fall 2020, and thanks to our work together, I have developed crucial skills to help me in the recruiting process.

I give Greg my highest recommendation and could not be happier with the experience and results.

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I come from the military, graduated middle of my class from college with a double major and sub 3.0 GPA, and scored below 700 on my GMAT. I’ve had good military experience, but my low scores, condensed GMAT preparation and lack of familiarity with the professional landscape and business school process didn’t quite set me up for success in my applications. Working with Greg at Avanti Prep helped me overcome all of this and land a spot at my dream school.

I signed up for Avanti Prep’s Tier 3 Package and was thoroughly satisfied and impressed. Over the course of 9 months Greg comprehensively interviewed me to understand my life story and future goals, and assisted me with transforming those personal and professional stories into compelling essays and resume, strong interviews and a complete package to my schools.

From the story and process planning, school selection, school engagement (Greg helped me connect with veterans groups), essay brainstorming, essay and resume reviews, and hours upon hours of video calls and interview prep, Greg was there and fully committed every step of the way. I wholly recommend the Tier 3 Package, as Greg went above and beyond his obligations consistently throughout the journey and put in even more hours to assist me preparing for my interviews for which I had had little to no prior experience. He also helped guide me over countless resume iterations from having essentially no resume to one that’s received superb feedback from senior alumni and admissions personnel along the way.

I cannot stress enough how invaluable Greg was to the process. It takes a lot to win my trust, but through his skill and commitment Greg did just that, and I hope this conveys how highly I regard his work. Greg not only took time to understand my story, but to understand me. My goals and aspirations for school and my future quickly became his. Between my busy work schedule, Greg kept me driving to meet the deadlines I needed to meet. He lives and breathes through his clients’ stories, and he was without a doubt attached emotionally to the success and failures of my application process as any professional would be with their own work. If I could do it over again or recommend him to anyone, there is nobody I trust more to deliver than Greg.

I wholeheartedly endorse Greg to anyone looking to secure an admissions consultant and have already referred several friends to discuss their way forward on their business school journeys. If you are looking for top-tier quality and total commitment, then I recommend you do the same.

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Indian female - 730 GMAT - Engineering graduate with a 9/10 GPA from a tier-1 college - 5 years of work experience in Education and Ed-Tech

While researching ways by which I could bolster my application process, I came across Avanti Prep and signed up for a free consultation. Greg’s opinions and insights during that introductory call were honest, practical and really useful. He gave me a good sense of my chances of securing an admission in my desired Universities (all in the top 10) and the effort I’d need to put in.

I signed up for hourly services with Greg (5 hours) to work on Story Analysis and Planning, Story and Career Goal Development, Essay Brainstorming, and Essay Reviews for 3 schools. As a result of our working together, I secured an admission to a Top 10 Program and was waitlisted at another Top 10 Program - one that has a very very selective process.

Our collaboration started off with a detailed plan for the way we’d split the total time across different pieces for different schools. Greg’s school-specific insights were truly amazing! He would help me understand how to present my story and my goals more effectively for each school. This truly helped shape my thought process while working on the essays and significantly informed my presentation of self in the applications. His essay reviews were also extremely detailed. It was evident that Greg had spent more hours than planned on reviewing each essay. This brings me to my next point of how incredibly accommodating he was, evidently focussing on quality and results rather than clock-watching to the minute. Despite enrolling in only 5 hours (very limited to cover various application pieces for 3 schools), he graciously spent a LOT of extra time on every call and every essay review. Over and beyond that, even after our time together was over, he replied to every single email/question of mine in great detail making sure to offer any help he could.

I had such a positive experience with Greg that I referred two of my friends to him.

Apart from everything mentioned, something else that stood out to me was Greg’s nature to never be overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. He strikes a balance between being honest, realistic and being extremely encouraging, which comes as a great emotional/mental boost while you’re navigating through the taxing, strenuous and difficult process of applying for an MBA in the US.

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I reached out to Avanti Prep once I received my interview invite from Columbia. Having been rejected from M7 schools in the previous application cycle with almost the exact same profile (extremely competitive demographic, 740 GMAT, 6 years work-ex), I wanted to make sure I converted my chances this time around.

I had already given a couple of interviews with other schools and my preparation was decent, but after my Columbia mock interview with Greg, I felt confident that I was going to do well in my interview. For starters, what was scheduled to be a 2.5hr call went on for ~4hrs due to the level of detail Greg dives into while not only analyzing answers to each question – but also helping me stitch through a cohesive story across all questions to create a solid narrative.

Greg customized the questions and mock interview experience so they were ‘Columbia–like’ which was extremely valuable to me. Columbia interviews tend to include questions that focus on industry trends, key focus of the industry etc. that are unlike questions asked in other business schools interviews which can throw a candidate off-guard if not prepared for questions like these. Greg covered how to approach these in detail.

Another key highlight for me was how Greg was able to emphasize on key points (passion for Columbia, my contributions to Columbia) I had to convey during the interview. It so happened that my interviewer did not end up asking me the question on how I wish to contribute to Columbia, but because of the strategic prep I was able to turnaround a related question and convey my thoughts on how I would contribute.

Lastly, a big takeaway for me was how Greg was able to help me understand how I was being perceived. On a couple of instances, Greg recommended I not use certain words or change my delivery of certain phrases because they could be perceived unfavorably. This level of feedback I thought can only come from a seasoned interviewer and greatly improved my confidence because I now had almost no second thoughts about anything I was going to say.

Greg is definitely someone I would recommend working with; I think his greatest quality is in working to get the absolute best outcome for you without being bothered by how much additional work he will have to put in. So much so, that after a 4hr mock Columbia interview, Greg chatted with me for almost an hour helping me decide between Darden and Fuqua and which school I should go for – he hadn’t even helped me with the application for those schools. The good news is that the Darden versus Fuqua decision didn’t end up mattering because I got into Columbia!

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I found Greg / Avanti Prep throught he GMAT Club consultants review and reached out for a free consultation. I had applied to a lot of top schools in round 1, but didn't get any interviews except for MIT Sloan. Wanting to maximize my chances, I did an interview prep session with Greg. During the free consultation, we clicked immediately, and Greg offered a lot of great advice beyond just the interview related ones. During our interview prep session, Greg conducted an elaborate interview in the MIT-specific style. We then spent even more time for him to give me even more detailed feedback for every single question. For the actual interview, I felt very confident because we had practiced almost every single one of the questions asked. I ended up getting into MIT Sloan!

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I received a 4 hour scholarship as a GmatClub school moderator.

To kick off I had a half hour call with Greg, which he offered free of charge. Talking to him, you immediately notice that he is super knowledgeable and he had some great pointers.

Despite the fact that I though I had already put a lot of time into school research, he was able to bring a couple additional schools on my radar. In addition, we were able to work out the school that would offered the best template for pieces of the advice to carry over to other applications.

After developing our method of attack I send Greg a couple of essays for one of the B-Schools I was targeting.
He came back really fast with very thorough reviews that pointed out the various parts of my essays that needed work.

Due to a very turbulent period in my work/private life I was not able to make full use of the scholarship.
However, if you are looking for an expert who can offer you great insight and guidance into the process of Bschool applications I can highly recommend Greg.

His essay reviews do not sugarcoat but offer great pointers on what to improve!

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I was a second time applicant with a strong GMAT score and reasonable work profile. I had used another consultant in my first year of applications and decided to go with Greg the second time around.
Firstly, Greg is just an amazing person to talk with and share your stress as you go through applications. He never went for a hard sell on using his services but eventually when I decided to go with him, he was fully invested and dedicated, unlike another consultant I had. Greg clearly has an idea of what admissions teams look for as he helped pick out the best stories and finesse them for the goals, essays, and overall application narrative.
I was very invested in the application process and Greg was equally invested which was refreshing given most consultants seem to always be on the clock. Greg helped me with two school applications and also helped brainstorm which two would give me the most diverse and applicable stories for other school applications.
Overall, I was very satisfied with Greg and would recommend his services as I received an admit to 3 top 10 schools (including an M7). I also received scholarships of $50k and $10k to 2 of the 3 schools.

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I. Background

I’m a male engineer from India with 720 GMAT and some international experience. I belong to a common demographic for US B-Schools and had a complicated profile, with a Master’s degree in hand and already age 30 when applying. I happened to find Avanti Prep via GMAT Club. Greg had the strongest and clearest recommendations from past applicants on the website, which prompted me to request a Free Consultation. I had already talked to a few other consultants before talking to Greg. And then after just one call with Greg I knew I wanted him to be my guide throughout this process. I availed Hourly Services from Avanti Prep, initially 5 hours, but expanded significantly along the way as I saw major value of working together and decided to apply to more schools. In total, I ended up with 67 hours of service with Avanti Prep from July 2018 through April 2019.

II. Strategy

Because I did not have a good GMAT for my demographic, I wanted to test my chances across a wide range of the rankings. We worked on 10 schools in Round 1 and Round 2, ranging from M7 schools mostly through U.S. News top 20/25, one school a few spots lower down and one more school another tier below that. Given my higher number of schools, spreading Hourly Services across them was my preferred approach, rather than focusing on only a few of the schools through a Package. This way we could mirror full depth of the comprehensive experience while adapting it for more schools.

III. Results

Even with some international experience, I knew this strategy was aggressive. If you believe studies on GMAT Club, Indian applicants with 720 GMAT have 5% admission chance at U.S. top 20, and many people in the forums even say Indian males with sub-730 GMAT should look outside top 25. Despite these odds, I received two M7 interviews (was waitlisted thereafter at one) and three scholarships offers overall. Right now, I’m enrolled at a top 20/25 school with a generous scholarship (50%). This would not have been possible at all without Greg’s magic. Trust me, Avanti Prep is the best investment you can make in your B-School journey. Greg is one of the most well rated and reasonably priced consultants in the market at his elite level of expertise.

IV. Details

Given my needs, we used about 6 hours total on school selection, story and goal development and strategic calls, 6 hours on full cycle of resume reviews (literally start to finish), 5 hours on recommender strategy and feedback, 4 hours on application entries and review, 1 hour on video strategy and practice, 3 hours on interview prep (only did one session, maybe should have done more), 5 hours on post-application support (scholarship negotiations, waitlist strategy and updates) and most remaining time on essay brainstorming and reviews (sounds like a lot but was for 10 schools).

Also, unlike other consultants in the market, Greg is not money minded and was very generous with timing and pricing. You can feel that his main motivation is achieving the best possible outcome for you. He did not count time for my many annoying email queries, he rounded down the time and provided some free time as necessary to achieve best quality, and given size of our relationship, we proceeded at a customized discounted rate. I am certain I received far more than even the 67 hours I signed up for, and given quality of experience and 50% scholarship result, it was undoubtedly worth it.

V. Experience

Greg is not just an expert MBA consultant, he is a wonderful person as well. He is approachable and friendly and makes you feel very comfortable. Despite my complicated profile, Greg did an amazing job of breaking down my long story and guiding me to assemble all pieces together in a symmetrical and persuasive way that created logical sense between my experiences and goals and allowed me to share the most interesting elements of my experiences. This process lets you put forth the best version of yourself. For this reason I have no doubt you are achieving the highest possible outcomes given your profile.

Greg is a thorough professional and walks the talk when it comes to his work. The level of detail, professionalism and responsiveness are extremely high. The way he helps you strategize the different pieces of your story for each school is expert level. We worked together on very tight timelines for Round 1 and Round 2 submissions and Greg never let me down. He has the unique ability to understand and respond in a timely fashion every query I put through him. I did put him through a lot of annoying nitty-gritty questions, but he was always so happy to respond to all of them. You really feel that Greg puts his clients first.

I’m happy to answer any specific questions regarding my experience with Avanti Prep. You can message me anytime. Good luck!

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For context: I’m a male, 5 years work experience in finance and nonprofit work, GMAT in 690-720 range, undergrad GPA of 3.75 from very good but not top-tier university.

I asked Greg to help me using his pay-by-the-hour services with the intent to use those hours sparingly. I ended up using his help more and more because his edits on essays were so specific and pertinent and I felt I was getting good value for the cost. He has great insight into the process, what different schools are looking for, how to position oneself a bit differently for each school. I did video interview prep with him too and that was really helpful to identify where answers could be stronger or call out a connection to the school’s priorities that I otherwise may have missed.

Greg helped me apply to 5 schools ranked HBS (why not?) to UNC. I was much happier with the entire process having Greg onboard as my coach. He kept me on track throughout and helped me prioritize how much time to spend GMAT studying, when to quit and focus on essays, when I needed to do more, etc. His work and feedback was always useful, turnaround was really quick, and just a generally kind, smart person to entrust your application to.

In the end I got a good scholarship to Fuqua and when they called me to give acceptance they even referenced one of the little jokes Greg gave me as something they thought was a nice touch of my personality in the essay :)

If I had to do it again, I’d use Greg in a heartbeat.

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I am from Korea and I have studied/worked in Europe and currently working in South East Asia. I have worked both in public and private sectors (tech). I had embarked on the MBA journey on my own with limited information and was struggling to bring together a coherent story with my non-traditional background. While I was getting anxious 1 month before the deadlines, I was fortunate to get the chance to work with Greg - as a result, I was able to submit not just a deeply satisfactory application in just a few weeks but build a narrative that I will carry for the rest of my career.

Greg went above and beyond in every aspect in this process. Especially in building the grander career narrative, he tapped into his network, researched and consulted his connections that I could not have done at all in my location. Having worked in a prestigious financial firm and also having earned a top MBA himself, he had the resources he could leverage and he did so in brilliant ways. We came up with a very specific and realistic career goal drawing from his research process, but one that is so perfect for my rather hybrid profile - which I had actually thought was unfocused before I worked with Greg. This was an amazing breakthrough - even beyond the application, I now have an attainable career goal and narrative unique to myself. I am only impressed by Greg's ability and dedication demonstrated in this process.

Greg is also a top-notch resume and essay editor. I was particularly impressed by what he had to offer on content development side – even on the parts related to my experience in public sector. His breadth of knowledge in various sectors possibly gained through the experience of working with a diverse portfolio of clients is certainly one of his strengths that will benefit applicants from various backgrounds.

Greg's edits/comments during the essay/resume revision process were also thorough, on point and insightful. One word in an essay may lay the ground for an emotional tone. He thinks through even that one word, which I was really grateful for (especially in the essay with more of a personal element; demonstrates his sensitivity). In overall, I felt like we made a great team - his comments were communicated very clearly, I could easily build on them and produce something better. I believe this synergetic interaction with the consultant is the key in producing a quality product unique to oneself.

I also cannot emphasize enough how both personable and professional he is. He understood my deep motivations and gave both encouraging and practical advice throughout the entire process. While I was so pressed for time, his overall attitude and sense of commitment just provided a huge comfort. He was always very responsive, returned the documents as per his commitment, and shared additional resources (I had 2 hours of consultations as well and he offered very helpful career/MBA resources beyond these engagements). I would say Greg was more than a consultant but a mentor and advisor who kept me with faith and drove me towards excellence during the challenging application journey.

I can’t thank him enough but in sum, Greg exceeded my expectations in every way. I would not hesitate to recommend him to future applicants!

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