Karen Hamou Reviews

Attending CBS has always been a dream of mine. Once I finished the GMAT, I knew what my MBA goals were, but found myself struggling to create a cohesive 'story'. I reached out to a few admissions consultants to see if I could get help.

I decided to work with Karen Hamou at Fortuna. From our first call knew I had made the right decision. Not only was she extremely knowledgeable about the schools I was applying to, but had the unique ability to take my muddled experiences, interests, goals, and dreams and help me create a coherent and captivating story. She truly has a gift for connecting the dots and seeing things from a holistic point of view.

I decided on the comprehensive school package and it was well worth the price. Karen helped me transform my resume, craft my story, strategize my recommenders, edit my essays, and prepare for my interview. Other members of the Fortuna team also took a look at my resume, essays, and application, which was really helpful in getting another perspective.

Karen was also extremely thorough and responsive. I would oftentimes send things late at night and would wake up to find her edits and responses. I was truly blown away by her work ethic.

Karen pushed me to apply in July so that I would receive a decision in August. That way I would know my answer before having to start any other applications. Well, she was absolutely right! Her guidance saved me countless hours and a whole lot of stress.

I cannot recommend Karen and the Fortuna team enough. They really pushed me to be the best version of myself, and I don't think I would have attained the same success without them!

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After having completed the GMAT, TOEFL, getting Recommenders on board etc. I found myself at a huge roadblock at writing essays and completing the remaining content for my applications. Especially as someone foreign to US style application it was difficult for me to hit the right tone and narrow down my key selling points for the respective schools.

After talking to some companies, I decided to get support from Fortuna Admissions as I felt they saw the person behind the application rather than just the numbers. I was lucky to have been put in touch with Karen.

Getting her on board immediately increase the pace that I was moving forward with and elevated the overall quality by helping me to find the right focus point within my life experience. Karen was highly efficient and I would usually get her feedback within a few hours. Sending in the applications, knowing that this was my best effort, was a great feeling. Karen was also there for me once interview invitations came in to prepare me accordingly. I am not sure I could have made it into Haas without her experience. If you have ambitious goals, I can highly recommend Karen as coach, as she will get the best out of you!

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Karen at Fortuna is an amazing consultant, and I could not have asked for a better person to help me with the overwhelming process of applying to business school. My situation was unique because my decision to work with a consultant came very late in the application process. Some consultants probably would have been turned off by me as a client in this respect, but Karen did not hesitate in taking me on. As we began working together, Karen was always very responsive to my emails; if I sent her a draft of an essay at night after work, she always provided comments by the next day. And when I received interview invitations from schools, she was proactive and available to help me prep at any time that was most convenient for me and for however long I needed. But her speed was not at the expense of the quality of her comments. Karen is extremely knowledgeable about the application processes for all the schools that I applied to, and she provided very thoughtful, school-specific advice on my essays, short answer responses, and interview responses. In our mock interviews, she helped make my responses more crisp and suggested ways that I could weave in important elements of my story. Her comments on every major aspect of my application were crucial in helping me develop and craft my story so that I conveyed it eloquently to the admissions committees. Karen is a pleasure to work with, both professionally and personally, and I highly recommend her and Fortuna to anyone applying to business school.

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I contacted Karen 36 hours before the merit based deadline for Columbia Business School. I initially thought my application was strong but after getting it reviewed by one more person, they insisted that I contact Fortuna. Now typically, 36 hours is not enough time to edit 4 essays and a resume. However, Karen worked expeditiously to give me consistent feedback until we were comfortable with my admissions package. We made the deadline with much time to spare. The most impressive thing about the entire process is that Karen helped me enhance my content without changing the core of what I was trying to relay to the admissions committee. I don't know if this can ever be proven, but I can honestly say that the input Karen provided me in those 36 hours played a significant role in my admission to Columbia. I cannot thank Karen enough for the quick and efficient turnaround! When the rest of my friends start this MBA admissions process, I will 100% send them to Karen and Fortuna.

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I decided to work with an admissions consultant because I wanted to be fully informed about the admissions process, and I only wanted to go through it once. I worked with Karen and Fortuna for eight months in what I found to be a very personalized process. From the start, Karen helped me prioritize the correct activities, which gave me confidence knowing that I was making best use of my time. I also really appreciated how responsive Karen was, particularly closer to deadlines: she answered my questions almost immediately, returned edited documents within only a few hours (and sometimes even overnight), and I could schedule calls with her within 24h and at my preferred times. I found this invaluable because I could create much stronger essays shortly before deadlines. The edits Karen and her team offered for my essays were always substantial, constructive, and sometimes even challenging, but I always understood and agreed with the reasoning behind them. Working with experts gave me the confidence to redraft larger sections of my essays to help transform them from intelligible to persuasive while keeping them personal, genuine, and in my writing. Fortuna’s resources are current, extensive, and specific for every business school, which was instrumental for my essays and interviews. After submitting the written applications, Karen and I practiced for the interviews and video questions, and her feedback in our practices clarified my areas for improvement and made me feel more confident in the interviews.

Working with Karen ultimately helped me gain acceptance to INSEAD (despite below-average numbers on almost every metric of my profile), and I am convinced that I could not have done it without Karen’s help. I cannot be more satisfied with Fortuna’s support in the process and highly recommend Karen and her team – thank you!

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Working with Karen was great, she was hugely supportive, knowledgeable and helpful. Additionally, I got into my top choice and I am thrilled about that. Would absolutely recommend working with Karen in the future. She responded quickly, happily answered all of my questions, and had a lot of background on the program and plenty of insights into the strategy for managing applications and prioritizing programs. So thankful to Karen for all of her support and insight during this lengthy and time consuming process. Really appreciated all of the help during the application process because there were moments when it was challenging and difficult.

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