When I finally overcame the seemingly insurmountable obstacle that is the GMAT, I was met with another challenge in the MBA application process: deciding on whether or not to hire a consultant. At first glance, all of the reviews here on GMAT Club are stellar and I was overwhelmed by my options. My partner & I eventually narrowed the list down to about 8 (LOL), and I scheduled free consultations with every firm.

After about a week's worth of daily free consultations, I had made up my mind on who I wanted to go with, and frankly, I thought hard about skipping out on my consultation with Amerasia (it was the last one). I am so glad I didn't.

Drew blew me away. Not only was he a great listener, but his enthusiasm was also infectious. The Amerasia approach clicked with me, and I was thoroughly impressed with how prepared Drew was for our call. I ended up saying YES on the spot and ended our call feeling good about my decision. Random side note: emotional intelligence is a big deal to me, and Drew was the only consultant I had spoken to that brought it up first (instead of me asking about it). I was sold from that point forward.

The investment in Amerasia quickly paid for itself as Drew's patience, flexibility, and attention to detail (via strategy memos) gave me the structure I craved during the stressful and ambiguous application process. His laid back attitude on the work we had to do (I never felt pressured to meet specific deadlines) kept me sane each step of the way. Drew strikes a great balance between relaxed and straightforward. I am also kind of neurotic by nature, so I appreciated Drew's patience with me when I kept blowing up his phone or emails with my random questions.

Throughout the whole process, I felt like Drew was personally invested in helping me craft my best story, and the amazing part is he was able to do it while maintaining my voice. I am extremely pleased with my results and never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd find this much success with my stats. Big thanks to Drew & Amerasia for giving me confidence, but also helping me translate it in my applications.

Stats: ORM. 3.44 GPA. 5yrs Operations in Financial Services. 690 (47Q/38V) GMAT.

Round 2 Results: WL at Kellogg (waiting on a decision) and Stern (app now withdrawn). Admit at Anderson, Marshall (w/ full-tuition scholarship), and McCombs (w/ partial scholarship)

Update as of 4/13: I was admitted off the WL (w/ partial scholarship) at Kellogg this weekend. I wouldn't have even applied to Kellogg if Drew hadn't mentioned it during our first call. Seriously, highly recommend him!

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I worked with Paul Lanzilotti, who communicated with me normally over Slack and also frequently over the phone. The primary sources of help came from essay editing as well as tailoring for each school.

While I had a good story and good stats (4.0 GPA, >730 GMAT), I received no interviews the prior year. I therefore shopped around and felt most comfortable working with Paul. After a long and rather nerve-racking process, Paul helped me present a more coherent story, tailored properly for each school. I ultimately was admitted to 4 top-10 schools, 1 with scholarship. I am very happy with my result and am overjoyed to attend my dream school in the fall.

Paul exceeded my expectations for 1 simple reason - he knew what to do, which allowed me to achieve my goal. Ultimately that's why you hire a consultant.

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TLDR:
I worked with Paul from Amerasia for two-school complete package (application + interview).
I received R1 offers from both schools (Cambridge & LBS).
I recommend him to the fullest degree.

Detailed review of Paul & Amerasia:
I will breakdown my experience and provide a score for each of the criteria that I find to be important when it comes to admission consultation.

Knowledge & Expertise (5/5):
Paul is extremely knowledgeable about the MBA admission process in general, and his experience allows him to provide practical and helpful insights and guidance. He has also built up a wealth of information on application and interview. I found the materials he supplied me with to be intuitive and helpful. He allowed me to look past many of the "advice" offered on various forums by so called experts. Even though he mostly works with clients applying to US schools, I had no problem putting together solid application packages and getting through the interviews - all for European schools.

Communication (4/5):
I have to be honest here. Sometimes Paul can be a bit hard to reach. Having gone through the application process and looking back on the overall experience, this is not a big deal. It's not like he doesn't deliver on his words. However, for students admission process can be an emotional roller coaster, and at times having someone to speak to readily will greatly help with the stress. This is the only thing that I felt like Paul can improve upon. He does make it up also by spending the time with you. I've never had a single phone call where he asked to hang up first. He is willing to go over the allocated 30 minutes or an hour to address all of your questions, comments, and concerns. I very much appreciated that about Paul. In terms of style of communication, he is very honest. He will let you know directly that your work sucks. He will also let you know when you do a decent job.

Commitment & Engagement (5/5):
Paul's engagement style and his level of commitment is what got me to work with him over all the other big name consulting firms. I noticed immediately during the initial (free) consultation. Every other consultants hung up after a 30 minute conversation on the dot. Paul was different. Even for a free initial call, he spent an hour and a half talking with me. He will go over and beyond for you and he makes you feel that he, too, is truly invested in your success. It will obviously vary depending on people (and personalities), but him and I built a pretty strong relationship (considering the fact that we've never seen each others' faces and all of the communications were via email and phone calls) with him. This provided me with a sense of security that I really needed to overcome the stresses of application journey. He truly made me feel like he was looking after my best interest, and never once made me feel like our engagements were transactional. If you want someone in your corner during your MBA application journey, Paul is your man.

Value (5/5):
Value is personal and relative, so I will keep it pretty brief. His pricing is pretty much better than anything in the market. Not only that, as mentioned before, Paul is more committed and knowledgeable than other consultants I have talked to & received service (I used another company last year, but wasn't very happy with what I got) from.

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Adam is AMAZING. You will be lucky if you can work with him, as now he only works with client referrals. He truly goes above and beyond for every applicant and I cannot thank him enough!

- He is incredibly honest and direct -- if he doesn't think you have a credible shot, he will not work with you for that school. He will also be honest about the holes in your application and where the questions may arise. He is not afraid to hurt your feelings if your essay or answers need lots of help.

- His memos and strategy guides are incredible -- they give you fantastic insight into each school and each essay topic (what it means, what you should think about, what you should avoid, etc.)

- He spends the time to get to know you -- I have heard that other consultants will try to "bucket" applicants without taking the time to get to know you. He takes the opposite approach, don't care about what others might perceive your background, just be yourself!

- He knows how to tell a story -- this is super helpful when it comes to distilling your entire background into a few short paragraphs / pages or making sure the most important aspects of your life are able to shine through

- His team brings well-rounded expertise and insight -- a separate team member reviews your resume and a separate team member gives a mock interview

Best of luck with your admissions process! If you are lucky enough to work with Adam, you are in good hands.

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I found Amerasia on GMATClub and reached out to them 3 weeks (yup, 3 weeks) before MBA deadlines for 2019 intake. At that point, I'd just re-taken my GMAT, had not started on any of my applications, essays or recommendations. I remember asking Drew if I should just wait to apply for 2020 intake to avoid rushing through my applications. However given that I'm slightly older, he advised me to go ahead with this round.

We started working on the essays straight away. Drew had a very structured approach towards the entire process. He had detailed memos for each segment of the application, from recommendations to essays to interviews. This made it less overwhelming as it broke down the entire process into smaller and more achievable segments. I found this extremely helpful as I was working under extreme time constraint.

Drew was very responsive with emails. He was giving me feedback on my essays and applications through the Christmas and New Year's period, taking only Christmas day off. It was easy to schedule calls with Drew when I needed to discuss my applications over the phone, especially since I'm located in South East Asia.

Here's my background: I am South East Asian, studied Economics and Statistics for my undergrad, worked as an analyst for 5 years in telco industry, and had a 710 GMAT score.

I applied for 3 schools - Harvard, Stanford and Wharton. I was accepted to Harvard and Wharton and was waitlisted for Stanford. After being waitlisted to Stanford, Drew shared some detailed guidance on the waitlist process and how to improve my chances, i.e. writing additional essays.

I found the entire experience to be very pleasant. Drew was extremely supportive throughout the entire process and gave direct feedback about essays and my interview responses.

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I would highly recommend Adam Hoff at Amerasia. I found him to be a true partner throughout the application process, and his feedback/work is top notch. He is not only very knowledgeable about what each of the schools is looking for (or not looking for), but he is quite honest and upfront with you. He is especially helpful with the essays, and will push you to make them as strong as possible. It seems like he has a real vested interest in each person he works with. He is used year after year by all the pre-MBAs that go through my private equity program, and with great results.

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I was introduced to Adam Hoff and Amerasia through a high school classmate that worked with Adam and recommended him highly. My classmate and his wife both received Adam's help and guidance throughout their b-school application process and wound up at HBS together. After hearing rave reviews about Amerasia, I was excited to hear about their services and set up an initial consultation with Drew Hoff.

After going back and forth on whether I wanted to use an admissions consultant I ended up choosing to work with Drew and Amerasia because of the personal and dedicated approach that was shown in my hour plus consultation call; very different than any other free consultation calls I had before. Looking back at my notes from that call, Drew really opened my eyes to a successful and feasible path forward towards reaching my b-school goals due to his attention to detail and sincere advice based on the short questionnaire I had filled out beforehand.

Drew was a huge help at the start of the process as my brain had been swirling around in circles when I was trying to figure out where to begin on my own. I asked for guidance and a voice of reason throughout the application process and received it from Drew each step of the way - from vetting my final list of schools to choosing which stories to write about to preparing as best as possible for interviews.

The personalized strategy memos were really the kickstart to the hot and heavy time of my application period and they were a great help for putting pen to paper. I certainly remember being frustrated staring at a blank Word page for hours on end but Drew was there to coach me through my jumbled thoughts and help maintain my clear vision for b-school and beyond. Drew was responsive no matter how many iterations of my essays I went through and I distinctly remember the point in time where I took a step back after reading an updated version and thinking, "wow, I really have a chance at this" and "I've really learned A LOT about myself".

I cannot thank Drew and Amerasia enough for the instrumental help in the application process and I am happy to report that I was accepted at both Wharton & Kellogg when it was all said and done. (I interviewed at GSB & Haas and got dinged right off the bat at HBS). For quick reference - B.S. in Civil Engineering, 5 years in construction, 770 GMAT.

I'd strongly recommend Drew and Amerasia!

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Hey all! So first off and to preface my entire review, I applied for Harvard, Stanford, Sloan, and Wharton. These are obviously very difficult schools, but I did have hope that my unique background combined with a strong consultant could pull me through. In the interest of transparency however, I just wanted to state that I was not able to secure any of the four schools, not even an interview. Take from that what you will in regards to whether or not my review is tainted, but I do believe I am not one to be so affected. At the end of the day, I have other opportunities that I can aim for, and so this does not faze me too much. I do think everyone here would appreciate knowing how my process with Drew went though, to not make the same mistakes that I made.

Alright, so into the process itself. Perhaps because of my origins as a PhD candidate, coming a bit out of left field that it ended up being hard for Drew - though the initial consultations had left me assured I would be in good hands, with someone who knew what to do with my background.

We started with a survey that I returned to Drew on the 11th of November 2018, which I suppose marks the first day of the consultation process. This was where the first red flag appeared, and perhaps I should have done something about this then. Once I completed the survey, nothing came out of it - nadda. There was no follow up discussing the results of the survey, or even later on how the results could play into my application. This is a general theme that pervades the consultation process, and I would highly recommend if you are going to go with Drew, to always be ready to remind him of deadlines and things that has been done/needs to be done.

This is because the next thing that happened, was that I sent him the first draft for my resume on the 27th of November and my first draft of the Harvard essay on the 1st of December. He took four days just to get back to me on my resume with suggestions (not really any edits), and really practically all throughout it had always been four days between when I sent him a resume draft and when I receive feedback/edits from him. I would suggest to send him drafts as early as you can, and also ensure it is as close to one page as possible because Drew will not really make edits or significant suggestions to your draft until then.

The bigger problem was the first draft of my Harvard essay, which went way past the four day (96-hour) deadline as promised by Amerasia. Allegedly Drew sent me a response that never got through. We had a bit of a discussion about this, where Drew was a bit bummed out, and I was too. I did offer to dissolve the agreement, but Drew wanted to continue, and, having not much time left, I decided to take a leap of faith and continue with Drew. To be frank, I think it is fair of me to voice such concerns to him, given that we had a later start than others, and deadlines were fast approaching.

Unfortunately it happened multiple times. Five times actually - across Harvard, Wharton, and Sloan essays, and that was enough to turn everything upside down. On one occasion, Drew allegedly forgot to send me an edit until I reminded him. On the remaining four occasions, Drew was late by 7 hours, 16 hours, 36 hours, and the worse one - 83 hours (which already accounted for 48 hours where Drew asked to take two days off over Christmas). As you can imagine, when you are coming so close to the deadline, every hour counts.

So therefore, if you go with Drew, you HAVE to chase him up. Do not be like me and wait for at least 96 hours (i.e. the deadline for return of edits based on the agreement), chase him up earlier than that. He might be overwhelmed, or for whatever other reason, but it is your application - you need to take charge.

This is because Drew does do good work - he managed to make significant modifications to my resume to squeeze in everything I wanted to write within one page, and have made good edits to my essays. However, it could have been so much better if he has had more time to go through my essays - which simply did not happen due to the constant breaches of deadlines.

I considered giving him a lower rating, but given that he does do good work when he seems like he wants to do it, I simply cannot do that. I think my rating is fair given that there were significant breaches on Amerasia's side that significantly affected my applications. So yes, if you go with Drew, you have to chase him up - whether because he is too busy, or in my case maybe not feeling like he wants to help me anymore, he does not chase up my progress or check in with me. Though in that case, that is not exactly professional, especially given that I offered him the choice of dissolving our arrangement.

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I worked with Adam from Amerasia on the complete school package for two of the four schools to which I was applying. Adam was incredibly helpful in all aspects of the application process including essays, guidance on selecting recommenders, and (fortunately) preparing for interviews.

Adam did a great job of getting to know my background and what I was interested and passionate about, and then making sure that I stayed true to those elements throughout the process. He knew when to push me to dig deeper for more details and how to effectively cultivate my experience in order to craft my story. Despite multiple revisions of my essays, Adam always responded quickly and gave me his honest assessment every step of the way. When it came time for interviews, Adam helped connect me with hand-picked interview experts from the Amerasia team who helped to ensure that I was not only prepared for the generic MBA interview questions, but also those that would demonstrate my interest and commitment to each school.

Overall, I cannot recommend Adam highly enough based on my experience as he and the entire Amerasia team helped me immensely throughout the application process.

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Over the past 2 years, I spoke with 10+ consultants, worked with 5 of them on various schools and services, and found Americasia’s Adam Hoff one of the bests for the following reasons: 1) an extremely clear and detailed understanding, breakdown, and strategy for each school and 2) a genuine interests in the candidate’s performance.

Since Adam was referred to me by a friend who got into Booth with Adam, I decided to work with him on Booth through a School Package. Throughout the application process, Adam provided me with materials that were more reading-friendly, to-the-point, and in-depth than most other consultants; Americasia really knows its stuff.

The twist comes here: I did not get into Booth, and thought Adam and my work would end here; nevertheless, in a few months’ time when I received an interview invitation from MIT Sloan in R2 and sought for Adam’s advice, Adam voluntarily provided me with a mock interview with MIT Sloan, which was not the school I had purchased the School Package for. This small act of kindness was very touching and inspiring; furthermore, the mock interview prep helped me obtain an offer letter from MIT Sloan.

Extremely supportive throughout the process; very attentive.

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