Full Scholarships to McCombs and Kenan-Flagler!

I first got in contact with Greg via one of the profile review threads on GMATclub, he offered a quick and helpful review with details on how I could contact him for a free consultation session. I took him up on his offer and in the consultation we ran through my profile, motivations and work experience in more details. (profile below)

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Profile:

Background and nationality
English, based in UK - recently turned 30

Undergrad Information
BSc Economics - University of Bath - Second Class Honors First Division (roughly converts to 3.4 GPA I think)

GMAT: 740 (Q49, V41, IR 8, AWA 6.0)

Work experience and leadership:
(I have removed organisation names for sake of anonymity, but they are all internationally recognised)

Associate at Segregated Hedge Fund within top tier Investment Bank/Asset Manager (London, UK), 2 years

Analyst at Middle Office in top tier Investment Bank X (London, UK), 3yrs

Contractor at top tier Investment Bank Y (London, UK), 1yr - this was only ever a short term role while I was looking for good permanent opportunities

Full-time Internship (post-university) at top tier Investment Bank Z (New York, USA), 1yr

Full-time Internship (third year of degree was year long industry placement before returning for final year) at top tier Investment Bank W (London, UK), 1yr

Community and others:
Amateur soccer player, fitness training, tennis, skiing, athletics, and stock market investing.
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I had already sent off a couple of applications and had the deadline to UT McCombs only a couple of days away. Greg gave me a few ideas on how to improve my initial application and let me know that he could help in more detail if I signed up for an additional last minute session.

I sent him copies of my admissions essays and he reviewed overnight before getting back to me the next day with a lot of great advice and how to really make my essays pop out. We ran through a few iterations (which definitely saw Greg run over the original hour I had paid for!) and the difference between my initial application and the final one was night and day.

Although our session was focused on the UT application, I was able to use the advice Greg had given me to build my final two applications around (UNC Kenan Flagler and UW Foster). I was very happy with the standard of my three applications after first working with Greg, and feel like they were much stronger than my first two applications.

At the end of my five round one initial applications I had the below results:

1. Stanford (pre-Greg) - no interview
2. Berkeley Haas (pre-Greg) - interview invite
3. UT McCombs (with Greg) - interview invite
4. UW Foster (with Greg) - interview invite
5. UNC Kenan-Flagler (with Greg) - interview invite

I scheduled another hour long session with Greg to run through interview practice. He had clearly done his research so that we could run through practice questions from each of the schools I was going to be interviewing with and I was able to go in to all my interviews feeling well prepared and ready to go.

I received admissions offers from all but Berkeley (I feel like the standard of my written application probably played a role in this rejection):

1. UT McCombs - Full scholarship
2. UNC Kenan-Flagler - Full scholarship
3. UW Foster - Large scholarship (but not full)

I chose to accept my McCombs offer and can't wait to start there!

Overall the things that stood out to me most working with Greg were:
- His enthusiasm throughout the whole process
- His work ethic and commitment to providing excellent service (especially for the rapid turnarounds I required given how late I decided to ask for his services)
- Ongoing email exchanges where Greg provided help and advice for free
- His detailed knowledge of every step of the application process
- Extremely detailed and insightful edits for my application essays (including really deconstructing and telling my story and proposed contributions to the program)
- Really drilling down in to my goals and optimising them for my applications (as well as my own future!)

Overall I really cannot recommend Greg and Avanti Prep highly enough, every step of working with him was an absolute pleasure, and he definitely took my applications to another level. I would recommend that anyone who has not made their mind up over whether to take up Greg's services definitely do so!