mbaMission is the McKinsey of MBA Consulting

First some personal background: I am a 28 year old, former strategy consultant, and have never considered an MBA to be a make or break part of my life or my career. I always viewed the degree as a means to an end. The trouble was, I was beyond the standard application age of my fellow consultants, and I had already been promoted beyond the post-MBA level. In short, I had a lingering feeling that the standard, youthful, “spray and pray” application strategy wasn’t going to suit me.

When I finally decided that I wanted to make a run at an MBA, I wanted to do it the right way. To fulfill that need I turned to the “McKinsey” of the field: mbaMission. As the saying goes, no one gets fired for hiring McKinsey. I knew my application strategy was a little outside the norm, and didn’t want to have any regrets about quality.

I heard about Eric Hollowaty and mbaMission from a friend who had been admitted to HBS. I reached out to Eric and let him know my situation. He challenged some of my hypotheses (in a good way), verified others, and helped me set a strategy that fit my goals.

In the end, that strategy was to go for broke on just two schools. Eric and I agreed that either of those schools would invariably change my life, and that a backup option, while attractive, probably wouldn’t add as much value as I thought I needed. In my mind, getting the strategy verified was worth the full fee.

After we set the high level strategy, Eric helped me craft an essay that fit the bill perfectly. My whole application was a hail mary, and I needed an essay topic to match. Without revealing too much, Eric helped me write an "edgy" essay that maximized my chance of winning admission, given my less than perfect odds going in. It would have been impossible to write it without him.

In the end, the strategy fell a little short, and I wasn’t accepted to either of my schools. Though naturally disappointed, it was an easy lump to take because I knew I had submitted the best package possible. I wrote Eric directly and told him that even in defeat, mbaMission had been worth the cash.

If you’re serious about doing an MBA application right, I don’t know why you’d go anywhere else.