mbaMission: A fruitful partnership

Review MBAmission / Liza Weale

I applied to a total of 6 schools (CBS, Ross, Wharton, Stern, Yale SOM and INSEAD), 4 of which I worked on with an MBAmission consultant, Liza Weale, namely CBS, Ross, Wharton and INSEAD. I was a Round 2 applicant for all of these schools, except for INSEAD, for which I was a Round 1 applicant to the January '17 intake. I got admitted to all schools except for CBS and Yale (for which I did not even receive an interview invitation). By way of background, I am a female in my late twenties and live in Europe. I did my undergraduate in the United States and then worked in a few different fields, namely in law and retail. I was recommended to work with Liza Weale by a friend who worked with her a little over a year ago and who got admitted to the only MBA program she had applied to. We had free Skype conversation in the summer of 2015 during which she told me about the process of working with an MBAmission consultant, and gave me tips as to what my timing and focus should be in the coming months. I was able to meet Liza in-person during a trip to New York, but most of our work was done by e-mail and Skype.

Working with Liza throughout the process was extremely valuable, and I doubt that I would have had these great results, had I gone through the process alone. Liza was helpful on three distinct levels: 1) giving me a structured approach on how to tackle the b-school apps, 2) helping me build my story, connect the dots and give me strategic advice and 3) on helping edit/cut my essays, short answers and resume. Firstly, Liza was tremendously helpful in informing me about the business school application process, which I felt very removed from, given that I was living abroad and did not have any family members who had gone through the process. She was very familiar with all the schools (and respective applications) that I was interested in applying to, but also helped me discover other programs which I had not been considering. Liza helped me structure my time, encouraging me to work on very specific parts of my application at given times, making the entire process much less overwhelming than it could have been.

As I alluded to earlier, my work experience since graduating from college was not linear, and I worked in a few different fields. This meant that my "story" was not particularly evident to put forward. Thanks to our brainstorming exercise, Liza helped me establish the common thread that linked my different experiences and tied to my career goals. This process also helped me think about and frame post-business school goals-- a key part of the application. Liza came back to this brainstorming document throughout the entire process and advised me on which experiences to highlight in different parts of the applications. For each school we worked on together, we had a 45 minute Skype call to brainstorm ideas for each question of the application. Liza always came well prepared to each of our calls, and helped me map out a strategy for each application.

Following our brainstorming sessions for each school, I would prepare drafts for each question and send them to Liza. She was extremely helpful when it came to helping me focus/clarify my thoughts and cut my drafts to respect the word restrictions for each essay/school. In terms of timing, Liza always got back to me with new drafts (with track changes and comments) two working days after sending her my drafts. When I had quick questions, she would respond very promptly, during the same day.

Liza was an ally and partner throughout this stressful and intense process. She always demonstrated understanding and empathy, and helped me keep my spirits up in tough times. The first b-school response I received was a negative one, which made me doubt my applications to the other schools. Liza helped push the negative thoughts away. On a personal level, I felt like Liza and I got along well. I would very much recommend working with MBAmission during your MBA applications, given the breadth of their resources (the insider guides, the huge amount of data that they've gathered from their work with applicants) and the knowledge of their consultants, who have worked with so many applicants. I cannot speak for any other consultants (although I'm sure they're all good), but I certainly would recommend working with Liza!