Katy is life changing

I worked with Katy on my Round 2 applications for 3 schools. By way of background, my stats are 770, 3.7, finance background but currently working in nonprofit. I was accepted at HBS and Haas and wait-listed at GSB.

I think the most impressive aspect of working with Katy was how intuitive and insightful she is in understanding me as a person. After I filled out the brainstorming questionnaire, Katy and I had an hour long call to discuss essay topics. She surprised me halfway through by saying "this is what I think matters to you" and then explaining my values to me better than I have ever been able to do myself. I found that essay topic picking was the most daunting part of this process so I was really greatful that she could help me sort my scattered thoughts out so effortlessly.

Regarding actual essay writing and editing, Katy was good at helping me cut my first draft down (it was twice as long as the limit) by helping me remove sections that weren't as impactful. She also definitely has a knack for rewording things to get the word count down. I started the round 2 process pretty early so my main Stanford/Harvard essay went through a lot of different iterations before I submitted and she definitely provided the big picture guidance that I was really looking for through those iterations.

Katy was also really helpful in prepping me for my interviews. Mbamission has a ton of data on prior interviews which was really helpful and the mock HBS interview I did with her definitely made me feel more prepared when I walked into the room on that one.

Katy also just has a lot of general knowledge about the admissions process which provided really helpful context throughout the process. She is clearly in the flow both through her personal experiences and friends at the schools I applied to, and she works with what seems to be an impressive clientele so she is seeing in real time how her clients' applications resonate with adcoms. Her follow up to our calls was always timely and professional and included materials we had discussed on the calls.

If you are considering working with Katy I would definitely at least have the free 30 minute convo with her, I got a lot of great insights from her just in that first call. Also the mbamission materials are relatively cheap and you should read all of them even if it's not exactly a beach read. Finally, I would just say that, other than being super effective and knowledgeable, Katy is just a truely lovely person who really likes working with young people who are trying to figure out what the heck to do with their lives.