Sarah - Stacy Blackman Consulting

During the 2010-2011 application season, I applied to four schools (Ross, Anderson, Marshall, and McCombs) in round 3, received an interview at McCombs, and was denied at all four schools. I worked with an admissions consultant from a company that I will not name out of respect. The consultant was nice, personable, and got my essays into top shape, but looking back I feel that the consultant was simply out to make a quick buck. If I was rating my experience with this consultant, I would give it 2 stars.
Anyway, after I was denied I spent the next two and a half years slowly working to improve my candidacy and preparing to give business school one more shot.
I initially decided to go it alone based on my last experience. After about a week of pounding my head against a wall, I realized I needed help and ultimately chose Stacy Blackman Consulting. I think this is really the key for people debating whether to hire a consultant. If you are organized and can push yourself you can probably do it alone, but I tend to procrastinate and needed someone lighting a fire underneath me. I reached out to SBC, did the intro call with a representative from the company, and was given three options for a consultant to work with. I chose Sarah after reading her bio because I felt her background would be a good match for me.
Sarah was very friendly and more importantly honest. I wanted to do the “all in” aka comprehensive package and thought about a five school deal (Ross, McCombs, Marshall, McDonough, and Kenan-Flagler) that would have cost me over $8500. I asked her straight up whether I had a chance at any them because I had several weaknesses to overcome (low GPA, older applicant, some gaps in my resume, and what I would consider mediocre work experience) and didn’t feel like throwing my money away like I did with my previous consultant. She said that I did with the exception of Ross, which would be a challenge. Ross was my dream school so I had to give it a shot no matter what she said, but her honesty was refreshing. Compare that to my previous consultant who suggested I apply to Booth, Kellogg, and Anderson in addition to Ross, Marshall, and McCombs.
Before I made the hefty investment with SBC, Sarah and I discussed a game plan. Instead of loading me up on five schools, Sarah suggested I pick three schools for round 1 and to use what I learned from her to apply to the other schools in round 2. She could have easily signed me up for all five, but she didn't and I respect that. One of the most helpful things we did was our second phone call that lasted about an hour. She grilled me on a variety of topics: my background, some of my accomplishments, what I wanted to do, stories from each of my jobs/extracurricular, a time where I showed creativity, a time where I learned something, I time where I led, the list goes on and on. She then took all of my responses and came up with five themes known as the “application strategy document”, which became the backbone of my essays. This was a really useful process. It gave my essays a clear message and gave clarity to my career goals. I didn’t do anything like this with the previous consultant.
Once Sarah got a hold of my essays, they changed completely. She pushed me much more so than the previous consultant. It was frustrating and there were times where I just wanted to be done with them, but she kept pushing and pushing and churning out multiple drafts (9 drafts for Ross, less drafts for McCombs and Marshall). Throughout the process, Sarah was very responsive and always had feedback for me within 24-48 hours. She also told me to visit the schools beforehand and to reach out to students to give my essays some uniqueness. This seems obvious but my previous consultant never mentioned it.
I ended up getting interviews at McCombs and Marshall. Sadly, Ross did not show me the love. Sarah worked with me on interview prep (included in the “all in” package) and we did mock interviews for each school. I can't say that my interview at McCombs went well (I'm not the best interviewer). My interview at Marshall went better (but wasn’t great) and I think the end results supported this since I was denied at McCombs and wait listed at Marshall.
Now, you are probably wondering why I am so positive about Sarah. It was upsetting to not get an admit after spending a lot of money, however the waitlist result at Marshall represented progress and without her help there is no way I get waitlisted. Secondly, I ended up applying to McDonough in round 2, interviewed (and had my best interview after incorporating the same techniques I learned from the mock interviews) and got admitted. Although I did not work with Sarah on my McDonough essays, they were essentially the same as my Marshall essays so I have to give her credit for that. And had I taken her advice about Ross, I would have likely applied to McDonough instead and got admitted. In the end, I did manage to get off the wait list at Marshall, so while it took a few months, my goal was achieved. Right now I am deciding on McDonough or Marshall.
Choosing the “all in” package is a big investment if you are doing 3, 4, or even 5 schools. I found some elements of the package to be extremely helpful, (the application strategy document, the mock interviews, the online resource that includes past essays from former clients), and others not so much (the flight test, which sounded good, basically your essays get read by a former admissions representative who then gives you feedback, which in my case wasn’t really different from what I was getting from Sarah and didn’t result in any major changes to my essays). I think you may be able to save some money by going ala carte and picking individual services, but if you are looking for a comprehensive package, I would highly recommend the “all in” package at SBC and I would choose Sarah to work with. I thought I could do it alone, but without her I would have been lost.