Great Experience with Erika

I had an excellent experience working with Erika on a 4 school package. I was initially referred to SBC by a friend who also worked with Erika the previous year and was ultimately admitted to her top choice school. After hearing how great her experience was, rather than shop around at other companies, I immediately signed up for SBC.

Right off the bat, I felt that Erika's personality was a great fit for me. She was honest, had a sense of humor and made what was quite a stressful process a bit more enjoyable. Throughout the process, Erika was a great sounding board for all questions both large and small, and she provided useful feedback on both my essay content and writing style. Turnaround time was always extremely fast yet her edits were always thorough and appreciated. My flight test with Rebekah and the rest of the team at SBC also offered additional value support that can't be matched by smaller companies. Plus, the entire suite of SBC resources from interview guides to essay samples provided an additional edge that I greatly appreciated. Lastly, the mock interview with Erika was one of the most valuable parts of the process. Prior to our mock, I was experiencing severe interview anxiety and did not feel prepared. With Erika's help, I fine-tuned answers to key questions, built my confidence and truly felt like I aced my interview.

I do want to share a few minor points of feedback that I hope SBC will continue to work on. Firstly, I wish we had spent more time crafting an overall strategy to my applications. In speaking with other friends who used consultants (both within and outside the SBC family), it seemed that other consultants spent more time developing a strategy of how best to position their clients and pinpointing the qualities to highlight in essays. While Erika did mention a few strong points in my background in our initial call, we did not ever circle back to these. In most cases I would write my first draft on my own and Erika would edit from there, but I would have preferred to spend more time brainstorming initial ideas together to ensure I was positioning myself best. Additionally, I sometimes felt that my doubts were not taken seriously or I was not being held to a high enough standard - being told that my essays were "fine" was not exactly reassuring as I applied to schools with sub 10% acceptance rates. To this point, I was surprised to find that my flight tester offered almost zero negative feedback and said I was an "interesting candidate" for a school to which I later did not even receive an interview (a school that I was directly told I had a solid chance of admittance at during my initial consult)

With all this in mind, I still wholeheartedly recommend working with Erika and the entire SBC team. With their support, an extremely daunting experience became manageable and I gained insider knowledge that I could not have gotten elsewhere. After a long process, I am excited to be attending Booth this fall and I could not have done it without Erika's guidance.