Angela at mbaMission is fabulous!

I first met mbaMission and Angela Guido through a free thirty-minute consultation referral from Kaplan. I was skeptical of using a consultant for two reasons – I was unsure how helpful a consultant could actually be and hiring a consultant is expensive. Well, after the first thirty minutes Angela had revamped my entire resume, helped articulate my goals, and revised my list of target schools to include much tougher programs, all during the free consultation. In the end, I was accepted to both of the Top-10 programs that I applied to. It was the best money I’ve ever spent for all of the reasons below.

• To me, there was nothing particularly impressive about my background when I began the application process. I assumed I had mediocre “paper stats” including a 3.2 GPA from a relatively unknown undergrad business school and a 700 GMAT score. I also had six years of experience in a field that wasn’t particularly sexy to an adcom. Brainstorming with Angela helped me realize that I have an extremely unique set of experiences that make me a much more competitive applicant than I originally thought.

• Angela helped me utilize my personal and professional experiences in my application. Without Angela’s assistance, I would have completely overlooked my leadership experience with several volunteer organizations and personal experiences that helped mold my passions. Brainstorming with her allowed me to uncover valuable stories outside of just my professional experience.

• While some consultants may push applicants to apply to safer programs to boost their acceptance stats, Angela did just the opposite. I thought I had a very small chance of getting into a Top-10 program. I was going to apply to Kellogg as my stretch school with other target schools in the 10-25 ranking. She encouraged me to apply to Booth and Kellogg in R1 and to save the other schools for R2 if I need them. As a Chicago native, getting into local schools would be that much more challenging.

• No one in my personal network has gone to business school. My personal resources were limited when it came to application knowledge and advice. It was emotionally rewarding to have someone to call and ask all of the minor questions and encourage me throughout the process. Angela was incredibly vested in my process and application. She genuinely wanted to see me succeed. She was my first phone call when I got invited to interview and when I was accepted.

• Angela has mastered the art of storytelling. Applying to MBA programs is a unique process in which you have to show the adcom all of your impressive accomplishments without sounding like a braggart. This is incredibly challenging and quite easy to get wrong. Angela helped mold my story using my own voice. Some schools have cut back on word counts to where you now only have one main essay with others less than 200 words or even a PowerPoint presentation. It’s quite hard to communicate an entire story in less than 200 words.

• Each of my essays went through at least five drafts before being complete. One essay in particular went through about seven drafts and neither Angela nor I loved it because it was a bit dry and lacked my personality. We eventually scrapped it and started over from scratch using a completely different story. It turned out to be my favorite essay. It’s important to note that consultants do not do any of the work for you. They ask insightful questions to pull stories from your own experiences and edit the essay as many times as it needs, but it’s still your own stories and work in the application.

• Even after several drafts of each of the essays, Angela helped me to review the entire application as a whole to ensure a solid theme was communicated. After applying to several programs, it’s easy to overlook something that needs to be included with each application.

• It was also incredibly useful to have someone keep me on schedule to submit multiple applications in Round 1. Angela responded well before the allotted timeframe and helped to lay out an efficient timeline including all areas of the applications.

• Angela also helped me to formulate my long-term goals. When I began the application process, I knew that I wanted to do management consulting immediately after graduation, but I couldn’t articulate why or what I wanted to do afterwards. Based on my experience and interests, she helped me discover a realistic career path that has now become my elevator pitch for b-school. She gave me the confidence that my long-term dream is not only attainable, but I am already on a successful path to achieve it.

• Thanks to Angela, next fall I will be attending my dream school, Booth, which I wouldn’t have even applied to without her help or encouragement.