Kate Richardson - A Great MBA Admissions Consultant

When I decided that attaining an MBA was going to be the next step in my life, I knew that I was going to need help in the application process (especially given the fact, I only planned to apply to one program). I knew that I was going to seek help from an MBA admissions consulting firm – but did not know which one I was going to choose. After having multiple 30 minute (free) consultations with a few firms (e.g. Stacy Blackman, Veritas Prep, and mbaMission), I decided that I liked mbaMission best.

However, I am not writing a review to compare mbaMission to other firms. I am writing a review of the work Kate Richardson (my mbaMission admissions consultant) performed that allowed me to get into the Johns Hopkins/MICA’s Design Leadership program with a merit-based scholarship.

Kate is truly a great consultant. She catered to my needs and made the admissions process smooth and even quite fun. I would say the top three things that Kate helped me with were: 1) essay writing/editing, 2) strategy and detail, 3) staying true to myself.

As it pertains to essay writing/editing, Kate helped me recognize what stories in my life were going to make the strongest impact on the admissions committee and helped me outline what specific parts of those stories were going to be most pertinent to illustrate. Furthermore, once I started writing the essays, Kate provided insightful notes on my drafts that allowed me to fine tune the tone, clarity, and vividness of the messages I was trying to get across.

Regarding strategy and detail, Kate helped me ensure that the content of my essays, recommendation (only one is required for the program I applied to), and Linkedin profile all dovetailed one another. This is extremely important given the fact that the essays I had to write had 500-word limits. It is not efficient or effective to say the same things in multiple essays or have your recommender share the same story you wrote about in an essay (unless he/she has significantly different things to say than you do). With Kate’s help, I felt confident that my materials never overlapped, but complemented one another.

Thirdly, Kate never pushed me to write or do anything as it pertains to my admissions portfolio that I felt wasn’t me – which I think is most important. I felt that the application I submitted was the best representation of myself that I could have provided the admissions committee (while staying true to what I believed needed to be said).

In closing, if anyone is thinking about get an MBA and has the capital to hire an MBA admissions consultant during the admissions process, I highly recommend Kate without reservation. She is knowledgeable, intelligent, and easy to talk with. More importantly, she gets the job done.