The best consultant I could have hoped for

Debbie is the go-to consultant if you someone to hand-hold you through the application process. She is brutally honest and gives great constructive feedback. Yes, all consultants are expensive, but since every applicant is using one, you will be at a disadvantage if you decide to embark on this journey alone. Despite not having the best work experience, I got accepted into an M7 school and even got an interview with HBS.

Debbie was great throughout the entire process and I never felt overwhelmed. In the beginning, she literally had me write my life story out and we had a great conversation about which stories/themes I should be highlighting in my essays. She was very collaborative during this discussion. At the same time, if you are going down the wrong rabbit hole, she will not hesitate to stop you and she saved me a lot of time in that regard. Once we figured out the target schools, Debbie created a timeline for me for each school so I knew how to pace myself.

In regards to the essays, Debbie had a call with me to give me some tips on how to tackle every essay question. Next, she requested that I provided her with an outline of my essay structure. After further comments, I finally got to the essay writing part. All this prep work up front really saved me time on writing the essay. There was some back and forth after the initial essay draft and Debbie always replied within two business days. She even reviewed the extra questions in the application package.

Once I got the good news on the interview invites, she will give you a sample of questions the school usually asks in preparation for the mock interview. You really need to be on top of your game on this one because it really felt like a real interview. After each question, Debbie will give live feedback and once again, she is not afraid to tell you if your answer was way off the mark. I appreciated the honesty as that helped me focus on the subset of questions I needed to hone in on.

To summarize, Debbie was a fantastic partner in this process and I couldn’t have done it without her.