Admitted to dream school (CBS)!

I would highly recommend Kim to anyone on the fence about hiring an admissions consultant, or unsure of which consultant to work with. I took a chance on Kim and mbaMission after a brief phone consultation, and will be forever grateful that I did. Kim invested an extraordinary amount of time and energy into getting to know me as a candidate (and person), and channeled that understanding into helping me craft an incredibly well-packaged narrative highlighting my strengths and personal brand. Kim guided me through the admissions process every step of the way, acting as a coach, cheerleader, and teammate in one from our kick-off call to the day I received my acceptance letter from CBS. Most importantly, Kim clearly believed in me as a person and cared deeply about my success. As a result, the application I submitted was distinctly my own, rather than a contrived attempt at following some prescribed “CBS formula,” and this fact gave me a great deal of confidence going into my interview. Overall, working with Kim was an overwhelmingly positive experience, and it is safe to say that I would not be headed to my dream school next fall were it not for her guidance.

One final note: I myself was a skeptic of admissions consulting prior to working with Kim and mbaMission. After all, how much value could a consultant really add on top of what I would gain from completing a “self-guided” tour of the latest admissions literature and MBA applicant forums? As it turns out, a great deal. For example: I was by no means the perfect applicant, and had a gaping hole in my application in the form of a 710 GMAT score with a 40 on the quant sub-section (yikes). Although I had decided to hang up my cleats on the GMAT after several failed attempts at improvement, Kim talked me out of testing retirement for one last Hail Mary on the Executive Assessment. After two weeks of brush-up studying, I took the home version of the EA and walked away with a 95th percentile score. Instantly, the biggest weakness of my application transformed into a strength; not only did my EA score represent an improvement on a percentile basis, it also enabled CBS to focus on the other, stronger aspects of my profile, since EA scores aren’t factored into school rankings. Despite the confidence I placed in my own “self-guided” admissions research, I had somehow missed this incredible opportunity that ironically exists somewhat uniquely for CBS (that is, applying with the EA for the full-time program). That Kim was familiar enough with the school to catch this technicality (along with the fact that she was able to coach a very reluctant standardized tester back into the game) speaks volumes about her abilities as a consultant. If you were initially skeptical about bringing in outside help for your applications, I hope that I’ve now convinced you.