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Product Fortuna Admissions Comprehensive School Package
Consultant Cassandra Pittman
I was recommended the services of Fortuna Admissions by a friend of mine, who was admitted to INSEAD.
INSEAD was my only target school, meaning that I would not have pursued an MBA in another institution. Therefore, I wanted to ensure that my application would be as compelling as possible. I worked with Mrs. Pittman and Mrs. Diarte, and strongly recommend their services. They were very experienced and qualified; their assistance in my application was invaluable. Thanks to their precious help, I was not only accepted to INSEAD, but also received substantial scholarship!
I would advise anyone who needs any sort of guidance in their application to resort to Fortuna's services; the investment is definitely worth it.
Product Fortuna Admissions Hourly Consulting Services
Consultant Karen Hamou
After having completed the GMAT, TOEFL, getting Recommenders on board etc. I found myself at a huge roadblock at writing essays and completing the remaining content for my applications. Especially as someone foreign to US style application it was difficult for me to hit the right tone and narrow down my key selling points for the respective schools.
After talking to some companies, I decided to get support from Fortuna Admissions as I felt they saw the person behind the application rather than just the numbers. I was lucky to have been put in touch with Karen.
Getting her on board immediately increase the pace that I was moving forward with and elevated the overall quality by helping me to find the right focus point within my life experience. Karen was highly efficient and I would usually get her feedback within a few hours. Sending in the applications, knowing that this was my best effort, was a great feeling. Karen was also there for me once interview invitations came in to prepare me accordingly. I am not sure I could have made it into Haas without her experience. If you have ambitious goals, I can highly recommend Karen as coach, as she will get the best out of you!
Product Fortuna Admissions Hourly Consulting Services
Consultant Karen Hamou
Karen at Fortuna is an amazing consultant, and I could not have asked for a better person to help me with the overwhelming process of applying to business school. My situation was unique because my decision to work with a consultant came very late in the application process. Some consultants probably would have been turned off by me as a client in this respect, but Karen did not hesitate in taking me on. As we began working together, Karen was always very responsive to my emails; if I sent her a draft of an essay at night after work, she always provided comments by the next day. And when I received interview invitations from schools, she was proactive and available to help me prep at any time that was most convenient for me and for however long I needed. But her speed was not at the expense of the quality of her comments. Karen is extremely knowledgeable about the application processes for all the schools that I applied to, and she provided very thoughtful, school-specific advice on my essays, short answer responses, and interview responses. In our mock interviews, she helped make my responses more crisp and suggested ways that I could weave in important elements of my story. Her comments on every major aspect of my application were crucial in helping me develop and craft my story so that I conveyed it eloquently to the admissions committees. Karen is a pleasure to work with, both professionally and personally, and I highly recommend her and Fortuna to anyone applying to business school.
Product Fortuna Admissions Comprehensive School Package
Consultant Taniel Chan
The excellent consulting services from Veritas Prep were a defining factor and made a world of difference that helped me get into Harvard Business School!
Applying to business school can be overwhelming, and my Veritas consultants, Kevin and Taniel, were the reason the process felt so much more manageable. They added tremendous value to my application and weren't afraid to challenge me, which ultimately resulted in my submitting a confident, well thought-out application that really illuminated my story, goals and values.
Taniel Chan, my HBS specialist, knocked it out of the park! As a recent HBS / HKS alum himself, he is especially in touch with the current pulse of the school and what resonates with the admissions office. He's incredibly quick / smart and has an eye for both the tactical (essay pointers, diction, logic flaws) and the big picture. I was especially impressed by his mock interviewing and interviewing advice, which both gave me the confidence boost I needed and turned out to be spot on!
And a special shout-out to my head consultant, Kevin Richardson, who at times seemed less like an admissions consultant and more like a career / life coach! He's exactly the tough critic my application needed, and once you've passed his incredibly high standards, you can be confident that you have put your best candidacy forward.
Product Fortuna Admissions Waitlist Strategy
Consultant Caroline Diarte Edwards
I contacted Fortuna to get out of the INSEAD and IMD MBA wait list.
Caroline went through my application and gave me great suggestion on the strategy to take, her experience with INSEAD is a great advantage bus it is not limited to this school, indeed she has been very useful also for my IMD application. I do not believe that a consultant can do the magic and get you in your favourite program if your application in not good enough, but they can certainly help you improve a few things, and Caroline had been great at doing so!!!
Thanks a lot =)
REVIEWER IDENTITY VERIFIED by school email address [?]
Product Fortuna Admissions The Admissions Director’s Evaluation
Consultant Emma Bond
If you’re looking to get into LBS there’s really only Emma Bond who you need to work with! I came across Emma after reviewing a couple of consultancy websites. As Emma worked as a senior member of the admissions committee at London Business School working with her was sort of a no-brainer.
I already had written all my essays and filled out most of my application, but I felt like I wanted a second pair of eyes to perfect my application and also guide me to frame my somewhat lower GMAT score, compared to the schools average. The process of working with Emma was easy and rewarding. She would send across her mark-ups and provide guidance at all times throughout the process. Emma is a perfectionist and went well out of her way to ensure that I had an application that stood out – she will ensure that by the time the application goes out that it is nothing short of perfect. I found it particularly helpful that I was able to contact her via Whatsapp throughout the day and her quick response time. Additionally, Emma is still very well connected within LBS and is well aware of what the admissions team is looking for, which is absolute crucial in crafting a flawless application!
Joining LBS MBA program is a dream come true and I truly believe that Emma was a major contributing factor that made that dream happen!! Needless to say I would choose Emma and Fortuna again!
Product Fortuna Admissions Hourly Consulting Services
Consultant Michel Belden
I came in to the process with a decent idea of how to tell my story and what my prospects were, but I wanted guidance on the essay and some more experienced eyes to go over my resume.
Michel was responsive and easy to work with (even over the holidays) and was able to meet tight turnarounds when needed.
She definitely helped me get my essays in better shape. She was particularly helpful in getting me to connect stories I used to the overall message I was trying to convey, probing me on why I chose to use certain stories or how I could tie them back to key points I had made earlier. Occasionally she helped with word choice, but overall she helped me get my essays to sound like the example essays you read on these forums.
Product Fortuna Admissions Comprehensive School Package
Consultant Michel Belden
Michel and the whole Fortuna team were thorough, thoughtful and very helpful. Michel provided valuable guidance and insight throughout the process from data forms to essays to waitlist strategy. Her deep experience helped me create a holistic application and “story” that would resonate with each of the schools I applied to. She also helped me navigate some of the more uncertain aspects of the waitlist process with great insider knowledge. In the end, I decided on Columbia Business School, and couldn’t be more excited! I would definitely recommend working with Michel and the Fortuna team, to have a team of experienced advisors on your side throughout a competitive and often stressful process.
Product Fortuna Admissions Comprehensive School Package
Consultant Cassandra Pittman
A colleague who got admitted to INSEAD recommended Fortuna to me. Cassandra made me feel very comfortable during our first conversation and I thought I could work well with her. Cassandra and the entire Fortuna team have superb insight into the admissions process, particularly for LBS and INSEAD, and work very hard to bring out your story and differentiate it from other applicants. This was particularly relevant for me as I come from an overrepresented applicant pool. The process was very intense and comprehensive - Fortuna ask you to fill out a positioning doc before you start which itself takes about a week to fill out. Despite tight deadlines and multiple iterations, Cassandra was always available on email and phone to provide inputs and guidance. Even during the interview phase, Cassandra took several mock interviews to make sure I was comfortable with all sorts of questions. No one can substitute the hard work that candidates themselves have to put into a successful application but Fortuna can definitely help you utilise your time efficiently and give your effort the right direction
Fortuna - easily one of the best admissions consultant teams, by far, if not the best.
Emma and Amy both worked with me together, with Emma as Strategy Director and Amy as Day-to-Day Consultant.
Amy - is a detail oriented perfectionist, the most professional coach, and the warmest friend you want fighting your corner, especially if the school is LBS. She is honest, thorough, organised and challenges you to do better and better.
My Fortuna team was Emma (Emma's review written below) and Amy.
Amy was my day-to-day admissions coach, who from the get-go took a deep dive into my "brand". I had filled in Fortuna's self-reflection document in tedious detail, and yet, from her first read and our first chat, Amy had accurately worked out who I was and what my brand was. From that first "strategy chat" we had, I was at ease knowing I was in incredibly adept hands. While Emma was the overall strategy director, Amy was the laborious, detail oriented sculptor who chiselled away patiently and diligently at my "story" from the short essays, CV to the main answers. I think between Amy and I, we went through 10-12 drafts of each essay and 9 drafts of the CV before we both felt ready to convince Emma. And even then we tinkered away. Brevity is not my key strength, so Amy had to work doubly hard to get my key messages across while retaining all my personality. We rallied with essay versions seamlessly, quickly, and iteratively before we both were equally satisfied that it was the best final product. Amy is also a great mock interviewer - she goes into interviewer mode seamlessly and asks the deep, incisive questions you want to be prepared for and also the curve balls you don't expect. I always felt satisfied and ready after doing a tough session with Amy - and the feedback - wow so much detail and subtle points you'd never know otherwise.
When I started my application process I had one objective: to make the best application possible by demonstrating the best possible version of myself. Amy took this mission incredibly diligently and helped me achieve exactly that. I would like to add that I had worked with Amy (and Emma) to submit to Judge a year earlier and while I reached the interview I was dinged after. But I am in no doubt that it was the best application I made and the interview failure was more a sum of several things going wrong and my own circumstances. However, good things come to those who wait as the year after I applied to LBS and only wanted to work with Amy (and Emma) - I had THAT much faith in her (their) ability(ies) and the strength of our team. And voila - I had an LBS admit. And INSEAD, IESE, HEC! (Even though I worked on those myself, I had learnt enough from Amy to handle them well). All things happen for a reason! I cannot re-emphasise the admiration I have for Amy and her abilities. And what's more she was someone who genuinely and patiently encouraged me through the whole process.
You cannot ask for a better champion than Amy!
Emma - one of the most experienced, honest, and incisive consultants.
My Fortuna team was Emma and Amy (Amy's review written above).
My first contact with Fortuna was an honest, in-depth, and heartfelt conversation with Emma. I knew then and there she was whom I wanted to work with. She took the time to get to know me and my story and I could see her mind working straight away.
Emma's years of experience, solid expertise as a coach, and intimate understanding of applicant selection process (especially at LBS) shone through and through at every step of the process. As the director of my application - she guided the overall strategy and read through each and every aspect of my application as the "LBS Gatekeeper" ie with the finest tooth comb and highlighted small, subtle aspects that I would have never identified by myself. She always added that back to the bigger picture and ensured my personality was well elucidated in the application.
She took the time to get to know my personality, my story, my motivations (both personal and professional) and pushed me to always put my best foot forward in every aspect of the application and interview process. What I really loved about Emma were her helpful pep talks before interview and her calming debriefs post interview. Further, I was a re-applicant to LBS and Emma really drilled down into each and every aspect of how I had strengthened my profile - including areas I would not have thought about. What I truly admire about Emma is her no-nonsense honesty - it helps so much and saves so much time when writing an MBA essay, which is already a very involved, reflective journey.
If LBS is your dream school, I cannot recommend Emma highly enough.
If top b schools are among your choices, I cannot recommend Fortuna enough.
And a final word about Matt Symonds - he is as astute as he is kind, and his team at Fortuna is the same. Whichever school, you can't go wrong with Fortuna.