When I first reached out to Kathryn, I was ready to submit my applications for Round 1. I was working with another consultant in Brazil and thought I had everything ready, but wanted just to "double check" with that 30 minutes free consultation. Kathryn was extremely honest, literally saying I would not get anywhere with what I had, and I loved it! I knew I could do a lot better. I realized I needed someone that truly pushed me to the limits and was absolutely honest about my work. I decided to postpone the submission of my application for Round 2 and worked with Kathryn and Lara on my complete application. I got exactly what I wanted as both of them really made me get the best out of me! Trust me, you will not rest until you can do your best. This is what makes a difference. My written applications were outstanding. I got an interview for the 6 programs I applied to (Booth, Kellogg, Wharton, Yale, Berkeley and Stanford), and I am sure that my essays were great because Lara and Kathryn worked tirelessly with me to make them great. They would both write down things such as "this makes no sense", "sorry but I do not buy it for a second". You read first, get sort of angry, and then totally agree and change it, until it is a piece of art! I got admitted in 5/6 and with large scholarships in 3 of them.

Besides their professionalism, I must say that Kathryn and Lara's availability and quick response time is outstanding! They really do care about helping you out and answering your questions as soon as possible. Round 2 can be pretty stressful because deadlines are right after Christmas holidays. Having both of them answering my e-mails and reviewing my essays through this time is just an example of how committed they are!

I recommend square one prep with my eyes closed and will be forever grateful to Lara and Kathryn for the work they put together with me to get to my dream school.

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I felt lucky that I talked with Kathryn in the darkest time when I had least confidence for myself and hesitated for
the MBA application. When Kathryn told me in that late night call that I could be successful, I saw a light shining
in the darkness. Her sharpness and intelligence are also quite impressive. I knew from the moment she is the
right consultant to work with.
They best part I like Squareone is that I basically have two professional consultants working for me. Both
Kathryn and Jeannice knew where to spend time and how to focus on the most important things. They kept
polishing my idea till it makes sense. It is a rewarding process far beyond putting together application package.
I learned a lot about myself and sharpened my focus in life through the process.
Thank you Squareone. Best MBA consultant ever!

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Navigating the MBA application process can be very intimidating but Kathryn provided exactly what I needed to get through it. Helping to craft my application strategy, to answering my numerous questions, she was always extremely responsive. In a process that requires you to uncover your personal weaknesses, goals, strengths, and dreams, Kathryn was incredibly easy to talk to and knew exactly what to do with the information that I was telling her, which was incredibly important. There were bumps along the road, and weaknesses that we had to
address, but she was insightful and intuitive to help me develop a strategy that made my strengths as strong as possible. With her help, I applied to 5 schools (including 1 of the 2 top schools) and got accepted to ALL including my top choice program and was offered bursaries/scholarships for 3!

She has bolstered my confidence and provided a larger sense of context regarding the applicant pool, giving me a sense of where I stood; tailored for each school and constantly reinforced my goals and helped me focus on telling my story in a way that best represented my true voice. Together we brainstormed a few options and jointly developed very strong points on how I should write my essays. Thanks to the mock interviews with Kathryn, I felt extremely confident at the interviews and I was able to put my best foot forward. I have no doubt that without her dedication, hard work, and commitment, the entire application process would have been far
more difficult and challenging.

Her initial assessment of my case provided me invaluable advice that gave me a clear direction on how to work toward completing the requirements. She reviewed my essays and gave me great pointers throughout the process and as a result, the essays clearly defined my goal and the reason for pursuing an MBA.

As someone who initially spent a great deal of time contemplating the benefits of investing in an admissions
consultant, I am now completely satisfied with that investment; additionally, I believe that working with SquareOnePrep and especially Kathryn, albeit a pretty rigorous experience - yielded incredible results.

I appreciate the strategic, consistent, detail-oriented approach Kathryn took throughout the process. I highly recommend SquareOnePrep.

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Kathryn and Square One Prep are single-handedly the reason why I had a successful run with my business school application process. Coming from a non-traditional background in entertainment and television production, I didn’t think I was “business school material” at the beginning. Kathryn gave me both the confidence and the tools to move forward with my applications.

There’s an art to these applications that Kathryn and her team understand better than anyone else – certainly better than I did. She helped me construct a narrative around both my career path and future goals that stayed true to myself but also helped turn me into a great candidate. From resume creation to essay brainstorming and revisions, they truly help you become the best applicant that you can be. Additionally, I found her mock interview prep to be crucially helpful. She prepares you in such a thorough manner that I knew I was getting the best advice possible.

I would recommend Kathryn and any member of her team to anyone who is as bewildered by the initial MBA application process as I was. Their system is straightforward, meaningful and incredibly effective for getting applicants into the best schools possible. When you work with Square One Prep, you will get the most personalized and detailed help available to help you reach your end goals. With Kathryn's help, I got into both Columbia Business School as well as a dual degree MBA/MFA program at Stern and Tisch that only accepts 5 people a year! I can't recommend them more highly.

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When I first decided to apply to business school, I immediately felt overwhelmed with the thought of the application process - the essays, interviews and all the work that goes behind it.On top of that, I knew I came from an overly represented demographic – Indian females. If it weren’t for Square One Prep, I wouldn’t have known where to even start the process. 

Kathryn does a brilliant job at making this long arduous process easy and manageable for you. She will make sure you keep to the deadlines she’ll create for you and will ensure you put your best foot forward. What I was most impressed about Kathryn was her attention and interest in your career goals and why you want to pursue an MBA. She not only helped me craft a beautiful story for my essays but also helped me develop a career narrative. Kathryn went out of her way connecting me to other applicants/ personal network so I could work on my goals effectively.

Kathryn is honest when giving feedback which at sometimes can feel harsh going through this difficult process. But you need to trust she’s doing this to make you look the best in your application and interviews. She has an ability to push you - outside of what you think you are capable of. I was amazed at how I and my essay story grew working alongside with Kathryn. 

Kathryn was always available for any questions/ concerns I had during the process and to review my work. There were times when I fell through on the milestone deadlines that S1P created for me but Kathryn would quickly notice and help me get me on track. Even though Kathryn supports multiple applicants, it never feels so! She’s always genuinely interested in you getting into your top school of choice.  

Getting into HBS has been a childhood dream and I don’t think it would have been possible without Kathryn’s continuous support and encouragement. I honestly can’t believe the success I’ve had with my applications and I don’t think that would have been possible without Kathryn! 

Thank you for all your help!! 

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I had strong test scores (GMAT 770), some interesting experience, top 5 undergrad school, but also average grades (3.2 GPA) and had bounced around in my career a lot. I was pretty much clueless about where I had a chance of getting into. Ultimately, I would described my results as mixed, but Kathryn gave me tons of confidence and working with her was a joy.

I called 10-15 consultants for free consultations since I knew I would need a lot of help presenting a clear, succinct narrative about my varied experiences. Almost all of them told me I had no chance at HSW (and maybe they were right) and discouraged me from applying. One even told me I should wait a year and then maybe I'd have a chance at a top 15 school. My feeling was that most consultants are highly motivated by their acceptance rates, so they're incentivized to take fewer risks with their clients.

The thing that really struck me about Kathryn was that she actually encouraged me to shoot above my expectations, and she conveyed a real conviction that she could help me get there. The fact that she was willing to risk hurting S1P's acceptance rates by having me apply to HSW convinced me that I could trust her 100% and that she really thought we could accomplish those goals together. This was in stark contrast to many of the other consultants I spoke with, and convinced me she was the advisor I should work with.

Kathryn is extremely diligent and accessible. She helped me at crazy hours day and night, and she was immediately responsive if/when I wanted to make last-minute changes on due dates.

She makes you feel challenged throughout a tough, extensive, honest reflection process, but you come out with lots of confidence and a better understanding of yourself. It's a surprisingly introspective process. She asks questions you might not have thought of, and uncovers experiences from your past you forgot about or didn't realize were relevant. She does a remarkable job of helping you discover what's important to you and what will be important to present about yourself.

Kathryn was helping me craft a narrative about my experience in the human capital space, which I suspected might be challenging at some places but unique/compelling at others. I was disappointed to be rejected without interview at H/S/W + Sloan -- I thought S1P and I had done a great job putting my best foot forward, but of course I knew all of these might be reach schools for me. The good news is that I was accepted with a $25K fellowship at another M7 school, which I was thrilled about. Again, my career background was non-traditional and I got a huge range of feedback from different consultants, so it really was difficult for me to gauge how strong a chance I had at each of these schools. That said, Kathryn helped me build strong applications I was confident in, and even though I was rejected from 4 of my 5 schools, I think the unique case she helped me build really stood out and paid off with a big win at one of my top choice schools.

The fellowship more than paid for the cost of S1P's services, and I suspect without them I would have been either rejected or accepted without fellowship. So I think the investment in S1P actually saved me money in addition to helping me get in.

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I was initially hesitant to apply to MBA programs and was nervous about my chance of acceptance by a top 10 program. I spoke to a number of consultants before deciding on Kathryn and S1P. Not only did she demonstrate the same or higher level of insight into the application process as the other highly recommended consultants, she also displayed incredible emotional empathy and positivity that sealed the deal for me.
Despite having a traditional finance background professionally (banking to private equity), I had a very different background personally. Without her support, I doubt I would have been able to write my essays at all, nevermind effectively communicate a cohesive story to the adcoms. With her help, I applied to four top 5 programs and received offers to two of them!
Some key highlights of my experience:
- Very knowledgeable – Kathryn has great insight into the adcoms and their evaluation process (more random than I thought!). That insight was invaluable in helping me select essay topics that would allow me to tell my story in the effective way – acknowledging my challenges whilst highlighting my achievements. Her expertise permeated the process, helping me through online forms, short answers, interview prep, and more
- Very supportive (but firm!) – This was one of the most important and valuable parts of my own experience with Kathryn. I was a mess of insecurity and self-doubt throughout the process but Kathryn was always there to pull me up, including talking me through my first rejection. She has a lot of positive energy that makes her a joy to speak and work with. She was supportive but realistic and firm with me. For example, if I slipped behind on a deadline, she would definitely let me know!
- Depth of resources – One benefit of working with an established firm such as S1P is their deep bench of knowledge and resources. For example, I could bounce essay ideas / tone / style on Kathryn and she was able to draw on all of S1P’s resources to give me feedback based on other essays and applications that were successful in the past
I am thankful to have worked with Kathryn during my application process and have recommended her and S1P to my close friends. Think about how important the MBA is to your career – you do yourself a disservice if you don’t at least consider working with S1P

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Deciding on Square One Prep was without a doubt the best decision I made during my long and challenging MBA application journey and the easiest one, I knew I wanted to work with Kathryn long before my 30 minute free consultation ended even though I had a couple of other free consultations scheduled with other top MBA consultants.

Kathryn and Eva not only made this mentally grueling and exhausting process feel seamless by creating a structured plan for me to apply to 6 programs while still pursuing my GMAT target score in less than three months, a feat I though impossible but also insightful as I came out knowing myself much better than when I started though out all the thorough and challenging questioning they both had during the whole process.

Having said that the two things I most valued of having worked with Kathryn and Eva are their immense knowledge of business school application process and their critical honesty.

Their immense knowledge not only allowed me to avoid the horrible mistake of wanting to postpone my application because I felt unsecure about my GMAT but also made me feel secure going into the interviews.

Their critical honesty was essential throughout the whole process not only because it avoided wasting time, a luxury I did not have, but also because it allowed me develop the best application I could present.

Finally I would like to say every penny spent working with them was well worth the investment and that getting into Wharton would not have been possible without both of them (Kathryn and Eva) and for that I will be forever grateful to them.

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As a school that I had considered a far reach, I honestly believe S1P was the make or break difference for my Stanford offer. The essays that I was able to craft with John and Kathryn were realistically in a different league from what I may have done on my own. Not to say that they weren’t authentic, quite the contrary, they were probably some of the most authentic pieces that I’ve ever written, even helping me gain clarity on aspects of my personality and career goals.

Essays aside, S1P was able to help me present my profile with the best foot forward, be that through my CV or during the interview process. As a fairly accomplished young professional I had thought I was already adept at doing this, but you’d be amazed what you don’t know. Kathryn would take a ruthlessly critical approach to all aspects of your application, which is EXACTLY what you’d want when signing up for an admissions consultant.

Honestly, if you’re serious about getting into a top business school, throw down the money for S1P, you’ll be surprised what a difference it will make to the end product of your application.

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The MBA application process started off as one of the most intimidating experiences I had ever come across. I was overwhelmed by the amount of work that laid in front of me. After a strong recommendation, I was introduced to Square One Prep. The process quickly became manageable, and I felt like I had a support system that wouldn't let me fail. Not only did I achieve peace of mind in having Square One Prep support me every step of the way, but I learned a great ordeal about myself throughout the process. Kathryn pushed me past my comfort zone and forced me to think deeper and more critically, always keeping in mind the admission team's perspective. When I got into my top schools, I received feedback from an admissions rep. that I nailed every piece of my application, from the essays to the interviews. I would not have achieved that accomplishment without Kathryn and Square One Prep.I am beyond grateful for what they have done for me!!

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