Hi all,
I am usually not the person who takes time to review services; however, I couldn’t stop myself from sharing my amazing experience with ApplicantLab and Maria.
I have a competitive GPA and GMAT score in addition to strong international and diverse work experience. I didn’t think I needed help with my MBA applications and applied to my first choice MBA program on my own. I was rejected in the first round. It caused me frustration and disappointment. I didn’t know what I did wrong and started looking for advice. After researching about several MBA admission consulting services, I decided to go with ApplicantLab to help prepare my application for my other choices. In the first few minutes of using ApplicantLab, I knew exactly why I didn’t get in before.
I had no idea how to frame my stories or what the schools are actually looking for until I went through modules in ApplicantLab. The instructions are very detailed and thorough. Maria has done tremendous research for each school and what you need to showcase to strengthen your profile for the admission committee. There was no way for me to know these details without the help of ApplicantLab. You cannot find these things on google.
I am a MBA student at University of Cambridge, Judge Business School now and I give a huge credit of me getting into this school to Maria and ApplicantLab. I wouldn’t have gotten in without using ApplicantLab. It is absolutely the best investment (and it is relatively very inexpensive) you can make towards your MBA. So, if you are struggling with your MBA applications, ApplicantLab is one-stop solution.

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Did you ever feel, ' He finally heard me. Things are falling into place.' This was exaclty my feeling when I heard from Darden's admission office that I'm being offered a place in the class of 2021. You'd expect me to think of my loved ones first after hearing that. Well, quite literally yes. I thought of Applicant Lab and Maria.
Applicant Lab is want I needed. I was an MBA aspirant who wanted a shift in industry using an MBA but had no idea about admissions process. After my GMAT, I started talking to different consultants and taking free profile evaluations. The funniest part was, I couldn't get a proper genuine evaluation from any one of them. Some of them tell me I should be applying to HBS and Stanford. When I tell them I myself donot believe that I could get into HBS they start selling their service. I was fed up with everyone. But suddenly I came across someone who for the first time gave me an honest review of my profile,didn't try to sell me her product and genuinely wanted to help me. @Maria.
I came to know about Applicant lab from an e-gmat webminar. Thanks for Rajat and Payal. In my first interaction with Maria over e-mail. She clearly told me not what I want to hear but the actual scenario in admissions. She told me where I should go and not where I can go. There's a lot of difference. She only talked to me about my post-MBA goals and life ambitions and not where I want to study. She then told me how I should select my schools. I never thought I'd say this, but I started thinking, "Nah! I would choose Darden over Wharton" She recommended me no schools but taught me how I chose my schools perfectly.
This is exactly what's great about applicant lab. Applicant Lab makes you competent to say your story the best way possible. In my experience with applicant lab, forget about writing MBA essays. I learnt a lot about myself, my traits, my stories, my character, my strengths and my weaknesses. It was like a 2 month introspection into myself.
Applicant lab's process is the most streamlined I ever saw. It is as smooth as it can get and you'll never feel stressed. All the material in the lab is hand crafted specific to each school by Maria and it is amazing to see specific strategies for each essay question in each school. You'll get surprised by the amount of detail that's put into the material.
The best thing about Applicant lab is, you are doing everything. Today I have the satisfaction of writing my own essays and still getting admitted into one of the best schools. Applicant lab doesn't craft your essays. It makes you capable of writing the best essays. Applicant lab helps you choose which one of your stories to go with which essay. This will in turn make it easy for you in your interview, because you are going to be the same person on writing and in person.
Applicant Lab's greatest strengths are it's process and school specific material. I can assure you, you can never get so much information and guidance from anyone other than Maria.
For people like me, who couldn't afford a full time MBA admissions consultant for thousands of Dollars, Applicant lab is a boon. You may have to put in a little more effort than you would with a full time consultant. But for what you are saving economically and mentally, it's not even a tradeoff that you should think twice about before making.
I very strongly recommend Applicant Lab to everyone, especially those who are starting your application from scratch. Believe me, you'll never regret your decision. Applicant Lab and Maria are the best thing that happened to me in my MBA admission process.

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I first applied for Fall 2018 admission to top business schools in the US. At that time, I didn't know about Applicant Lab and all the consultant services available cost thousands of dollars. So I applied solo with no help and thought I did a good job! Until the decisions came in and I didn't get into most of the schools.

I applied again for Fall 2019 and this time I found Applicant Lab. It changed how I felt about my previous years application. It's easy to think we are answering questions right but when you get the perspective provided my Maria for each and every school - you realize how all the questions could've been answered better! This time I got into NYU, Cornell, UCLA and Tuck with scholarships on some.

Please do yourself a favor and try this service as early as possible in your application process and you wont regret it. The value is outstanding and the price point is just ridiculously cheap when you compare other consulting services!

Good job and thank you Applicant Lab Team!

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To give you some context, I applied to a bunch of schools last year with the help of a traditional admissions consultant. I ended up with a total of 8 rejections (7 without interview, 1 after interview & waitlist). The bad part of my profile - Indian, male, 4.5 years of work experience. No great brand names or real feeder companies on my resume. Fairly mediocre grades for an Indian (6.6ish GPA). The good part - Slightly diverse work experience and background, lots of ECs and community involvement.

After I was rejected last year, I contacted Maria and offered to pay her for a "ding analysis." I had already bought the tool, but figured a ding analysis would help me figure out what went wrong. Maria responded to my email and refused. She said that I should go through all the modules, and I'll be able to figure out exactly why I was dinged. She said that if I couldn't, I could get back in touch and pay her to get it, but she didn't believe I would need it if I finished the modules within the Lab. She was right. I not only figured out where my application fell flat last year, but also knew exactly what parts of my background to highlight this time around. The Lab has a section on how to address potential weaknesses (I obviously had a lot! :) ). Additionally, the career module of the Lab is pure gold. It really forces you to think through your story, how realistic your goals are and what you want out of business school. I'd say that my entire narrative going into applications this year was due to the career module on the Lab. Absolutely fantastic stuff.

The Resume section is pretty amazing. It had the characteristics of a "bad" resume, and my previous year's Resume seemed to fulfill all these characteristics. I ended up making my own Resume format based on the advice given here and it worked wonders for me. The school-specific and essay advice is incredibly detailed and useful. Maria really walks you through what the school/question is really looking for, what resources you should touch on and how to make your essay strong and genuine. Each essay question has a video of Maria walking you through all these details. The effort she's put in is fairly obvious, absolutely nothing is superficial.

I could probably go on and on about ApplicantLab, but the best way to see if its right for you is to sign up. It is a fraction of the cost of a traditional consultant. Buying it is a no-brainer if you want world-class admission help without the heavy price tag.

P.S - Just wanted to add that I got into Tuck and some other schools this year with ApplicantLab, but my traditional consultant last year told me not to even bother applying there. She felt that I did not stand a chance at all at Tuck and actually refused to work with me on that application. This should tell you enough.

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After coming off an unsuccessful application season, I wanted to make sure I utilized all avenues to not repeat my mistakes this time. After hearing some positive word-of-mouth, I signed up for Applicant Lab to see for myself. I used the Lab in addition to working with actual real-world consultants, and it turned out to be an immensely useful guiding tool through the application journey.

I must say that Applicant Lab was the most value-for-money item in my entire MBA application expense list. Maria's inputs and ideas often were the starting point for all my school essays. I did 8 applications in the entire season and utilized the Lab for all of them. Maria has a great understanding of the entire process and freely shares her knowledge through the Lab. Its almost like having a close friend who you can bank on in this stressful journey.

For the two additional questions posed by Booth after interview invite, the Applicant Lab team (hello Carin!) was quick to update the portal with their thoughts. Overall, I highly highly recommend this tool to everyone, even those working with consultants on full packages. The additional perspective, tips & guidance is worth much more than the cost.

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I got accepted by ie business school in 2017 because of Applicantlab, and I’d like to share my fantastic experience. Before I purchased her service, I’d done a lot of researches and saw a millions of great feedback about Applicantlab. However, I had a concern which was actually the unique application process used by my target school, ie business school. As you may know, ie's admission process is quite different than the other schools and you are tasked to create video content on top of an essay to answer questions provided by the school. Although I had the concern above, many good reviews had me purchase the service and it turned out to be the best service I've ever bought.
The well automated algorithm she created is indeed perfect. I was skeptical as to how it worked, but it’s very intuitive to go through all the required processes such as brainstorming, preparing for essays, and interviews. She embedded her own video explaining everything step by step in order for users to understand what to do on the tool. What amazed me the most was she also put her video specifically for each school including ie business school. There are more than 10 questions that ie asks you to write about (you need to choose 3 of them) and she basically covered everything in the multiple video. She even advised that which questions I should answer and shouldn't, and most importantly why I should answer them.
To me, the most useful part of the service was “how to prepare for interviews”. Based on her advice, I prepared for all the questions, and surprisingly 80 – 90% of the questions that I was asked during the actual interview were what she told me to prepare before the interview. Interestingly enough, the interviewer even told me that all the adcoms thought my video, which I created based on Maria’s advice, was the best among all the candidates in my intake.
Again, I was a bit skeptical at the beginning but now I cannot believe she is still providing applicants with this level of service at ultimately low cost. If you get scholarship at the end, the fee for this service would be almost nothing. I strongly recommend to purchase her service before you waste money on cheap MBA consulting service.

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Applicant Lab (“AL”) gives you the best bang for your buck without compromising the quality of advice that you receive. Like most applicants, I was initially hesitant to use the platform because my MBA apps were going to be one of the most important things I did for my career and I was willing to spend $ to get the best advice possible. However, AL was offering a one month free trial at that time so I thought, “What’s there to lose?”. Little did I know then, that it would be instrumental in getting my admits to M7 schools.

I think the strength of AL is that it provides you with all the guidance you need to develop a stellar application. It arms you with all the knowledge/expertise that you need without going overboard with the advice so that you can still develop an application that is unique and tailored especially to you.
The other strength is Maria herself, whose dynamic personality is very entertaining. It permeates her videos and even her written guides, which eases the otherwise serious burden of the B-school application process. She also seems to genuinely want all applicants to develop their best application possible, even if they have smaller budgets for consultants.

I think Applicant Lab is definitely a game changer because it makes top-notch admissions advice accessible to a broader base of people due to its affordability. It’s thrust of “Levelling the playing field” is quite admirable and I would recommend it to all my friends aiming to pursue an MBA. I won’t be surprised if online platforms like Applicant Lab would be the norm in the years to come.

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When my friend, a Boothie, said that ApplicantLab is the single best investment he had ever made in his life, I thought he was overselling the service. A mere six months later, when I got three admits from the four schools that I applied to (still waiting for the other one school to get back), I knew he was RIGHT!

Coming from a developing country of Indonesia, few of my friends have gone through the MBA admission process, let alone top business schools’ admission process. I knew that I had to take GMAT, but I had zero knowledge on how to package my experience and “sell” my profile to the Adcom. I also knew that I could get help by paying some $5,000 money to MBA consultant, but given my Indonesia salary, surely I wouldn’t be able to make it.

At that time Maria and her ApplicantLab came as my life savior.

From the start, ApplicantLab guided me to categorize my experiences into buckets. I began to reflect on my character development, the reason I want to do MBA, and the path I want to pursue after my MBA. I like how ApplicantLab does not tell you to write what the Adcoms want to hear, instead, let you authentically portray your best side and be the genuine you!

Of course, as a normal human, there are times I felt that the whole admission processes are very exhausting. Luckily, Maria kept the entire process interesting using her humorous content and empathetic videos. Her story-based approach allowed me to stay engaged, and I imagined that my life is a book that the Adcom will very much love to read.
Overall, I would STRONGLY recommend self-motivated applicants to subscribe for ApplicantLab service for three reasons. First, the quality of content and the school research that Maria has done is second to none. The research will help you to understand deeply about the school and tailor your application. Second, the level of authenticity you will achieve in your application. After all, the Adcoms are not looking for uniform MBA essays done by professional essay-makers. They want to see the real you. Thirdly, a supportive friend throughout your ruthless MBA application journey ahead. Maria is wondrously responsive, and beyond herself, she cares that you succeed in your application.

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I strongly recommend ApplicantLab to anybody considering an MBA! I come from a fairly vanilla work background and was worried about differentiating myself among applicants in my "bucket". I utilized ApplicantLab for every aspect of my application (resume, essays, interviews, recommendations, etc) as the tool has advice for anything you could think of, as well as things you may not think of! Before using the tool, I had no idea that MBA admissions committees look for resumes that highlight experiences that generally aren't the focus of traditional professional resumes.

Within the tool, you are encouraged to map out experiences in your personal/undergraduate/professional life that demonstrated key traits that MBA programs look for in strong applicants (leadership, mentoring, innovation, overcoming obstacles, etc), and then allocate those experiences/stories to your essays, application boxes, as well as your interview question responses (especially useful for elaborating more on stories that you could not include within your essays). Most of this advice is included in extensive videos that Maria has recorded for each specific section of the application process.

In terms of essay advice, Maria includes specific advice (both written and videos, which often include much appreciated humor) for each required and optional essay for a school. I can't stress enough how detailed the advice is for these essays. Maria includes hyperlinks to specific offerings that each program is particularly proud of (and thus, very good to reference in your essays). There is advice for basically any top-50 program and Maria will add schools if there is interest.

I also purchased a mock interview with Maria. Maria’s advice was incredibly detailed and the interview itself simulated my actual interview to a tee. She spent about 1.75 hours speaking with me; she recorded the interview, and then discussed her feedback on the responses I gave to each question. I found the small tweaks she suggested to my answers particularly beneficial (putting less emphasis no my technical experience vs interpersonal experiences). I definitely felt like my interviewers were impressed with my responses.

Ultimately I was accepted to CBS + another top-15 program, and received interview invitations to the other 4 schools I applied to (withdrew my applications as CBS was my top-choice). Not only that, I received a generous fellowship from CBS, which most people told me was a significant reach for me!

I strongly believe it would be beneficial for every MBA applicant to utilize ApplicantLab; Maria has put a great service together, and the price is almost certainly cheaper than any other admissions consultant service.

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Maria goes above and beyond for her clients and without her, I wouldn't be having the time of my life at business school (with a Consortium fellowship!)

I had no idea what I was doing when I was applying to business school, but working with ApplicantLab and Maria was so crucial to putting together a strong application. The whole process was made easier by Maria's extremely organized and straightforward approach. The ApplicantLab modules provided a guided way to really dig in to applications across all the schools I was applying to.

After going through the modules, Maria then personally reviews essay drafts and application questions. She was AMAZING. She's able to give out tough love, and then guide me to really telling stories with impact. She dug out some stories from me that I personally wouldn't have thought to tell (and that I am now using for behavioral interviews for consulting recruiting!). All of this takes time and energy on her part, but you can tell she cares so much about making sure you put your strongest application out there and its insanely motivating during the application process.

I was also able to do a mock interview with Maria, which was also incredibly helpful. She covered questions that were exactly what I was asked at the real interviews, so I was able to focus on telling my story instead of being nervous about what questions were going to be asked.

All told, I would work with Maria again in a heartbeat. She challenged me and guided me to put my best application forward and I could not be happier with the results!!

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