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Product Gatehouse Admissions Consulting
Consultant Eric Hollowaty
Using mbaMission was absolutely worth it and Eric Hollowaty had a huge impact on my acceptance to Columbia! I initially came to Eric under the assumption that I only needed a brief scan of my essays and maybe some verbiage cleanup, but I was totally mistaken! Eric helped me rework my essays to really highlight my story and make a compelling argument to the school. Our candid discussions helped me to define where I really needed to focus. Even under a slight time crunch (our first conversation was ~3 weeks before the CBS Early Decision deadline), I never felt overwhelmed by the process and Eric was very quick in responding to emails and always met the 2 business day deadline. Overall, I would absolutely recommend Eric and I am SO glad I made the investment!
Product Gatehouse Admissions Consulting
Consultant Eric Hollowaty
I would highly recommend Eric Hollowaty to any serious mba candidate. My background is in finance and investment management so storytelling doesn't come easy to me. Eric was able to provide key insight and feedback into my essays that absolutely transformed them. Eric was always timely with his feedback, more often than not he was early in his responses. Eric's strength is his ability to focus on the details that matter. We spent a considerable amount of time brainstorming and that certainly translated into time savings down the road as I applied to multiple schools. In the beginning, I didn't think you could see the value of buying multiple schools but I was proven wrong. Though there were some overlap in my essays, we still spent a ton of time refining them to be school specific. I don't believe I could have been successful with my target schools without Eric's help.
Product Gatehouse Admissions Consulting
Consultant Eric Hollowaty
After my GMAT, I was under the impression that college applications should not be a big task because it is just about putting together all my past experiences in an interesting way(please bear in mind that what's interesting to me need not be interesting to the adcom). However, I still decided to go for the 3-school package with mbaMission because I had given my GMAT only in Oct end and I wanted to apply to the B-schools for the next year admissions; and having a consultant's help would certainly aid me in taking some quick decisions regarding what I could write for a particular essay. Back then, I had no clue that admission consultant's help could make such a huge difference to my application. I now believe that taking mbaMission's package was one of my wisest moves because there way no way that I would have managed to do such a great work on my essays without Eric's help.
Although I had a strong international work experience, I think most of the other aspects of my application weren't outstanding(they were good but not great). But considering that my background is one where thousands of other guys like me keep applying, it was very important for my essays to highlight my international experience and make it stand out from the rest. After filling up the brainstorming document, Eric and I discussed about the various positives and negatives in my application and we decided on how we would be tackling each of the questions for the college. Be that bringing my attention to some of the important things that I missed in my essay or reducing the number of words in the sentences thereby allowing me to add more content to my essays, Eric's made an immense contribution to my essays by making the experiences sound compelling. Since I started working on most of my applications with just a month left before the deadline for the b-school, I would generally manage to send the essays to review only at the last minute; during all these situations Eric has been extremely helpful and returned the essays on time. I must admit that it is very important to start early when it comes to your applications, so that you have enough time to review your essays. Working with Eric over time, I could see that my writing skills have improved dramatically(at least I would like to think so ;-)) and my most recent B-school essays had fewer reviews than my first B-school essays. Even before my interview for my dream college, Eric boosted my confidence by telling me what an MBA interviewer expects from an applicant.
I would like to highlight a mistake that I did during the whole process. Until I got a reject, I never bothered going through the start to finish guide by mbamission fully(I had read a few sections but not all of it). After I got dinged from one of the B-schools, I decided to go through the pdf and made several drastic changes to some of the important questions; I got an interview call from both the B-schools I applied subsequently and I cleared the interviews as well.
Product Gatehouse Admissions Consulting
Consultant Eric Hollowaty
Eric was the key to getting me into my dream program. I put in a lot of the leg work before my first chat with Eric (a month before my app was due). The good thing was that I knew where I wanted to go, why, and what my academic focus would be, but I really need help to create a cohesive application. Eric definitely brought my application up a notch. He asked key questions that helped me fine-tune my ideas and experiences into a cohesive story with specific goals. Given that I was reaching out to him almost always in a panic and at the last minute, I was so lucky that he was able to squeeze me into his schedule whenever he could and provide feedback surprisingly quickly. My only regret is that I didn't start the process a little earlier!
Eric also helped me fix up my resume to be more results-focused (instead of task-focused). Again, he was super helpful here and helped me boil down some of my industry jargon into an easy to read resume. He also asked me key questions to help highlight my most important accomplishments. I would recommend mbaMission and Eric to anyone who needs help getting to the finish line!
Product Gatehouse Admissions Consulting
Consultant Eric Hollowaty
I used mbaMission to help me with preparing my application and I think it was worth every penny! The company first asked me what type of working style I had and paired me with Eric Hollowaty based on my responses. Eric was very professional throughout, and provided me extensive and exhaustive support.
I went into the process not really appreciating fully the magnitude of the task ahead, and so was really thankful to have Eric help me to navigate the process. Not only did Eric help me to brainstorm ideas for essays across the four schools I applied to, but he also reviewed those essays in detail over the course of multiple iterations. He also helped me proof read my resume and the application itself, all of which allowed me to “rest easy” with the knowledge that I had an expert, extra set of eyes to ensure my application allowed me to put my best foot forward to the admission committees.
Eric also helped keep me on task. If I had done the process on my own, I’m sure that I would have let some items “slip through the cracks”, so having Eric’s reminders every now and then that, for example, I only had two weeks left and need to fill out the application itself because it takes more time than you’d expect, was really helpful to ensuring that I completed everything on time.
In terms of the essays themselves, I was not prepared for the soul searching that some of the essays for the top 4 schools required. Eric really pushed me to dig deep and identify the fundamental things about me that an admissions committee wants to understand when asking an open-ended question like “tell us something we don’t already know about you.” Eric also provided great support in ensuring that I crafted a compelling story for “Why Our School”, forcing me to get very specific on the aspects of their curriculum that aligned with my interests, as evidenced by my career.
Lastly, Eric gave me the impression that he was incredibly dedicated to my success. Even though we only spoke over the phone, I could sense Eric’s passion for helping me to achieve my goal of getting into a top-tier business school, and it made me really enjoy working with him, to the point where I hope we stay in touch moving forward.
I would highly recommend mbaMission for their professionalism, and Eric Hollowaty in particular, for the phenomenal support that they provided. I would not have gotten into my business school of choice without their help!
Product Gatehouse Admissions Consulting
Consultant Eric Hollowaty
I worked with Eric Hollowaty at mbaMission this fall to prepare my essays for two top business schools. In total, I purchased 5 hours of consulting services, and I was extremely satisfied with the results as I was recently admitted to my top choice school.
When I started the application process, I had a weak understanding and unclear idea of what I wanted to convey in my essays. In a very short time, Eric was able to help me brainstorm experiences to include and provide me with direction and advice on how I could incorporate these experiences into my essays to make them stick out.
Eric’s advice was critical to improving the quality of my essays, which in turn, contributed to my overall success in getting into school. I highly recommend his services!
Product Gatehouse Admissions Consulting
Consultant Eric Hollowaty
My experience with Eric Hollowaty was nothing short of EXCELLENT! After a friend recommended working with MBAmission, I spoke with Eric and decided to start by paying hourly for general advice and brainstorming. I quickly realized the value he was able to offer and purchased the start to finish packages. To truly get the most value from your package, I highly encourage applicants to begin working with consultants as soon as possible and leave as much time for brainstorming and essay revising as you can.
During our brainstorming, Eric genuinely wanted to get to know me and was able to point out strengths and weaknesses about myself I had not considered. Eric spoke to me about things both on and off my resume and encouraged me to include an extracurricular hobby I had not previously planned to – he was right, all of my interviews wanted to talk about it.
Eric was able to take an outside, objective view and offer invaluable advice on how to meaningfully tie my experiences together, which truly brought my application to life. I had initially planned to use similar essays for all of my schools, but Eric was able to advise me on the intricacies of each school and how I could address them in my essays – particularly for HBS, his alma mater. Eric was very honest and pointed out which lines on my resume were not substantive and what parts of my essay were just fluff.
Eric was also instrumental in helping my recommenders – (non-typical business school recommenders) – who were struggling to differentiate between valuable insight and just re-listing my resume.
More personally, Eric is a really nice and positive person who genuinely wants to help his clients.
In summary, I got into all four top-5 schools to which I applied, and I could not have done it without Eric’s help!
Product Gatehouse Admissions Consulting
Consultant Eric Hollowaty
I knew from the beginning of my MBA admission process that I needed an MBA admission consulting service. The reason was simple. I needed an expert who could dig out my work experience details through brainstorming. This is important as normally we do lot of things, which we think are part of our regular day to day activity but in reality may be portraying a crucial leadership skill.
With a GMAT score on the lower side, I wanted to go with a company/individual with a good reputation. “MBA Exchange” and “mbaMission” were the two top companies after my initial high level research via internet. The reasons for choosing mbaMission were their prompt response time and personalized approach. I was quickly assigned a consultant Eric Hollowaty. After our initial one hour discussion I knew where I stood and what needs to be done.
My experience working with Eric was extremely satisfying and rewarding. As I said earlier one critical part of the process was to pick your brain and bring forward your professional accomplishment. This may sound very easy, but believe me, it is difficult. I think the brainstorming document and the following brainstorming discussion session with Eric were instrumental for creating a strong application. Eric was respectful, valued my thought but more importantly gave me the right direction for my thought process. His response time was also as per contract and on multiple occasions even earlier than the contractual window. I could connect with Eric very easily and he was approachable. Eric did exactly what I was looking for.
I selected the 2 school package program and received admission offer from both the schools. Overall I am very satisfied with Eric Hollowaty and mbaMission. They did an excellent job. I should also mention some points that I think are critical for the experience and success. You should be on top of things. When you hire an admission consultant, it doesn’t mean, you will be in the back seat and the consultant will drive you. It is just the opposite. You need to take the lead and seek help that you need from the consultant. You need to know your experiences, skills, skills gaps and future aspirations in order to get into a B-school, continue the learning through the MBA program and finally implement the learning in your future endeavor.
I can vouch for Eric’s expertise and would definitely recommend him for anyone looking for MBA admission consulting service.