GMAT Club

Scott Edinburgh Reviews

Company: Personal MBA Coach

A Wharton MBA graduate with a BS from MIT, Scott Edinburgh has been an MBA admissions consultant and career advisor since he founded Boston based Personal MBA Coach in 2008. Through his boutique admissions consulting and tutoring company, he and his team have helped hundreds of applicants around the world get into top MBA, EMBA, part-time MBA and graduate programs as well as advance their careers with a 96% success rate. Last year our clients earned over $6.5M in scholarships. Prior to founding Personal MBA Coach, Scott began his career at Deloitte and worked across consulting, financial services and strategy & corporate development roles. Currently Scott also serves on the Board of Directors for AIGAC, the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants and he is a speaker at events around the world on MBA application strategies.

5.0 /5 Average Rating
Based on 183 reviews
February 21, 2019
abhi214

Joined: Feb 26, 2017

Posts: 0

Kudos: 0

Scott Edinburgh is an amazing MBA Coach!

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I am a first year MBA Candidate at Columbia Business School and I have Scott Edinburgh to thank for it!

It was a long, yet incredibly transformative journey to business school and I can certainly say that I would not have been able to do it without the help of Scott. Being there every step of the way, Scott will help you craft a strategy that helps present your best self in your B-School applications. He dives deep and curates your brand, your story, your resume, your letters of recommendation requests, and your essays line by line, going through as many iterations as you need to be confident in what you are submitting to admissions.

When it comes time to interview, Scott will strengthen your interviewing skills by helping you identify and refine your behavioral stories, administering 1-on-1 mock interview sessions, and giving feedback on your video interview samples. All of this mentally trains and prepares you for when you finally come face to face with the business school interviewers.

Why did I pick Scott? I interviewed ~10 different MBA coaches before finalizing Scott and the reason was simple: Scott really cares about you and is truly vested in your success. And this became increasingly evident as Scott fielded countless questions and emails from me and VERY PATIENTLY supported me through all the stressful “freak outs” and breakdowns. The MBA application process is tough, arduous process. Scott Edinburgh is someone who can help alleviate a lot of that pressure and set you up for true success!

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February 20, 2019
wizard93

Joined: Feb 20, 2019

Posts: 0

Kudos: 0

Great experience

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Scott offers great advice on schools, career choices, test taking and essay writing topics. Being an Wharton MBA graduate himself, he knows so much about MBA admissions and education to enable students to make good choices on which schools to apply to. He is very frank in his feedback to applicants.

He is very process driven and had a great step-by-step approach to enable me to reflect on my life and career choices for writing strong essays. We had a couple of long phone calls in the beginning where we did reflection exercises on my life and career. These enabled me to write great essays that came from the heart.

He is very ethical as he does not write letters or recommendations for students unlike other consultants.

He offers outstanding interview preparation advice and mock interviews for students so that they go into the interviewing room with confidence.

He also travels around the world for MBA fairs so you have a high chance of meeting him in person. He offers very quick regular responses through email. I highly recommend Scott.

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February 18, 2019
pchin11

Joined: Feb 18, 2019

Posts: 1

Kudos: 0

Amazing Consultant - Highly Recommend

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When I first applied to business school in 2016, I was rejected by six of the M7 schools. With Scott's guidance in 2018, I was able to secure acceptances from Kellogg, Booth and Sloan and was offered a combined $170K in scholarship money from Kellogg and Booth.

I started the process with Scott after meeting him in late July 2018 after the MBA Tour and listening to his talk about the 10 things that one must do to prepare for applications. He seemed very knowledgeable and mentioned his connections with admissions offices, all while offering insights that I would never find online. I immediately signed up with him and am so glad that I did.

Scott took the time to thoroughly understand my background before laying out our plan of attack. Scott's guidance made me feel very assured and confident in myself throughout the process. He steered me in the right direction on how to prioritize apps and plan out my essays for each school, recommending that I focus on particular topics that would resonate with admissions based on my background and what he knew they would look for. We developed such great chemistry that we would be emailing each other practically every other day for the next two months. We scheduled phone calls to strategize our attack for each school's application. He's also been available at a moment's notice for me to call him with more pressing matters, such as how I should rationalize the factors that went into my decision of deciding the business school this fall. This encapsulates what I have truly enjoyed most about working with Scott -- he is candid in his feedback, available at at a moment's notice, and provides great perspective on the admissions process given his history working with other clients.

If you are considering the investment, I would highly encourage you to sign up with Scott. Working with the founder of a top consulting firm is a huge plus, and I think it would give you the confidence that you'd need to secure placements at top MBA programs.

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February 07, 2019
MBAdreamer112

Joined: May 23, 2018

Posts: 1

Kudos: 4

Review for Personal MBA Coach

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Overall, working with Scott from Personal MBA Coach was a great experience.

Starting off, I knew I wanted to work with a consultant because I wanted someone to help keep me on track while I balanced a busy job (I do consulting) and my extracurricular commitments. My initial search process started off with the free 30-min consultations with the larger brand names. I realized that I wanted more personalized attention and that the quality of the experience varied based on which consultant you worked with when signing on with a larger group. Eventually, I found Scott and we connected because of our backgrounds (Scott is a former consultant) and the fact that I would get his personalized attention throughout the process.

We worked together on 3 applications. He was extremely helpful when it came to outlining an essay response, getting my main points across, and finding ways for me to stand out among the sea of other male consultants in the MBA application pool. I felt that Scott took the time to read through my drafts, which he sent back usually within 1-2 business days. We finished the 3 applications with 2-3 weeks to go before the deadline. I then used material from those 3 schools to do 2 other schools on my own, mostly to save money. I would recommend the same to others if money is an issue, but you still want to make the most out of a consultant.

Beyond essays, the package does include interview prep. Overall, I felt like that was less useful than the essay help was. I say that because the nature of interviews can get pretty subjective. Scott does have personalized interview guides for each school (2-3 pages), but most of the information can be found online or from current students. Regardless, it was nice to practice interviews with people who had either interviewed at the school themselves or gone to the program. I also supplemented my interview practice with current students/alumni who I had known through undergrad or work.

Finally, I just want to say that Scott cares about each of his clients! He called to congratulate me when he heard I got into my dream programs and was there to comfort me when a got ding'ed at a few others. Looking back, there is nobody else I would have rather worked with to help me through this process!

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January 06, 2019
greystonecapital

Joined: Jan 06, 2019

Posts: 2

Kudos: 1

Verified GMAT Classic score:
690 Q48 V36

Personal MBA Coach gave me options!

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I came into my MBA school search with no knowledge of how competitive it gets while applying to top business schools.

Working with Personal MBA Coach allowed me to craft, hone and my message to target as well as get several admits into the schools of my choice.

The essays and the whole editing process made me a better, well-rounded individual and made me more self-aware of my strengths, weaknesses and abilities.

I highly recommend Personal MBA Coach and their methodologies. They're true professionals and strongly focus on creating favourable outcomes for their clients.

The schools I got admission into were A. ESADE B. Schulich C. McMaster University, Canada

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November 25, 2018
pchen1210

Joined: Feb 08, 2018

Posts: 0

Kudos: 0

Verified GMAT Classic score:
730 Q49 V41

Highly recommended and responsive

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Scott was great to work with and always responded within 48 hours. After calling several consulting firms for their free consultation, I found that Scott was the most straightforward and provided the most honest feedback. He did not try to up-sell me his services when I indicated that I only wanted to apply to two schools. He indicated that my odds were not the greatest upfront and did not pressure me to use his services, unlike some of the big firms that referred me to their outside/lesser known partners. I ultimately accepted early decision at one school and declined my interview at the other.

Throughout the application process, Scott kept his promise on providing comments or feedback within 48 hours. I was able to get quicker responses/live phone calls within 24 hours, when necessary. Given that Scott appears to have many touch points with various adcoms throughout the year, he was able to provide very insightful essay comments and help craft stories that work best/better for specific schools. In addition, interview prep was extremely helpful because he was able to connect me with a prior ambassador.

I highly recommend Personal MBA Coach for your MBA application process, especially for applicants who value honest feedback.

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October 16, 2018
jbradicich

Joined: Oct 16, 2018

Posts: 0

Kudos: 0

Scott Goes the Extra Mile and Cares About Your Success

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I'm going to get right to the point - Scott helped me get into Columbia Business School's Executive MBA program! From the moment I started to work with him to the day I received my acceptance call from Columbia Business School, Scott was there along the way. He responded to my emails in an attentive manner, went the extra mile to really understand my story and how to tell it compellingly, and he knows exactly what the admissions officers are looking for in applicants. I found Scott to be very adaptable to my personality, inquisitive, and strategic in his approach. He gets right to the point and is honest with his feedback, even if it's not necessarily something you want to hear. Scott went the extra mile when reviewing my essays with several rounds of edits. He wanted them to be in the best shape possible before submission day, and he continued to jump in to tweak verbiage to make the narrative, grammar and sentences perfect. He is also well connected and set up a mock interview with a CBS graduate that was very helpful for me when preparing for my in-person interview. I would highly recommend Scott as someone who is friendly, strategic, honest and can really help you get into those challenging Ivy League business schools.

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July 30, 2018
rb1234

Joined: Sep 06, 2016

Posts: 0

Kudos: 0

Best MBA admissions consulting service

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The Personal MBA Coach Team has been instrumental in my MBA admissions journey. They truly made it possible for me to achieve my long term dream of getting admitted to a top business school.
The team's thorough knowledge of the entire application process and guidance on how best to position myself along with various nuances related to each school, The Personal MBA Coach really customized and supported me extensively throughout the MBA process.
I am a non-traditional MBA candidate, with a PhD and a little older than traditional applications that was discouraged by other MBA coaching and advisory services in terms of my aspirations of getting admitted to a full time program. But once I spoke with the The Personal MBA Coach, he provided a lot of support, and helped me build confidence to peruse the effort and defined clearly a working strategy for me specifically.
He and his team are thorough, diligent, pragmatic and realistic. With my profile he was very honest about what I need to work on to get to my target and how to go about it.
Unlike other MBA admissions advisory services, The Personal MBA Coach is truly personal and goes the extra mile to provide best in class service, advisory and support through out the process of MBA admissions. They are available and ready to answer any question and very flexible in terms of scheduling.
Scott has a deep understanding of each school and what is needed for them to tailor the application in the best way. Through out the process of working with Scott and the Personal MBA Coach team, I not only got admitted into the Full Time MBA program - at the University of Chicago - Booth School of Business, but also developed key insights about myself, becoming a better writer, interviewee and strategic thinker.
My sincerest thanks to the Personal MBA Coach and team and I strongly recommend working with this team if one truly wants to achieve their MBA goals and dreams.

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July 04, 2018
vishal2401

Joined: Oct 19, 2011

Posts: 0

Kudos: 0

I applied from one of the most competitive categories in MBA – Indian Male engineer. My age was on higher side ( 30 yrs) and GMAT score of 730 was a little low for the competitive category of Indian Male engineers. I was also a reapplicant.

One of my friend recommend Scott to me. I worked with Scott on three schools. Got waitlisted in Kellogg and accepted in Tuck.

1) Scott is very professional, humble and straight forward. If something is lacking in the essay or some part of your profile needs work, Scott will tell you in a straight forward manner ( without sugar coating) . This is one of the best things a liked about him – he gives honest feedback.
2) His insights on what the admission committee of different schools seek is fantastic. Therefore, his recommendations on which school to apply for were very useful. Infact, I wasn’t even considering applying to Kellogg, but Scott recommended that I apply and I was waitlisted .
3) He will push you to self-reflect and think more about your experiences and stories.
4) One of Scott’s associate who is ex-kellogg interviewer took my mock interview. Her feedback on the mock interview was very helpful and she gave a detailed question-by-question feedback. She also coached me on how to answer the questions. My confidence post the mock interview increased tremendously.

Overall, I wouldn’t have done with Scott’s coaching and help. He helped me navigate through each part of the MBA application process and I got through my dream school – Tuck . Thank you Scott. I whole heartedly recommend Personal MBA Coach for MBA applications.

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June 21, 2018
cindyduan

Joined: Jun 23, 2015

Posts: 0

Kudos: 0

Go with Scott!

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Scott was absolutely incredible to work with!

At first, I was debating going through the admissions process without an admissions consultant, but in hindsight, I'm so glad I decided to go with Scott. He is very experienced and knowledgeable about the process, is extremely responsive (e.g. essay revisions turned around within 24 hours), and I can tell he gives his 100% effort to each of his clients. I also appreciate that Scott gives it to you as is - he isn't one to sugarcoat and will give you the feedback you need to hear.

I'm happy to say I will be attending my top choice (Wharton) this fall, and I can't thank Scott enough for getting us here. I felt well-prepared throughout the whole process (including no surprises during interviews!), and I highly recommend Scott to other prospective applicants!

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