I had an amazing experience with Stratus Prep. Although I experienced serious sticker shock at how much admissions consultants cost, I ended up with a full ride to my perfect school so that investment paid off 20 fold!

I worked with Susan Cera who I cannot say enough good things about. I was initially matched with her because she understood my athletic background and I was considering programs like Fuqua (where she went and worked as an AdCom). She responded to emails almost always within 24 hours, even when I gave her a ton of items to review. I got emails back on nights and weekends very regularly and she worked with my schedule as needed.

I knew vaguely what I wanted to do with my career but was so lost about how to craft my story. We jumped through dozen of possible career paths and she helped me not only write my story, but also discover what I am really passionate about and how I can apply that to my career. By walking through it SO MANY times with Susan, I had my elevator speech down to a science when asked why am MBA and why now!

The introspective period is very intense and at times I ended up writing some stories for Susan to review that I thought were dumb but she ended up showing me how we could show my personality traits with little tidbits from my past woven through my essays and application. Probably the most value came from various Stratus coaches telling me when my essays were off the mark, rambling, or just nonsensical. I wrote several essays that I thought were good but Stratus pushed me to go deeper. I can say without a doubt that I would not have turned in essays that were anywhere close to as good without Stratus.

Overall, I had an amazing experience and would hire them again in a heartbeat. You only get one chance to go to business school, give yourself all the tools to go to the absolutely best program for you.

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I thoroughly enjoyed working with Stratus Prep. I'll admit that I did not know that using an admissions counseling service was so popular when I first decided to pursue my MBA. After attending fairs and doing some online research, it became clear to me that I only had one shot at this and I should be sure I'm putting the strongest application forward. I currently work in media/advertising, and not many of my colleagues have their MBA or were considering pursuing one. It was clear to me that I needed the advice and expertise of a seasoned counselor to help me make my application shine.

Beyond being professional, responsive, and pleasant to work with, the most valuable part about working with Stratus Prep was that they encouraged me to broaden my target school list, and made me think critically about what was most important to me in an MBA program. I was initially set on staying in my home state of California, and did not want to move. My counselor told me that I should seriously consider a program on the east coast, and recommended why I would be such a great fit given my strong interest in the culture and community of a school. She ended up being right in the end, and I am so glad I followed her advice as I will be attending a top ranked program next fall.

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