Friend, mentor, confidant, coach—these are all nouns that describe Christina, and the ordering is intentional.

Coming from an overrepresented applicant pool (white/male/finance w/ a non-target undergrad -> banking -> PE resume), I was very nervous about my chances of getting into a top-5 MBA program. After talking with multiple potential consultants and hearing a similar spiel from each, I had no clear sense of my candidacy, and worse, no idea who could actually help me navigate this process. Enter Christina.

During our hour-long intro call, Christina showed genuine interest in my candidacy by asking specific questions about my accomplishments, career decisions, and life experiences that have shaped my world view. She listened to my story, highlighted the obstacles I would need to overcome without holding back (seriously, be careful what you wish for…), and outlined concrete steps that I would need to take to achieve my goals. From the start, she admitted that she is not the gatekeeper to these programs, but instead showed that she is an invaluable guide who understands the ins-and-outs of the MBA process, knows the nuances of specific programs, and mentors clients to maximize their applications. She also demonstrated her dedication to her clients by staying on our call well over our allotted 30 minutes, making sure to fully answer all of my questions and asking her own to understand my level of commitment to the process.

When our working relationship formally kicked off, I was overwhelmed by Christina’s devotion to my candidacy (and I don’t use devotion hyperbolically). A perfectionist at heart, Christina leaves nothing to chance, and in return, she expects the same level of dedication from her clients. During our time together, she pushed me beyond my expectations. Our working calls often lasted 3+ hours, and not because of a lack of efficiency, but instead because Christina continuously challenged me to unearth meaningful anecdotes that showcase my individuality and refine my stories from a lump of coal into a shining diamond. Beyond her storytelling mastery—which I would put toe-to-toe with that of any other consultant—she motivated me to improve my GMAT score, take on additional leadership roles in my community and at work, and develop career goals that were truthful and meaningful to me. She also worked expeditiously to set deadlines for me (a task I sorely needed) and to return feedback promptly—while she always delivered on her promised deadlines, I need two hands to count the number of times I was late with delivering work (sorry, Christina!).

It’s been nine months since WE (Christina will indoctrinate you to the use of collective pronouns…) kicked off our working relationship, and upon reflection, I don’t know what I did to deserve such wonderful support. I was accepted into my top choice—an M7 and top-5 globally ranked program—with a full tuition scholarship (an ROI of over 15x for those financially-inclined). Additionally, I received over $250,000 in scholarship awards across my admitted schools, which I completely credit to Christina’s guidance. Even more meaningful than the scholarships and acceptance letters though, I feel that I’ve gained a lifelong friend. Christina genuinely cares about all of her clients, and she shares in the pain of rejections and the elation of acceptances. She is both the ultimate coach, pushing you when laziness or fatigue creeps in, and hype woman, picking you up whenever the weight of the application process becomes too cumbersome. For those committed to maximizing their candidacy, you will not find a better consultant!

Read More

In the last 6 months, I had the pleasure of working with Court for my MBA applications.

I would 100% recommend him to anyone who wants to elevate his/her application to the next level. Before I met Court, I didn’t even know how to start the applications. Court guided me in a very structured way during the process. Thanks to him, I never had the feeling of being overwhelmed or being lost in the process.

What makes Court great is that he has extended knowledge of what the admissions want. He knows exactly what to do to make you can stand out. He has the natural ability to listen to you. He picks things up that maybe doesn’t seem important for you but can be a huge dealbreaker for your application.

Court brings his experiences and knowledge into the process. All of this in a very gentle and humble manner. He will never force or push his opinions on you.

He goes even further than the extra mile. At one moment, I doubted my list of universities. He gave me so many insights about the possibilities in the MBA landscape. He provided me a total picture of business schools, which was for me, living overseas, a huge help.

Court went above and beyond. He was always there to listen (day/night) no matter the time differences. I received feedback very fast during the process. Even after the process, he takes care of you. His follow-ups are very thorough. He gave me a VIP feeling. I never had the feeling of doing the process alone or feeling neglected.

Hiring Court was one of my best investments. I have zero regrets. The only regret is that I did not work him sooner.

Read More

I recently heard back from my dream school (a top 7 US News program): an admit to their Full-Time MBA Class of 2023 with a sizeable scholarship!!! To put this result and Faisal’s contribution to it into perspective: I succeeded as a reapplicant, at one of the most selective business schools globally, in an unprecedentedly competitive admissions year and reduced number of seats due to deferrals (thanks to COVID19). It was only due to Faisal that I was able to overcome these impossible odds.

Coming into my second application cycle, having had decent success the first time around (two T15 admits with partial scholarships), I was looking to work with a consultant who could help elevate my applications to the next level for a shot at M7/T10 schools. I spoke to several consultants, most of whom did not seem confident that I could get into an M7/T10 school with my profile. Some were even hesitant to work with me since I already had two admits with scholarships from the previous year, and they perhaps saw more downsides than upsides in this endeavor for them.

After speaking to Faisal for the first time, I immediately knew that I wanted to work with him. What impressed me about him was that he showed great empathy and understanding when listening to my background, experiences, and goals. On top of that, Faisal’s experience as an admissions team member at Booth reflected his knowledge of what it takes to get into an M7 program.

In terms of school selection, Faisal struck the delicate balance between helping set realistic expectations through his openness and, at the same time, ensuring that I was applying to the schools that I’d really want to attend. In contrast, most consultants will ‘nudge’ you to apply to schools where you have better chances of being admitted so they can keep their records intact. Faisal didn’t discourage me from applying even to Stanford and Wharton, which even I knew were ‘extreme reach’ schools for me. We also decided to apply to three other M7 programs where I was a reapplicant (most other consultants tried to sway me away from reapplying since it’s always a high-risk proposition).

I also liked that Faisal works with a much smaller number of people (usually 4-5), compared to some of the other full-time consultants who take on 12-15 applicants each round. I knew that this would guarantee that I was getting the personalized attention that I wanted for my applications.

Once we started working, I could see why Faisal has enjoyed such an impressive success as an admissions consultant. Instead of immediately plunging into essay writing and building application packages, Faisal guided me for the first few weeks to dig deeper and helped me articulate a personal brand story that was authentic, unique, and powerful. Once I started writing the essays, I’d always get feedback that led to significant improvements to my drafts without taking the authenticity or uniqueness away, a testament to Faisal’s exceptional story-telling skills. We went through at least three (and sometimes even up to five) drafts for each of the essays I wrote for the six schools, and I never even once felt that Faisal wasn’t 100% committed to improving my essays and resume. He even took the time to review my application forms to ensure that all parts of my app were up to the mark.

On top of that, Faisal’s project management skills are top-notch. He always responded within the 72-hour turnaround time (and sometimes even earlier) that he had committed when we started working. Thanks to all this, I was able to submit six competitive applications in Round 1, with an admit + scholarship at my dream school as the result.

Business school admissions can be incredibly challenging. You want to work with a thorough professional with ample experience and past success who is willing to personally commit to and invest in your success, just as a friend would. If you go with Faisal, you will get all this and more!

Read More

When I started to prepare my MBA application, I am very confident that I can show my love for dream school, so I spent over three months to DIY, and when I finally received a cold rejection letter, I was heart-broken and discouraged. I learned my lesson here, no matter how confident you are, to get into a dream school, you need more than passion, hard work, and score. Knowing what you don't know and get as much help as you can is also important.

When I sent my old application file to Kristen, she instantly noticed many mistakes I made. (I really wish I could know when I prepared my No1 dream school application). Kristen encouraged me to keep trying because my application content is good, needs a better strategy to make Me standout.

After our first call, she gave me a clear, simple, and smart strategy which tailored to myself but made my story more compelling. The problem I previously had was I had too many ideas, and I cannot express my thoughts in a few hundreds of words. When she returned my essays, I felt, yeah, Kristen's writing is so smart! She not only polish my writing, but also raised questions to let me add details by myself, so my essay is still MY essay, which reflects a real me, but in a much better way. Comparing when I asked other friends to help, sometimes, either they make a little real contribution, or they rephrased my essays in a way I feel not authentic or killed my character. But in Kristen's version, she is very good at finding my shining point and instructed me to explore more in detail. With her profound experience, Kristen knows how to set a good theme, and express ideas in a nice strategy that I wanted but felt hard to express by myself.

Kristen's edit on my resume also upgrades my resume to another level. makes me realize that my resume can also be a compelling tool too, I thought my resume was perfect, however, after her consult and edit, I felt it is much more impressive tailored to the MBA admission office.

I strongly recommend Kristen and felt her job much worth the money. She also quickly turned around in three days, and substantially alleviate my pain when my due is in a week. I may be the last application, but still, get in. I am very glad I asked her for help and this decision made my dream come true.

Thank you for your excellent help.

Read More

My experience working with Faisal was absolutely fantastic and I could not have asked for a more supportive, responsive, experienced and professional mentor. I currently work in private equity (previously worked in investment banking), with the objective of applying to several top US MBA programs (R1 and R2) for the Class of 2020. I had high aspirations but came from an overrepresented background. Additionally, I lacked direction as to my rationale to pursue an MBA (e.g. “why me? “why now?” “what will an MBA do for my career?”)

After working closely with Faisal for 9 months, I’m proud to say that I received admission to my first choice (top 5 US ranking) and second choice!

Faisal’s close mentorship and logical approach to drawing from all aspects of my life (professional and personal) to help form a clear and persuasive story was beyond anything I could have imagined. His focus on precision and tailoring my message to each school kept me focused and built my self-confidence every step of the way. Lastly, Faisal’s organization, responsiveness and commitment to school deadlines was exactly what I was looking for in a mentor and consultant.

This process was truly life changing not only from the perspective of receiving admission to a school that I could have only dreamed of, but helping me understand myself better and mapping a professional pathway that will allow me to achieve my short and long-term goals.

I can confidently recommend Faisal and wish future candidates the best of luck in their application endeavors.

Read More

Hands down: Without Jeremy, I likely would not have gotten into HBS. Jeremy was the single most important factor in molding my applications into truly personal pieces of storytelling.

Jeremy’s vast experience in journalism helps him to carefully guide and review your essay writing. He starts by going through your anecdotes and then illustrates ways to knit these into seamless, convincing stories of purpose and goals. Jeremy provides you a voice that is uniquely humble, genuine, and driven.

I really appreciated how direct Jeremy’s comments were: There is no sugarcoating and his efficiency makes for an ultimately much better application. Jeremy is very reliable and his return times are incredibly short – he often came back to me within 2 hours of sending a draft.

Read More

I came into the MBA admissions process as a novice – nobody in my family had applied to business school and neither had any of my close friends – and the one thing I did know was that I would need help!

After being recommended to reach out to MBA Prep School by a friend of a friend who had worked with them and been accepted to a highly ranked school, I was still a bit skeptical. Would working with a consultant really be something that would be valuable? What sort of help was I getting? How were they going to help me?

After our first initial call, Faisal helped me to allay my doubts – not only would MBA Prep School help develop my essays but their approach was a rigorous bottoms-up analysis which focused first on career coaching not merely essay editing. We spent our first few sessions talking about my goals and career aspirations using exercises to help me to discover the strengths and experiences that would help me stand out from my peers as well as shore up potential weaknesses as well.

I think was actually the most valuable part of the whole application process and even if I hadn’t applied to business school I think this would have been very worthwhile.

After condensing an amorphous cloud of thoughts, perceptions, and dreams into a coherent narrative, Faisal and I set to work on developing my essays. Faisal is an excellent editor, allowing my voice to come through while giving helpful hints on how best to craft a story. Faisal gives room to disagree and while he is not afraid to give tough criticism I never felt that he didn’t have my best interests at heart. I applied to 5 schools and each essay received as many revisions as they needed.

By the time I submitted my applications I felt not only did I have excellent essays but also a much stronger conception of my own career trajectory and a clear road map for achieving my dreams.

Out of the five schools I applied to, I was accepted to two and will be attending Kellogg this fall. I was completely satisfied with the help I received from Faisal and the MBA Prep School and strongly recommend reaching out to them if you have doubts about applying to business schools and wish to take your MBA application to the next level!

Read More

TLDR: I highly recommend working with Christina and have already recommended her to friends and colleagues alike. She is top notch in terms of both skill and effort, and will give everything in helping you do your best in the MBA process. She truly cares about her clients and I believe wants you to succeed irrespective of her own results as a consultant (though her track record is very strong).

I worked with Christina from MBA Prep and feel very fortunate to have had her guidance throughout this process. Before selecting Christina I spoke with consultants from three popular MBA consulting groups and was deciding between working with Christina and another consultant but ended up going with Christina as I felt she believed in my candidacy and would give me consistent attention throughout the process. It's hard to know who to pick for such an important role so I hope this review helps another in the position in which I found myself last year!

After working together, Christina probably knows me and my aspirations as well as my closest friends do. The sheer number of hours spent discussing my background, interests, and goals lent itself to a self-reflective process that allowed me to put my best foot forward and convey my true self to schools. If you are set on business school and planning to apply to multiple schools, working with Christina on a package basis will make sense for you and allow you to get the most out of her dedicated review process and very thorough feedback. Christina is extremely honest and you may think you can be hard on yourself but she will be tougher (in a good way!). There are times in the process I felt overwhelmed and dejected but Christina knows how to keep you motivated and encourage you to do your best work. She will push you to do more than you would have done yourself and you will be grateful for it in the long run.

Below are a few key reasons I'm very happy I worked with Christina:
-Positive results: I was admitted to five schools (HBS, Wharton, Booth, Kellogg, and Darden) with half and full tuition scholarships at two of the schools
-School knowledge: you will still need to research each school's unique program yourself but Christina has deep knowledge of all the top schools and this is invaluable in saving you time and helping you to narrow down your schools of focus and then bolster your applications; additionally, Christina keeps her finger on the pulse of MBA admissions more broadly and can provide valuable strategic advice on all areas of your application
-Essays: Brainstorming essays with Christina was critical in allowing me to convey key personal values in the limited word counts allowed by schools; her comments were well beyond what I would call thorough and it's evident she spends a significant portion of time reading and re-reading your essays to provide the best and clearest feedback possible
-Candor in addressing weaknesses in your candidacy and clear, actionable suggestions to improve those
-Like a good personal trainer, Christina knows when to push you and when to console and encourage; this is a tricky balance to get right for optimized results but she does it!
-Her genuine interest in and care for you allows her to help you most effectively tell your story to schools

You will improve your candidacy with her help in ways you didn't realize possible, and it will make the difference when it comes down to where you're admitted.

Read More

I worked with Faisal in the hopes of joining a full-time program in the fall of 2020. I chose to work with a consultant because when I had applied by myself the previous year, I had been denied from all six full-time MBA programs that I had applied to without any interview invites even though I felt I had competitive experiences and a GMAT score above the averages for all the programs.

I chose MBAPrepSchool for one main reason – they didn’t treat me as just another customer to put into a preset program, but rather an individual with specific needs. I talked to several different companies before making my decision, but only MBAPrepSchool (and specifically Mariah) asked me to send essays from my previous application and used it to prep for my intro meeting with them. That hour-long meeting was followed up with a personalized list of specific consultants and why they thought they would be a great fit for me. One of the people who was suggested was Faisal. As an engineer that was struggling with how to relate my technical expertise into business terms, it was pretty clear he would be perfect for me with his background in engineering along with experience in admissions at an M7 program.

I began working directly with Faisal about seven months before application deadlines. For the first couple of months, we worked on understanding my life story and how that fit into my career goals. After that, we started narrowing down which programs would make sense for me to apply to and I eventually chose Stanford, Kellogg, Sloan & Darden. Though I gave myself seven months to work on my applications, Faisal still helped me focus on what all needed to get done and I ended up spending time on most weeknights on my application and it definitely made a big difference in the end.

One area where Faisal made the biggest difference was in my essays. I went through at least 3 revisions of each essay for each of the schools with some of the longer ones having 6-8 versions. Faisal’s ability to let my voice shine through my applications while helping me sculpt my message was invaluable. He also set specific requirements for himself (feedback within 72 hours on anything I submitted to him for review) and stuck to it. One thing I especially appreciate in hindsight is that Faisal never tried to make a decision for me (which schools to apply to, which life stories to use in my essays, etc), but rather helped by providing guidance on how to think through the problems and as a result become more intentional in my choices.

When I sent out my applications, I knew everything in my application – the essays, recommendations, education, and work information, etc. – was leagues beyond what I had submitted the previous year. While I had personal advancements that played a factor in this, the largest change was working with Faisal.

I ended up interviewing at Stanford, Kellogg, and Darden. I was then accepted into Kellogg and Darden with scholarships at each while being waitlisted at Stanford. I simply could not have imagined this being a possibility after I had been rejected from six programs just a year earlier.

By the end of the MBA application cycle, Faisal became more than just a consultant. In fact, when I got the good news for my acceptances, he was the first person I contacted after my family to tell the good news.

Read More

The only school I wanted to apply was MIT, known for its scientific rigor and applied learning approach within innovating ecosystem. At the time of my decision to do so, I had conviction about the school but tons of uncertainties about how to successfully navigate the arduous process of an application. After talking with Chris from MBA Prep School, he mentioned Court as a potential coach fitting my needs. It took me a 15-min call to know already that Court would be an amazing coach, well suited to my expectations.
Court is like a human GPS, who will assist you through all the navigation steps of the application. He will push you to discover yourself, to be authentic, to know who you are and what you want to accomplish through an MBA.
Court went above and beyond in every step of the process. I said Court is a human GPS because he knows all the roads you need to take, where the bumps are, and …. many of the bumps are in yourself. With his help, you will discover them, and you will feel more confident and competent to the task.
Court was very professional and emphatic, and neither left anything unplanned nor cut corners in terms of his support to my successful application. He was initially my coach. I consider him a life-long friend and a mentor.

Read More