After a less than stellar GMAT, I was nervous about applying to business school. I was trying to decide if my time and money would be best spent retaking the GMAT (and waiting until next year to apply) or focusing on putting together the best application I could this year. I signed up for a free consultation with Dan Richards to discuss how my profile looked for my target school and decide if it would be valuable to use consulting services. After speaking with Dan, I felt much more confident about applying this year, and I ultimately signed up for 4 hours to focus on one school. I was very budget conscious and Dan was great at providing constructing feedback without using too much time for each edit. He helped me with my resume and essay. We even ended up with one hour left for a mock interview.

The first draft of my essay was all over the place. I was having trouble putting all my thoughts into a cohesive story. However, Dan was able to really help me focus my thoughts, and I was very happy with the end result.

I would highly recommend Dan and the hourly services, especially if you just need someone impartial to look over your essay and you don't have the budget for full school packages. The process was very efficient and extremely helpful.

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This past fall, I worked with Kate from mbaMission, and she helped me get into my # 1 school!

I used hourly services and asked Kate to edit/polish my resume and personal statement. Her revisions/comments to my personal statement made all the difference and really helped my story shine through. I also did a mock interview with Kate which 100% prepared me for my alumni MBA interview. Kate gave me lots of tips and helped me prepare compelling answers to difficult questions.

Kate's honest feedback, support, and interview prep were invaluable. I would definitely recommend Kate and mbaMission to anyone beginning the stressful MBA application process.

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I sought out help from MBA Mission starting in Round 1 and continued through the very end of Round 2. I was particularly seeking hourly consulting services to fine-tune my essay ideas and some ad-hoc advice on resume, recs, etc with the biggest focus being on essays.

My initial 30 minute free consultation was with Jessica Shklar and I felt that in this brief session alone, I could get a sense of the depths to which I knew she could truly help me pinpoint what to focus on in my essays and how to really convey the thread of my experiences in the most powerful way possible.

She got on the call prepared and ready, having analyzed my profile and what information I provided to the website. I could tell she really reviewed my background and the materials I provided, so that I didn't have to waste anytime reviewing things again in summary. Since I was worried about how much money to invest in expensive consulting services, I admit I was hesitant about buying these services because I was worried I would dish out tons of money for what might be mediocre guidance. I got off the call truly feeling the she was personally invested in my success and I knew I wanted to continue with her as a consultant. In just thirty minutes, I felt I had a MUCH clearer picture of what angle I could focus on in my essay stories.

The thought of tackling all the business-school essays gave me incredible anxiety : I was self conscious about my writing, I was concerned about being an industry-switcher and how to really prove to the admissions committee why and how I was planning to carve out my future career based on the past experiences that shaped me. I had an immediate sense of relief and clarity with Jessica because she so easily and naturally found ways that I could tell my story- in a very captivating and genuine way that never occurred to me before. And that is what you need in a consultant.

Unfortunately, Jessica had been pretty booked up with R1 clients and when I decided I wanted to buy some consulting hours, I had to pick someone else to work with at first. But ultimately, I felt that my expectations were not met by that person, and after one session, I felt unhappy with who I was left with. They just did not compare to the rapport I felt with her. I contacted Jessica and told her how I felt, what my concerns were, and if she could find a way of taking me on as a client because I was convinced I needed to work individually with her to really accomplish my goals. She was prompt in immediately addressing my concerns, not only did she find a way for the company to refund me for the consulting services I wasn't happy with, but she ultimately told me she would find a way of fitting me in as one of her R1 clients so that I could work with her instead.

Jessica worked with me from this point forward, as I applied to one R1 top tier school, and then 7 other top R2 schools. She is excellent at giving really raw feedback, directly pinpointing what you need to fix, where you're not being clear, what you do well, what you are still not doing right etc. - What I value most about her support was that she isn't afraid to be tough with you. At first, the writing critique process can feel really personal and the feedback can be painful but I cannot emphasize how important it was for me to have someone like Jessica who was not afraid to tell me her opinions on each point of my essay in the most blunt and direct way possible. At times, it hurts, but its what you really need to get your essay into the best shape possible. And this is ultimately a valuable aspect of Jessica's style because she doesn't waste your time or money - basically, she tells it like it is, and doesn't sugarcoat it for you. In this gut-wrenching process, that is exactly what you need, especially when you're going through draft after draft, competing with thousands of people, juggling with deadlines, and want to get those acceptance letters. It was critical, and it helped enormously. Because I could really see how my essays had evolved, and how I even improved the drafts I was giving her after only my R1 essays. Because I took her feedback and applied it to my thought process.

Throughout the months, Jessica was always clear and reliable about what she needed from her client group - she also reminded us about what deadlines we should be aware of and how to facilitate that with her two-day turnaround so that she could ensure we were not freaking out at the last minute and begging for a 24 hour turnaround of a final draft or needing to pay the expensive rush fee to get it back from her - she was always very clear with what she needed to be able to give the best support most efficiently. Even down to the specifics of how to write your emails to her, with what in the subject line, so that she could most efficiently get back to our requests.

In hindsight, I felt like writing essays and crafting your story for business school applications really feels like you go through therapy. And Jessica was like my therapist in this aspect! You go through a LOT of self-reflection about who you are. I was truly floored when my decision letters started rolling in. I did not get into the top 2 most competitive schools - I got into all other 5 schools (highly competitive programs), with incredible merit scholarships, and was waitlisted at 1 other. I really was overjoyed with my results. No matter what, you have to put in the best effort possible to get the best out of consulting services. Jessica was the person who got me to the level I needed to be at - I felt confident that I was submitting my best work. And my results reflected this.

I highly recommend Jessica Shklar - she was a consultant that was truly invested in my success and I have no doubt that she maintains this standard with each and every one of her clients.

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The best part about mbaMission is the fact that you can work with all of its consultants. Knowing that I wanted to attend Chicago Booth, I requested Kate (an alum) and could not have been more pleased with the experience. I started with the 30 minute free consultation and quickly realized I would need some assistance reviewing my essays. After Kate described all the available services, I purchased the hourly package due to the flexibility – under this option, the consultants work on anything you need (resume, essays, interview prep, etc.). There is a standard two business day turnaround on essays, so factor that into your schedule.
Kate was personable, honest, candid and extremely efficient (very important in the hourly package option). She not only corrected grammatical issues, but also improved the flow and content of my essays. Kate challenged me to increase the personalization of my essays and I could clearly feel that she was an advocate of mine; she did everything she could to bring out the best in my application to Chicago Booth. After feeling comfortable with my essays, I used the remainder of my time for interview prep – again, this is a great feature of hourly services. Kate had a few practice questions to go over, and shared some of her experiences as an alumni interviewer. Throughout the entire process I learned more about myself and why I am pursuing my MBA – Kate was an invaluable asset during the application process and she is one of the main reasons I will be starting at Chicago Booth in June!

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I have consulted with Katherine over the course of several months while applying to HBS and CBS. I have used around 10-15hours of her service.
Katherine's advice has been incredibly helpful in getting in to top MBA programms, whether it was about brainstorming my essay storyline or working through style of writing. She definitely approaches each applicant in a very personal way, spends required time to help (or even more!) and does not count time "to a minute" which allows for more relaxed atmosphere. She is very flexible in terms of arranging review calls, even when it comes to last minute requests. Katherine is definitely worth recommending and I would use her service again if I had to! FYI I have been invited for HBS interview (did not go through unfortunately) and got in to CBS! Good luck everyone!

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Context: I applied to B-school in the fall of 2014. Due to the last minute nature of my application and lack of confidence with interviews, I sought support from Katharine (Katy) Lewis at MbaMission. I wrote to her after hearing about her from a friend and after having a mock consultation with her – which left me with a strong impression of her knowledge of the two schools I was interested in (HBS and GSB). I took the hourly package and decided to reach out to Katy for support with my essay and interviews.

Things that stand out from my experience with Katy:

1. She knows the two schools that I applied to – Stanford and Harvard – EXTREMELY well. She understands the nuances in style/focus for the two schools and helps you package your essay accordingly.

2. Her knowledge of the two schools is particularly helpful in preparing for the mock interview. I did a mock interview with Katy before my GSB and HBS interview – both of which, as I realized later, differ significantly. The questions that she prepped me with for GSB and HBS had little in common and she was unbelievably spot on with the points from my resume/essay that the interviewers were likely to talk about. She made my interviews a smooth sail.

3. She is exceptionally responsive and goes the extra mile to accommodate your needs – be it in terms of responding to requests for calls/essay reviews/scheduling a mock interview/reviewing the post-interview reflection – she is a consistent, encouraging, and reliable partner through it all

4. She gives you enough room to speak about your ideas/doubts/fears and extract all that she can from you – in terms of the story for your essay as well as the interview. She then responds with very specific feedback to package it appropriately. There were times when she told me “this is perfect, you should go ahead with it”, she won’t give you advice/suggest modifications just for the heck of it. This is immensely helpful for one to remain genuine to one’s story and style throughout the process.

Result: Made it to both Stanford and Harvard (yet to make up my mind on where to go). Immensely thankful to Katy for this. She is also helping me make my decision given her deep insights into the schools.

My advice to applicants: Be thoughtful as to what you need help with when working with a consultant. Exhaust all free resources you can get access to – friends, free consultations, etc. – and then make the decision on whether or not to take help. Things that I find value in when it comes to working with a (good) consultant – validation of your theme, packaging of ideas customized to different schools, and mock-interviews.

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I worked with Katy on my Round 2 applications for 3 schools. By way of background, my stats are 770, 3.7, finance background but currently working in nonprofit. I was accepted at HBS and Haas and wait-listed at GSB.

I think the most impressive aspect of working with Katy was how intuitive and insightful she is in understanding me as a person. After I filled out the brainstorming questionnaire, Katy and I had an hour long call to discuss essay topics. She surprised me halfway through by saying "this is what I think matters to you" and then explaining my values to me better than I have ever been able to do myself. I found that essay topic picking was the most daunting part of this process so I was really greatful that she could help me sort my scattered thoughts out so effortlessly.

Regarding actual essay writing and editing, Katy was good at helping me cut my first draft down (it was twice as long as the limit) by helping me remove sections that weren't as impactful. She also definitely has a knack for rewording things to get the word count down. I started the round 2 process pretty early so my main Stanford/Harvard essay went through a lot of different iterations before I submitted and she definitely provided the big picture guidance that I was really looking for through those iterations.

Katy was also really helpful in prepping me for my interviews. Mbamission has a ton of data on prior interviews which was really helpful and the mock HBS interview I did with her definitely made me feel more prepared when I walked into the room on that one.

Katy also just has a lot of general knowledge about the admissions process which provided really helpful context throughout the process. She is clearly in the flow both through her personal experiences and friends at the schools I applied to, and she works with what seems to be an impressive clientele so she is seeing in real time how her clients' applications resonate with adcoms. Her follow up to our calls was always timely and professional and included materials we had discussed on the calls.

If you are considering working with Katy I would definitely at least have the free 30 minute convo with her, I got a lot of great insights from her just in that first call. Also the mbamission materials are relatively cheap and you should read all of them even if it's not exactly a beach read. Finally, I would just say that, other than being super effective and knowledgeable, Katy is just a truely lovely person who really likes working with young people who are trying to figure out what the heck to do with their lives.

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After failing to score as highly on the GMAT as I had hoped, I sought the help of an admissions consultant to discuss my options. I scheduled two, 30 minute free consultations, one with Stacy Blackman, and one with mbaMission. The first consultation, with Stacy Blackman, lasted 12 minutes and I was treated as nothing more than a statistic. I was essentially told, with my GMAT score (620), I wasn't worth their time. I was distraught.

I decided to go ahead with the second consultation, and I sure am happy that I did! I spoke with Kate Richardson at mbaMission, and from the very beginning I could feel that her interest in helping me was genuine. She assured me that I had a unique and compelling story to tell, and that the GMAT is not the end all be all component of an application. While she didn't assist me with the GMAT, simply hearing her assurances provided me the confidence boost I needed, and 1 month later I had increased my GMAT score by 70 points.

I purchased the hourly services option as I was primarily interested in having my essays reviewed/edited. I worked with Kate on almost every application I prepared, and, with her help, was able to prepare concise and compelling essays that capitalized on the uniqueness of my situation. I was able to submit each application with the utmost pride and confidence in my work. She was honest, efficient (as I was paying by the hour, this was extremely important), and genuinely cared about my success. Thanks to her help, I was admitted to every school I applied to in round one, including the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon, with substantial scholarships from some, and just completed my interview with the University Of Michigan Ross School Of Business for round two.

Whether I get into Ross or not, I’m so extremely pleased with my success in this process. Having come from a non-prestigious university, with only a mediocre academic record, I never thought I would be able to attend a top 15 institution. I cannot recommend Kate and mbaMission highly enough, as without her help, none of this would have been possible.

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I highly recommend hiring some kind of consulting service to help you with your MBA application. It's a great tool and is just as important as taking a GMAT prep course (if not more).
When it came down for me to choose my consultant, I turned to MbaMission mostly because I read one of their books and a friend who got accepted into NYU Stern recommended them.
I was applying to and Executive MBA program, so I wanted a consultant that would best fit my particular needs (more experienced and geared towards an executive admissions process). One of the great things about MbaMission is that they have great profiles on each one of their consultants (including a video). This allows you to read up on all the consultants before choosing one. Almost like interviewing them – and since you’re about to pay them a lot of money, you should definitely conduct this “interview” process!
I ended up working with Katharine Lewis, which was one of the best choices I made in my whole application process. I chose her because she seemed a bit more refined, knowledgeable, confident, and all around the type of person you would expect to run into in an executive program. Her background was also very impressive; she got her MBA from Harvard and actually spent two years reading MBA applications at Stanford... is there any better person to have on your side than an actual admissions officer?!
Working with Katy was not a letdown! My two main concerns were my very tight schedule (I had less than a month to go from nothing to a completed application) and the fact that I was not applying to a typical full time program, but rather an executive program. In general, I felt like most resources out there (including consultants) where focusing on full time MBAs and very little attention was given to Executive MBAs, even though the requirements are very very different.
Needless to say, Katy addressed both issues very well. She was very responsive and an impressively quick reader. She worked very late hours and even weekends so she always found time to talk to me and meet tight deadlines. She knew exactly how to attack an EMBA essay and really gave me confidence that she had my back. If I had to choose the two most important things Katy has to offer (other than experience) I would say that
1) Besides doing an exceptional job, she really makes an effort to support you emotionally and to boost your confidence. This seems trivial, but I really felt comfortable with her. Even though I'm a very confident person, an MBA admissions process really critiques every aspect of your life and it's very nice to have someone be your cheerleader. Katy does just that while staying honest.
2) This one is a big one... she really encourages you to flood her with material and then she takes care of the filtering and editing. This is huge! It really makes your essays bring out who you are. Instead of wasting your time limiting yourself and filtering out information that you don't think is relevant, Katy pushes you to focus on putting it on paper and worrying about the sorting later. I am a very self-aware person, but this process gave me more than a few "AHA" moments when I held something in that Katy was able to bring out and to mold into a strong point.
An MBA can really change your life and is a very important key to your future, so make sure you give yourself all the tools to achieve success. A consultant is a no brainier.
I ended up getting accepted to my first choice EMBA program at UCLA Anderson. I worked with Katy on an hourly basis and she really did her best to give me as much input for every hour I purchased.
WARNING: the process is by no means cheap (in-fact it's pretty pricey), but at the end of the day it's an investment and well worth it. GOOD LUCK!

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I started working with Katharine about 3 weeks before my application deadline, which I initially thought was a lot of time to review my application, but proved to be short, because Katharine had so many positive changes to suggest.
I sent the first draft of my application to her:
Essay 1: Personal statement and why I want to pursue an EMBA now?
Katharine put life into my story and beautifully complemented one fact with the other, making a firm case to the Admissions committee on why they should accept me. She carefully asked me questions about my life & career that would strengthen my application and added the same.
Even though she is from a legal background, and I work in Finance, she really made an effort to understand my work environment and animate the same in my essay

Essay 2: How will you take advantage of being at the very centre of business?
Katherine pointed out that there was overlap between what I had written in my 1st essay and this one, so she strongly suggested I come up with reasons other than Essay 1. She forced me hard to think of reasons and well research the program website.
She always kept giving me feedback from the perspective of an Admissions committee member (since she used to review applications for a little bit at Stanford), which was very useful. She made me see her how an admissions person (not from my field) would look out for in my application, at the same time making my application unique and not commonplace.

Essay 3: Tell us something that your Cluster would be pleasantly surprised to know about you
This was the hardest question for me. Katharine did a few phone calls with me and pushed me hard to think about this one. When I actually put some disparate facts together, she put it together so well, that only after that could I see a story falling in place. Being able to give your application a unique touch and doing so in an interesting yet concise way, is the least to describe Katharine's talent. She was able to understand me and make me see how I could add value to Columbia, and represent the same in my application

Finally she reviewed my entire application front to back. Her prompt reviews on my application material esp towards the end, her close attention to detail (and I can say this because I work in Finance) and her unparalleled wisdom to see someone like me in my current environment and use the same in the application to give it a unique touch proved very valuable to me. This got me into the Columbia EMBA program and I would be more than happy to recommend her to anyone I know.

The interview prep:
Katherine prepped me so well in the interview, that I felt very relaxed when I was actually at the interview. She forced me to think of examples from my life to present to the admissions counseler. I actually HAD fun at my interview and came off as a natural. Kudos to her!!

Overall, 5 out of 5

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