My consultant was Amy Bergrud and she was absolutely great to work with. We all have our strength and weakness in our application, and Amy was able to give me immediate action plans to improve the weakness on my application as well as strategies to highlight the strength just in our first phone conversation after signing up.

I appreciate the fact that she was very realistic on telling me where I placed among the competition, and what exactly I needed to do to get into my dream schools.

Having someone that is an expert and used to work on the adcomm definitely is a huge advantage when it comes to creating the application. Amy was very detailed oriented and was able to help me clean up and transform my application. She was also very quick on responding to my emails, essay drafts or sometime even phone calls when I had ideas or questions. Furthermore, she even helps me breakdown whom are my best options when it comes down to asking for letters of recs. She definitely played in a huge part of the success.

When it comes to applying MBA, its a long process. But having Amy supporting along the way really helped me step my application game up.

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Margaret from Stacy Blackman Consulting saved me from near disaster. Is this dramatics? No. She took a rambling jumble of irrelevant, uncohesive thoughts and helped me figure out how to organize it all. I was torturing myself every day, asking my brother (Tuck alum) for help and thinking I could figure it out on my own - and then came Margaret. We had to push my apps to second round but she helped me make that decision that I was nowhere near ready and then helped me get things in order. Margaret is funny, kind and wise. I am so grateful that I was connected with her. Thank you to Esther for that original pairing. The process I went through with Margaret was valuable in and of itself - I learned a lot about me and what I value, who I am and then I got into business school as the grand prize. Being clear about all of these issues helped me in my interviews and also in directing recommenders. It's not just a strategy for an essay, it's an overall presence and confidence that helped me present my whole case.

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I used the Stacy Blackman service and had a very positive experience. I liked the flexibility that it allowed, as I chose to work with two different consultants from their team and I also added to my purchase as I worked along. The guidance that I received was phenomenal, it did not hurt that I worked with two individuals (Sherry and Maureen) who had served on two different admissions committees. The insights were incredibly helpful. I found the company to be very responsible and professional. I felt trust in every person I interacted with on the team. Both consultants were very responsive. Like sometimes within the hour,I felt as if they were just sitting there waiting for my emails. They both had slightly different styles but definitely knew what they were talking about and gave me a really good guidance.Very happy with the results and that I hired such superstars to work on my behalf.

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I bought three separate MBA prep books in the year before I decided to take the plunge and actually apply to business school. I read those all the way through and took notes, wrote up lists. But at the end of the day when confronted with essay questions I was stumped. In spite of all of the prep and knowledge and I literally had huge writers block and just couldn't get my fingers to start typing anything at all. I hired SBC fairly quickly after that on the referral of a friend and working with Meredith was pretty much a miracle. She got the stories out of me, and showed me what was the most important to emphasize in my applications. We rapidly pulled together rough essay outlines and the writers block disappeared. I really appreciated her no-nonsense, pragmatic and calm approach to guiding me. She knew what she was doing and held my hand all the way through. I give her huge props for dealing with my moments of panic and giving me very definite answers, which cleared up the fog of overwhelm. Even though SBC has a book, I now recommend burning all MBA prep books, esp the big fat Bible that was a huge waste of time - they don't get to what you really need which is fleshing out your personal story. So a huge thank you to Meredith and SBC - my journey was successful - at times painful, at times even fun, but definitely a lot better than it would have been minus Meredith. FIVE STARS!!

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I read all the reviews, talked to Esther at SBC and did a lot of research on SBC before hiring them. They have been around longer than almost any other firm, so that helped boost my confidence. Still I was nervous about making a mistake - wasting my money or worse - just getting bad advice and really screwing up my application. When I started working with Bill I quickly felt calm because he was so NICE, and knowledgeable, and in general everyone on that team was so helpful - I always felt that I could turn to someone. And I did many times, when I had a panic about one particular essay, or how to handle a school visit, or the follow up after a weird alumni interviewer. My skepticism has turned to belief as the system worked for me! YEAH! I grew a lot through this process and credit Bill and SBC with guiding me on a journey that in many ways was valuable even if I did not get into a top school. Thankfully I DID get into a great school which of course was the whole point. These are good people who want to help and have a ton of knowledge which allows them to be effective. Bill was so responsive and smart. He eliminated my indecision and helped steer me towards success. NYU Stern here i come. Thank you.

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I first came across SBC when I realized that some guidance and help in the application process couldn’t hurt. Since the consulting business is all about the people, I found SBC to be the best fit for me. I first talked to Esther and connected really well. I really liked that Esther was straight to the point, no fluff. We went through my resume, and Esther provided fantastic clear feedback on my strengths and weaknesses based on her extensive experience in the MBA application process. Esther understood my MBA goals and matched me with Jen who was the perfect consultant for me based on my background and goals.
Jen was able to relate to me and provided very insightful feedback throughout the application process, everything from generating ideas for essays through to interview prep and waitlist management. Jen took a vested interest in understanding my entire background and future goals so she could deliver top quality advice, help research MBA programs based on what classes and clubs they offer and how the program fits into my career goals. Jen and the entire SBC team is very thorough and know the industry really well. You’ll know you’re in safe hands and I highly recommend working with SCB.

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I worked with Amy my consultant on more drafts than I thought she could even handle and am now going to Wharton. At one point I thought - she is going to send these back and tell me enough! But she never did. She always responded with great feedback. She was always very on the ball and responded quickly. She was always in touch, always a professional. I always felt she had my back and was giving me her best. She was always kind. She has served on an admissions committee and that background was useful but it was more than that. It was also the care she put into the applications, her writing skills and her ability to communicate with me and coach me. I utilized the interview tools that Stacy Blackman offered a lot and got feedback from Amy plus Bill. When the interviews came along I was very prepped and felt so calm because I knew I could nail it and wold not have surprises. I also knew how to handle things if a surprise did come up. Very happy to report that the hard work and investment in the team at Stacy Blackman Consulting paid off. Will forever be a reference for this terrific operation.

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In a nutshell - I highly recommend Stacy Blackman Consulting to any individual who is truly serious about getting into a great school. I spoke with five different firms and asked every question I could think of. Stacy Blackman was so buttoned up and professional and at the end of the day the only one who said - "hire us for a couple of hours and see how it goes". They were willing to prove their value. I was sold after one hour, my consultant helped organize me and put things into perspective. I then hired them for 3 schools. Money well spent. I now had an expert at my fingertips. Every question, every fear, I could discuss with someone who had seen and done it all. Bill was amazing as a resource and a friend in many ways. He knows more about me now than many close friends. He put me at ease and made me feel comfortable that we could work through all the parts of me and pull together a package that would really represent me. I am in to my number one and all I can say is....THANK YOU BILL. THANK YOU Stacy Blackman.

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I worked with a dream team at SBC and am more than happy about the results. The thing that stood out to me about SBC was the amazing range of talent and experience. Wanted admissions committee eyeballs on my essays. Check. Wanted someone who understood marketing and admissions strategy. Check. Wanted interview expertise to help with interview prep. Check. Because I had several people weighing in I was able to get exactly what I needed. I had coaching in writing. I had assistance with strategy. I had amazing feedback, perhaps more than I wanted sometimes in the moment when I was told to redo or rethink something! I learned that there are many skills needed to make a high quality application. I first worked on my strategy and my story and then got down to the finer details. Lisa helped with it all. Honestly they gave me more resources than I could possibly have used, but I used what I needed, always got help when I asked and had a terrific guide helping me thru it all. The process was scary at times as I navigated the hows and whys but I was ultimately successful and say thank you.

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I was new to the application process and I had applied to a couple of business schools without any outside help. Unfortunately, I was waitlisted at my top choice school. I wanted to get off the waitlist so I contacted Stacy Blackman services and was assigned to Sherry Holland. She was an excellent resource and helped devised a plan for me to get off the wait list. She was able to identify weaknesses in my application and helped me address them properly. She was very responsive and reliable throughout the entire process.

Thankfully, a month later, I was admitted off the waitlist and could not have done so without her help. I would recommend the SBC service, specifically Sherry, to anyone who who is stressed, needs morale support and guidance throughout the application process.

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