Reflecting back on the MBA application process, I could not have done it without Kathryn & Kathleen of Square One Prep. I’m thrilled to have been admitted to my dream school, Stanford, with their support every step of the way.

I reached out to a number of MBA admissions consultants in January, and spoke to at least a half dozen that came highly recommended from friends or had great reviews online. I found it difficult to distinguish between them all, but what stood out to me about Kathryn was her impeccable organization (that Excel application development schedule!) and willingness to drop everything to speak to me on short notice. I also liked that Square One doesn’t waste its time giving free advice via webinars and articles on Poets & Quants - that’s not what I’m paying for! I was then given a number of profiles and arranged a call with Kathleen, who turned out to be a perfect match for my professional background and career interests.

While I consider myself a rather organized person, working with Square One ensured that I did everything possible to get the application basics out of the way in the spring before essay season started in earnest. We went through school selection, recommender selection, my business school resume, and a life-changing career narrative session before most other applicants had even taken the GMAT or selected an admissions consultant. If you don’t believe in the value of MBA admissions consultants, the best money you’ll ever spend is on your career narrative and figuring out your story. Even if I hadn’t gotten into a single business school, it was a transformational experience to get that kind of coaching to formalize a career vision and figure out what would help me achieve my goals.

When essay season came around, I was also the kind of applicant who came in with preconceived notions of what I wanted to write. Kathryn & Kathleen gave me brutal feedback on my first draft, and over 90% of it had to go. We went through something like 10 drafts for some of the more difficult essays, but in the end... they were always right. Whenever there was a moment of doubt (and there are many during this stressful application process), it was infinitely valuable to be able to go to sleep at night, and trusting the professionals to guide you on your MBA journey. For a difficult essay prompt like Stanford’s or Harvard’s... I don’t know how anyone does it without help, and anecdotally I think the truth is that most of them don’t.

A last word... I was put in Stanford’s waitpool after Round 1, and I was distraught. Kathryn & Kathleen told me that it would be a battle to convert it to an offer, but they had great statistics on their side - last year they had over 50% success rate converting a waitlist decision to an offer. They never once complained that it was more work to help me with a letter of continued interest. With a number of successful letters to work off of, I had a good idea of what I needed to do and executed on those points over the course of the next few months. While there are general resources out there on what to do if you are on a waitlist, the truth is that it depends on each school’s process so seeing past examples of what worked for Stanford made a tremendous difference for me. I received an offer with Round 2, and can’t wait to attend in the fall!!

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Kathryn and her team were exceptional to work with.

What would otherwise have surely been an overwhelming experience, became quite manageable and easy to navigate with SOP’s guidance and support. In the early stages of the application process, I found their involvement to be incredibly valuable as Kathryn and her team reviewed every aspect of my application to ensure consistent, deliberate and focused messaging. I also found the mock interview process to be extremely helpful, as it gave me a chance to refine and tailor my responses to the audience, which is obviously different than that of a job interview.

As someone who was applying with a relatively average academic track record, I can honestly say that my success in the application process was largely a function of Kathryn and her team’s involvement. I highly recommend SOP to anyone applying to business school, and can’t imagine trying to go through the process without them.

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Kathryn helped me prep for the interview stage of my MIT Sloan application by running a mock interview with me and providing detailed feedback.

While preparing for my interview, I was uncertain how my stories would come across to the admissions committee. Through the mock interview, Kathryn was able to pick out which stories worked well, which didn’t add as much value, and which I absolutely had to mention. She also gave me suggestions for improving my narrative by considering the sequence of how I told these stories and the points that I should emphasize. She even provided some insightful observations about my experiences which I hadn’t previously thought of.

Given that I was extremely nervous and panicked about potentially messing up my chances of getting into my top choice school, the most valuable thing Kathryn did was reassure me that I was completely on the right track and, to my surprise, ready for the interview. Of course I was still nervous about the interview, but Kathryn’s guidance went a long way in calming my sheer panic and enabling me to approach the interview with some more confidence. I believe that the right mindset is key to performing your best during an interview.

In the end, the real interview went very well and I am super excited to announce that I received an offer!! A very big thank you to SOP for their hand in this.

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Jeannice was an amazing consultant and the rest of the team, Kathryn and Bailey were extremely helpful. They helped me figure out my competitive advantage/story, stay on schedule, and maintain high quality output. They also set communication expectation from the beginning and went above and beyond to make sure everything went smoothly. The premium service was particularly helpful since I was not coming from a traditional MBA background and had average GPA/GRE scores. There were few other consulting services I scouted out and in the end went with SOP. I felt a real sense of ownership and confidence in them that I did not quite find in other firms. The high price was definitely of a concern but in the end, it was so worth it. I got accepted into 1 out of 3 MBAs (all top 10).

They helped me find my best narrative and stay focused on emphasizing my strengths. The school packages they provide in the beginning were insightful but countless calls are what made the difference. For instance, to narrow down my career aspirations, we had 4 phone call sessions dedicated to figuring out what path I wanted to follow and why. They were extremely patient with me and asked me thoughtful questions that acted as a great guide. It did not feel like I was creating this figure that was not myself. They brought out the best in me and helped me pitch my unique story.

They have a very reasonable schedule that I felt productive and never rushed. This helped me make sure that I gave recommenders enough material and time, while giving myself enough time to think through the prompt and my ideas for the essays. Jeannice was flexible enough to work around my schedule and Bailey checked in on me on a weekly basis ensuring that I stay on track.

One of the best part of working with Jeannice and Kathryn was that I knew the end product would be superb. They were both very honest with their comments and gave detailed feedback for me to improve upon. I knew that they both would not let me settle on an essay that was not good enough or simply mediocre. That kind of confidence is what I really appreciated from them.

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Square One prep has been instrumental in my efforts to help me land an admission offer into a top business school program. Kathryn has amazing knowledge about all the programs and has a very quick judgment on your candidature. She's able to use the two to give critical advice on school choice, career narratives, advisor selection etc which set the tone of the process. Lara Avsar was my advisor who I worked with on a weekly basis. She is a miracle worker when it comes to telling a story. She's uncompromising and relentless in making sure your story is told in an authentic manner. I felt we had very compelling applications given my profile. Despite not landing the offer into my top choice programs, Lara and Kathryn were instrumental in picking me up and showing me my options in an objective manner. I wouldn't have gone through with the rest of my applications without their support. I was able to finally land a spot at a program that was best suited for me and am glad I had Lara and Kathryn along the way.

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Knowing I had to overcome several concerning areas (low GPA/GMAT, job gaps), I started researching consultants to help strengthen my application. After my initial call with Kathryn at Square One Prep, I could tell that their personalized approach was exactly what I needed to get into my top choice Columbia. Before committing to SOP, the team even sent through a clear working schedule in order to hit my ED deadline.

Once I started the process, I immediately knew I made the right decision. Within the first week, my consultant Gary spent hours getting to know my background and ways to better showcase my story. His guidance, along with Kathryn’s, were crucial in pushing me to create a unique and authentic application. I felt most challenged throughout the career narrative process, which felt discouraging at that time, but in hindsight, was the most rewarding part of the entire program. Through Kathryn’s feedback, I was able to showcase my strengths and clearly articulate my goals in an organized, logical manner that made the essay and interview portion much easier. She made sure that my application highlighted the best parts of me, my experiences, and my aspirations. Throughout the process, everyone on the SOP team answered any and every question I had, all within a moment’s notice. My consultant Gary was very responsive and constantly worked to keep me on track with my schedule, even when I fell a bit behind at certain points. Wendy, the career narrative expert, was also instrumental throughout my time working with Square One Prep. I felt extremely prepared from the resume, to the LORs, to the essays and was very proud of what I submitted in my application.

Overall, I would highly recommend Square One Prep to anyone looking for a comprehensive, strategic approach to the admissions process and don’t believe I could have done this without SOR’s expertise. They not only helped me achieve my goal of getting into the Columbia EMBA program but also helped me prepare for success in business school.

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I would not have been able to be admitted to Columbia -- let alone have received a full tuition fellowship -- without Square One's help and guidance, and for that I'm eternally grateful.

Square One added incredible value at every step of the process, from helping me realize that Columbia was best suited to my goal of receiving a substantive scholarship at an elite school with a strong media & entertainment program, to working with me to rewrite my resume to better fit the business school admissions committee rather than a prospective employer, to making my essays much more compelling, and much much more.

I received the Square One recommendation from a close family member, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to family or friends in a heartbeat

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As an EMBA applicant with a non-traditional career path, I wanted to make sure I was working with a team of professionals who would help me put my best foot forward. I interviewed multiple consulting firms but chose Square One Prep because of their clearly-outlined approach, Kathryn’s background (similar post-MBA industry), and the fact that Kathryn believed I was a great candidate for the schools to which I was applying.

As expected, the process was exacting and the hardest part for me– and also the most rewarding– was the Career Narrative. If you don’t know exactly what you want to do and why, Kathryn and Wendy, SOP Career Narrative Expert, will make sure you get there within a handful of phone calls. But be prepared: no one makes rapid progress without a little stress. Ultimately, crafting the Career Narrative significantly improved the quality of my essays and gave me clear direction.

I worked directly with Mary Winograd, who was fantastic. She turned around documents much faster than expected and her edits/comments always pushed me to dig deeper. She was very accessible and made sure to check in and push me the two times I fell behind. With Mary’s help, I crafted an application that I was very proud of.

In the end, I received an acceptance phone call from Columbia within a week of interviewing and I’ll be enrolling this fall. I’m not sure how it would have ended up without Square One, but I know I wouldn’t have put together as strong of an application without them. I’ll be recommending them in the future.

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I chose SOP because of great feedback from a friend. And I was not disappointed.
I worked with Kathryn, Crystal, and Haig. All were very passionate about my application and my success.
There were many times when I felt stressful and could not produce the work as agreed previously.
They encouraged me to try further and allowed me more time, which means that they needed to reschedule their own time.

When I decided to buy another school package, within only a few days, Crystal helped review my application even though she was on her holiday! I felt so grateful for that. In the end, I got an almost full scholarship from this second school. Thank you so much for your help, Kathryn, Crystal, and Haig!

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It was a wonderful experience working with Kathryn. I had my mock interview 4 days before my final one. Kathryn asked me relevant questions and guided me how to answer them effectively. What was remarkable was the fact that Kathryn understood my profile well and made sure my answers were customized accordingly.

This was my fourth collaboration with Kathryn and amongst the various other important reasons for me to keep going back to her, one key reason was that Kathryn immensely cared about me. She went beyond the professional requirements to help me and understand my profile. She was dedicated to my success all throughout. She consistently spent more time with me than what I had paid for to ensure my success.

The experience was very helpful as it prepared me well for the interview and boosted my confidence. I would any day recommend Square One for your MBA prep.

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