Our Approach to Outstanding MBA Applications

Being admitted by a top business school isn’t as simple as crafting a stronger application — it’s about becoming a stronger applicant. Our consulting program is designed to increase your self-awareness, define your authentic points of difference, and reveal your unquestionable strengths. You will also become a more effective storyteller and communicator in the process. By the end of a project with us, you’ll walk away with more than a set of compelling MBA applications; you’ll be the strongest MBA candidate you can be because you will know who you are and how you can harness the power of an MBA education to propel you toward your dream job!

We offer comprehensive and hourly MBA admissions consulting services that will enable you to create outstanding MBA applications and gain admission to the top business schools. When you become one of our school package clients, we work with you to design a winning application strategy, including “brand” development, story development, career goals definition, and essay topic brainstorming. We then help you to perfect the execution of every element of your application: essays, resume, reference letters, application forms, and interview responses. Your consultant will be a true partner in your MBA admissions campaign, helping you to craft an application that will distinguish you from the competition and represents the best of what you have to offer the business schools you want to attend.

We will guide you every step of the way and are completely dedicated to your success.

Services include:

  • School selection

  • Proprietary application strategy exercises to identify what will set you apart

  • Career planning to prepare you to write a powerful MBA Career Goals essay

  • Essay strategy and intensive essay editing

  • Reference selection and recommendation letter guidance

  • Resume re-design and editing

  • Application Form guidance

  • Admission interview preparation and a mock interview

How to Create a Successful MBA Application

MBA admissions committee members, after reviewing thousands of applications and reading thousands upon thousands of essays, have a keen sense of authenticity. Assembling an MBA application that tells the admissions committee what you think they want to hear but has no relationship to who you really are is not the answer. Instead, we will help you create your "personal best" MBA application, one that conveys how you can enrich the incoming MBA class and that communicates your unique talents, knowledge, and skills. After more than a decade helping MBA applicants become MBA students at the elite business schools, we have learned that if you tell your story honestly, you will have the greatest chance of being accepted by one of your dream schools.

MBA Application Strategy

Self-knowledge is the foundation of an effective MBA Application Strategy and your most important competitive advantage in the MBA application process. At the outset of the engagement, we will decide exactly what your business school applications will say about you, and then develop a plan for utilizing your application essays, resume, reference letters, and interviews to set you apart from the competition. A successful application begins with a clear communication plan for demonstrating your core strengths, exceptional leadership potential, and excellent fit with the business schools you want to attend.

MBA School Selection

To be accepted by the most selective business schools, you must convince the admissions officers that you have specific learning goals and post-MBA career aspirations that are a good fit with their MBA program. Once we have talked about your learning style, academic objectives, and post-MBA career goals, we will be able to advise you on which MBA programs would be best to target.

The competition for a spot in the top-ten MBA programs, such as Harvard Business School and Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB), will be intense, with some programs accepting only one applicant out of every ten who apply. It is critically important to be realistic given your academic and professional qualifications, and to apply to a balanced portfolio that includes “dream schools” as well as MBA programs that we both believe you are amply qualified to attend.

MBA Application Essays

Just so there is no misunderstanding, we are not ghostwriters of MBA application essays. Our role is to serve as the editor-in-chief of your essays and overall application package. You are the author.

As editor-in-chief of your MBA application essays, we will help you to translate your Application Strategy into essay topics and stories, guiding you from first draft to final draft. Together, we will identify the themes, messages, and stories that reveal what is unique and interesting about you. Because there is no way for you to tell the admissions officers everything about you, we will help you to identify the strengths and achievements they will care about most. We will show you how to use every single word in your MBA application essays to feature your core strengths, demonstrate your exceptional leadership potential, and prove that you are a great fit with your target business schools. We have developed a systematic, proprietary creative writing approach that leads to breakthrough business school essays. As an added bonus, when we have finished your MBA essays, you will be a better writer than you were when we started.

Make no mistake, you will have to work very hard on your MBA application essays, harder than you would have without our help. The harder you work, the more progress we will make in the limited time we have prior to the deadlines. Rest assured, we will continue to work together on your MBA application essays until we both agree that they are exceptional.

MBA Application Resume

Most business schools will require a one-page resume to be submitted with your MBA application. We understand the key differences between an MBA application resume and a job resume or CV, and will help you to re-design your existing resume to feature the core strengths and most impressive professional achievements identified in the application strategy phase of the project. The MBA application resume that we craft together will clearly showcase your key accomplishments and the impact you have made throughout your career.

MBA Recommendation Letters

When it comes to convincing MBA admissions officers to accept you, your MBA recommendation letters are just as important as your application essays. Given their importance, it might surprise you to learn that many MBA applicants do not invest sufficient time and attention in their MBA recommendation letters. These candidates choose their references, supply the forms or web page links, and hope for the best. Your recommendation letters are a critical tool for communicating your application strategy; so we will show you how take a proactive approach to collaborating with your references.

First, we will help you choose the best references among the options available to you. A reference with an impressive title (CEO, CFO, COO) who doesn't really know you will not be able to provide the MBA admissions committee with specific observations and examples to support even the most generous praise. If your recommenders cannot supply "reasons to believe" that you are a top performer, then many of the wonderful things they write about you may be discounted or overlooked. The best MBA application reference letters supply vivid examples and feature you from a professional, personal, and interpersonal standpoint; therefore, choosing references who have seen your strengths in action is crucially important. 

Once you have selected the best individuals to write your MBA recommendation letters, we will work together to summarize your core strengths and key accomplishments in a personalized reference guide that you will hand-deliver to each reference. One thing is certain: you want all your hard work perfecting the rest of your MBA application to be validated by glowing MBA recommendation letters that testify to your talents, abilities, and achievements.

MBA Admissions Interview Preparation

We will ensure that you are well-prepared for your MBA admissions interviews. By the time your MBA admissions interview invitations begin to arrive, you will already be well ahead of the competition in being prepared for interview day. All of the hard work we have done together up to that point will serve as the building blocks for powerful interview responses. To get you ready for your admissions interviews, we will work together to translate your application strategy and key stories into conversational, interview-ready answers. While other MBA candidates will be inventing their answers on the fly, you will have a clear set of communication goals for the interview and be ready to tell your best stories. We will complete one or more mock interviews to simulate the business school interview experience. Our objective is to ensure that your MBA admissions interviewer not only likes you and remembers you, but that he or she will fight for you to be admitted. 

Achieving Your MBA Dreams

Earning an acceptance letter to the business school of your dreams can be life-changing. When you engage our firm, we will expect a great deal from you, and you should expect just as much from us. We are 100% committed to your success and sincerely believe that if you give your MBA admissions campaign everything you've got, your dream business school will be within reach.