Susan served not only as an expert admissions coach helping me with crafting admissions strategy as well as hammering out every detail until she was satisfied, but also a career coach and a sounding board that has helped me create a clear and compelling career path – could not recommend working with her more!
I came from a T30 undergrad, had GPA and GMAT in line with all M7 averages, but had a rather nontraditional work background (no consulting/IB/tech, no name brand on resume, switched industries multiple times). I thought I had a chance at M7s but would really have to find my why MBA/specific school and be able to highlightmy professional skillset. I spoke to all the major MBA consulting firms (MBAMission, Fortuna, Stacy Blackman, etc) and asked friends about their experiences working with them. Susan stood out the most in our initial conversations – not only did she walk me through her process like other firms, she spent a good amount of time getting to know me personally and highlighting where she thought what she found compelling in my story that she wanted to help me highlight. From our conversation, she felt like a person who would go at bat for me to help me reach my goals.
Once we started working together, Susan’s tendency to push you to consider what’s best for you and why was invaluable in helping me consider my career options and school selection. It’s easy at this point to be in love with every school – especially M7s with their brand name – and not give post-MBA careers enough thought since you can figure it out after you’re admitted (I definitely was like this), but Susan helped me realize the importance of starting to think about these long term and one way decisions in a more detailed and nuanced way. She gave me multiple insights on different school cultures and pointed me in directions for further school research. One school that I initially had low interest later on became one of my top choices as a result of my conversations with Susan (also happy to say she helped me gain admittance and I will be attending said school!). She also spent considerable time initially getting to know my stories and experiences for crafting specific school strategies later on.
When application season kicked off, Susan’s time invested in understanding my story, her expertise in MBA admissions, and her attention to detail made sure everything we presented to the schools highlighted the strengths of my candidacy – everything from school strategy and essays to minor things like certain application portal questions went through multiple rounds of review. Each review would always include both macro ideas of how we should think about presenting a certain experience to school down to micro details on good prose and grammar. From the 6 M7s I applied to, I was invited to interview at 5 of them.
Once interviews invite started rolling out, Susan’s interview prep process also made sure I was more than prepared. We went through multiple sessions for every school, and Susan’s prep was tailored for each specific interview style. (for HBS, she grilled me so hard in the lightning round style Q&A for 5 sessions that I surprisingly felt calm and collected during my actual interview). Out of the 5 I interviewed for, I gained admissions to 3 with scholarship and was waitlisted at 1!
With my nontraditional background, I struggled initially to know what parts of my application I should highlight – I knew I went through an interesting path and had acquired professional skills that were different, but wasn’t sure how to present my experiences in a compelling way. After working with Susan I can confidently say the application she helped me I create presented the best and most authentic version of myself.
Review first appeared on P&Q: https://bit.ly/3TMixCc
D.W., MBA Candidate, MIT Sloan
Strategic, Empathetic, & Detailed Coach - Could Not Recommend More