An example of poor consulting..www.throughMBA.com!!

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Hi,
It is often said that one should learn from his/her mistakes.I once committed one mistake and here I want to warn others from committing the same mistake.
After taking GMAT, while I was inquiring about various MBA programs, I happened to take some advice from one of the MBA consulting firms known as throughMBA. Siddhartha or Sid, called me up and spent a whole lot of time trying to convince me how my profile is good enough for getting into a decent B school. Seeing my skepticism, he made me write a hell lot of details and then responded(in just a day) saying that some experts did a comprehensive evaluation of my profile and that I can make easily in one of the top 15 b schools. He even presented me a list of schools to which if I apply through throughMBA, I can make to any(if not many) of them.
Since I was not too sure of my candidacy, this sort of revelation took me by a pleasant surprise and I immediately signed up. He promised me a lot of services.
When the application process started, I got to see his and throughMBA's true colours. Siddhartha/Sid, who used to be such a nicely behaved guy originally, turned out to be a stubbornish snob at the end. To every feedback on essays or LOR's, he would call back and have loud and unpleasant conversation all filled with mockery and condescension about me.
Thanks for beatthegmat, I connected with somebody who was himself using their services and he had the same qualms. By this time we had realised that we have got into some trap and signing up with nuts like throughMBA was the mistake that we did.
One of the things that we came to know about throughMBA was that, they were sending the same essays to both of us for the schools that we were both applying to. When we called up Sid asking about it, he transferred the blame to both of us saying that we should not have used the essays provided by him but have make some tweaks ourselves. Eventually we ended up getting no offer from that school.
Sid/Siddhartha and throughMBA is now not contactable.
I make this post just to inform everyone that please make a thorough investigation before signing up with any consultant because its not just your money which is at stake.
Last edited by dhonu121 on Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by wmalum2006 » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:50 am
I don't really know what to say about this but I'm sorry that a consultant couldn't help you through this as well as you hoped.

But at the end of the day, you have to write every essay yourself and only you can have the confidence in yourself to get into a school you want to go to. No consultant can help you feel encouraged enough to get into where you want to go.

did you get into some school you were looking into?

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by dhonu121 » Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:28 am
No. I didnt.
All thanks to the guys from whom I seeked help and whom I mentioned above, the list provided by them seemed to be a facade.
Whatever you say is correct,but then the truth remains that there are a plethora of consultancies emerging all around the world to do exactly what we are not supposed to do.
So this post is meant to make everybody aware of what not to do.
Since I have had such an experience, I considered this as my duty to make everybody aware of that.
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by wmalum2006 » Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:26 am
Okay, I hope everything works out for the better. Though I believe that most such companies are trying to help their clients out for the best, like any other industry, there are always bad apples.

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by tariqal » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:02 pm
Doesn't sound like they were running a scam. Perhaps a badly run organization, but can't say for sure whether it was a scam. But yes, you should always do the heavy lifting yourself and never expect people to give you shortcuts or set-in-stone answers. If they do, then be on the defensive.

Lesson learned.

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by dhonu121 » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:44 pm
Whatever things that are being said here are no doubt true, but then paying large sums of money just to waste precious year on the pretext of getting mentored by some jackasses who send you and everybody else the same piece of content makes no sense at all.
Also, I am not the only one who got fooled. There are others as well.
Lesson learnt:If you are taking mentorship, don't just go for any consulting that lures you by offering you something that you think isn't offered by others. If they are doing this, they are probably trying to increase their clients just to surprise them later, as happened in my case.
ThroughMBA happens to be one of them. I wish I had better things to say about them.
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