Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

RBBmba@2014 wrote:@Sameer - do you've any update on this Sir ? It'd be interesting to note the findings, I think

Nope, no updates.

From machichi's profile page, seems like he hasn't been active on the site for almost 2 years.

Wow! that's a closed file then,I presume

Anyways, thanks for your reply.

I just posted a new video to Youtube that deals with how you can perform due diligence on any MBA Admissions Firm or Consultant you're thinking about working with. You can view it here: https://fxmbaconsulting.com/find-best-mb ... diligence/
Hope it proves helpful.

If you are even considering working with an MBA consultant, be sure to talk to Scott at Personal MBA Coach first. From essay writing to recommendation letter support to general application questions, Scott is always available and has great insights. The best part about working with Scott is how well he gets to know you early in the process. This helps not only when cultivating your story but also when writing essays.

Prior to working with Scott, I wondered how a single person would be able to do so much but he exceeded my expectations by miles. He challenges you to think carefully and methodically about your application and his ability to provide feedback on a holistic application is impressive. He is always available via phone and E-Mail.

Thanks to Scott at Personal MBA Coach, I will be attending my dream school, Harvard Business School, next fall.

Admitted to LBS with the help of Fortuna Admissions!!!

I would highly recommend Fortuna Admissions and specifically Emma Bond for anyone looking to apply to the LBS MBA program. Emma previously worked in LBS' admissions team and knows the process requirements and what the Admissions Committee looks for inside out! She is also extremely helpful in highlighting information about the school that you may not otherwise know of that would be relevant to your goals / areas of interest. I chose an hourly strategy session with Emma to plan my essays and discuss my goals. During this session she helped point out specifics about the school I should me mentioning in my essays, and how to structure my thoughts. I then signed up for the Director's review package which involves a couple of revisions of my essays and a quick review of my references and applications. What I loved about Emma was that she did not stop until she felt my essays were as strong as they could be and reviewed each one 3 times. She also truly pushed me to highlig ht my strengths, helped me rephrase thoughts and ideas to make them as concise and sharp as possible, and all in all expertly guided me towards submitting the strongest application possible, which ended up in admission to the MBA Programme! She was also extremely helpful with the interview preparation. Emma's experience with and knowledge of LBS makes her the very best consultant to work with when applying to the school!!! She is also genuinely caring and a lovely person to work with. You won't regret working with her!

A seasoned Admissions consultant would behave just like the admissions officers at premier MBA schools. He'd be brutally honest to only let in the very best. He would have profile screening filters, before accepting candidates for assistance -

• Decent undergrad education with good academic performance.
  Well rounded exposure to extra-curricular activities.
  Linear work experience with a steady upward gradient in responsibilities and leadership opportunities.
  A decent GMAT score over 700.

If these are in place, the admissions consultant would then look at essays. If he can ensure the following in your essays & rest of the admission package, you can be assured of admission in whichever school you wish for -

• Considerable maturity
  Clear purpose, defined goals and focused action
  Succinct, Practical and Pragmatic
  Down to earth attitude with complete absence of hyperbole
  Honesty and yearning for learning and growing
  Empathy for fellow mankind and mother earth (seriously)

There is no good or bad Admissions consultant. You'd only know by the past performance, which is reflected by the client testimonials.

I apologize if my post is repeated; I'm not sure if my post was listed in two places.

I worked with Scott Edinburgh at Personal MBA Coach for three MBA applications and scholarship essays. We agreed to work on one application at a time. His process was the same for all three applications and the quality of his work were outstanding.

I wanted to complete the HEC application in time for the first round deadline. We started working on it two weeks beforehand. I was stuck on parts of the application, particularly the international experience and essay questions, and knew that my application needed a lot of work. I traveled at least once a year for leisure and wasn't sure how to incorporate that information into the application. My first draft attempted to describe the highlights of every vacation trip. Scott suggested choosing one or two experiences to help tie them into the rest of the application.

Scott helped me figure out how to make my application stand out: his edits articulated my thoughts in a concise manner. His comments were invaluable because they gave me direction on what information was missing or needed to be clarified to make the essays more compelling. His comments guided me towards elaborating on the main idea to help show rather than tell the idea and to carefully craft an interesting takeaway message for each essay. It look about five drafts before we were both satisfied with the final product. Scott was encouraging throughout the process. We were able to meet the deadline.

Most of my communication was via email and I received his comments and suggestions on my drafts in 48 hours or less. We went over his comments over the phone for the first couple of drafts to ensure my essay answered the application questions. It was very helpful to be able to be reach him on weekends and after 5pm during the weekdays. Scott helped prep me for the interviews with two HEC alums. Each mock interview was about an hour long. Afterwards, we went over my responses to the potential questions and discussed what would be a better response.

After my letter of acceptance, the school noted there was a one week deadline to apply for certain scholarships. I paid an additional amount for Scott's help with two scholarship essays because I value his suggestions and edits. We were able to meet the deadline and I received an award for one of the scholarships.
I strongly recommend working with Scott. Without his help, I would not have been able to be accepted into HEC Paris. His quick turnaround time and helpful comments really made the difference.

When doing my initial search for an admissions consultant, I was first drawn to the big-name consulting companies. Yet, after doing more research I realized that I did not merely want to be another faceless customer at one of these big firms. I knew that I needed the personalized support that Scott @ Personal MBA Coach provides in order to get through the application process in one piece. The whole application process, from b-school research to essay writing, is intensive, time-consuming, and stressful. I highly recommend Scott as the person ripe for the job to get you through it-with success. Truth be told, Scott gets into the minutiae of the entire application, including the 50 character explanations for my ECs in your undergraduate studies. From countless essay edits to much-needed mock interviews, Scott was there for me at every step.

Scott's one-on-one support is exactly what I needed to conquer this arduous process and engineer an admission to my dream school of Columbia.

I used Scott Edinburgh (Personal MBA Coach) to help me navigate the admissions process and could not be happier. From our initial discussion, Scott listened to my story (quite non-traditional) and guided me to focus on the unique aspects of my profile. From that point forward, he fine-tuned my essays, even recommending that I entirely redo one of them. I found him to be quite blunt and honest throughout the process, motivating me to work harder and to make every word count- be it be for my resume, essays, or bullet points for recommenders. After sending Scott a document for review, I usually received his feedback within 24-48 hours (sometimes even faster). I was ultimately accepted to my school of choice (and invited for an interview at my second option)! I would highly recommend Scott to anyone looking for personalized MBA admissions assistance.

Applying to MBA programs can be a daunting task. Between writing the essays, preparing for interviews, and finally deciding on a school that fits, the entire experience is rigorous. Scott prepared me for every single step of the process. He guided me on targeting the programs I was interested in, helped me brainstorm and compose the essays, and trained me for the interviews. I am happy to say I was accepted to every single school I applied to; UCLA Anderson, NYU Stern, Georgetown McDonough, and USC Marshall. I would not have been able to accomplish this without Scott's guidance. His experience helped me complete entire applications in a matter of days with minimal stress. I highly recommend Scott if you are serious about being accepted to the best MBA programs available to you.

I can speak to my experience of working with Emma Bond at Fortuna admissions - I was accepted to LBS in R1 (i.e. in Nov 2016), after being waitlisted in Feb 2016 in the prior year of applications. With such a short gap between applications, Emma's inputs elevated my application by making it more personal and more differentiated, thus creating a more compelling case the second time around.

Starting from an in-depth assessment of my prior app packet, Emma's experience from LBS really helped - she brought a critical eye to my earlier application. Through the process, my feeling was that of a live ad com evaluation, and an honest assessment of why I was waitlisted and what I'd likely need to do to cross the next hurdle.

I followed this up with an hourly service for essay review and interview prep. Emma's prior consulting & LBS experience meant she was able to relate to my personal + career progression, and highlight experiences that made me stand out. Our interactions were informal yet candid, which made working with her very easy even through a tight timeline and juggling multiple pieces of the application packet. Her feedback pushed me out of my comfort zone and towards crafting something that spoke less about only what I do, and more about who I am. Similar to the experience nearly everyone has had with Fortuna, Emma's turnaround was both super-quick and super-detailed (I still can't figure out how both go together! ). From my first draft to the final version, I was able to clearly see the difference in story that Emma's inputs helped craft. Similarly during interview prep, Emma's inputs helped me better project who I am and brought a sense of informality to my story, as opposed to a linear approach that I'd typically have followed.

I definitely feel Emma's inputs helped me in crafting a better, more rounded and personal application second time around, and was the biggest influence in helping me secure a place at LBS within six months of a prior application decision. I'd definitely recommend working with Emma and Fortuna for LBS!

At the start of my MBA journey, I had never written an essay, did not know what leadership experience was and could not think of anything that distinguished me from the thousands of other well-qualified candidates. Thanks to Scott Edinburgh as my Personal MBA Coach, I was not only admitted to all 5 top 15 programs I applied to, but was also awarded scholarships totalling over $200k.

Navigating the MBA admissions process is a major project in itself. Luckily there are rockstars like Scott Edinburgh who make the entire process so much easier. Being an international applicant with an unconventional background, I had no idea how to craft a powerful narrative to tell admission officers my story (when starting out, I did not even fully know what my story actually was).

Scott broke the entire process down in easy-to-understand components and tackled them with me one by one. As you will discover when working with him, his thorougness and attention-to-detail is second to none. As a result, he unconvered several great topics I had too readily discarded and helped me turn them into outstanding essays.

When I then showed him my first essay drafts, Scott did his job - and ripped them apart! Imagine Scott as a tough coach: he will be relentless in pushing yourself to your limits and beyond. You may wish that he'd be easier on you, but once you are smiling from the top of the podium, you know how valuable his input was.

To be perfectly clear: the above is in no way to say that Scott is a mean guy - the complete opposite is true. Scott is with you every step of the way offering plenty of encouragement. He genuinely cares about your success. Despite a substantial time difference, Scott was always available to answer my questions, even on very short notice if necessary.

However, Scott's work did not stop once I received the good news that I was admitted. He acted as a sounding board, helped me weigh my options and also assisted me in drafting a letter to the admissions office that ultimately got me additional scholarship money!

If your goal is to get in a top MBA program and you want customized and personalized support at a very fair price, look no further - Personal MBA Coach Scott Edinburgh is the guy for you.

I searched around on the internet for weeks and used introductory consultations from more than 5 different admissions consulting services prior to selecting Scott of Personal MBA Coach to assist me on an hourly basis with my applications. My only regret was that I chose to use Scott for just a couple of hours for each of my applications rather than purchasing more extensive packages for each school.

In addition to Scott's impressive background as an MIT and Wharton graduate and his extensive track record of success in assisting MBA applicants to get accepted to their target schools, there are a few aspects of Scott's Personal MBA Coach services that I believe really separate him from most MBA consulting services:

1. Rather than provide me with cookie cutter advice and examples, Scott made a true effort to get to know me on a personal level first. Once he really knew me, he then helped me decide which of my features and accomplishments would be the best to focus on in essays and applications.

2. Scott works around the clock and made every effort to work with me whenever was best for my schedule. This flexibility ranged from calls at 7 and 8 in the morning prior to work to help me develop my essay strategies to 10 pm on a Friday to conduct a mock interview for my interview the following week. Despite his busy schedule, Scott did a great job of meeting whenever was best for me and typically found time within just 24 hours of my request. This was invaluable when applying to multiple schools within tight deadlines.

3. Scott's advice was always honest and intended to help me create the best applications possible rather than to increase the number of hours I would require him (and in turn his own pay). Scott never pressured me to use him/pay him more and simply explained what he could do in the time that I purchased from him and what he thought was the most efficient use of his time. He worked super efficiently in the time I purchased from him.

Overall, I was extremely satisfied with the service that Scott of Personal MBA Coach provided me.