Betsy M.
5.0
HKS & MPP Expert | 95% Success Rate | Former Hill Staffer and HBS MBA
Studied at Harvard Business School
Works at Master Admissions
Available Monday at 7:00 PM UTC
Have a few spots available for Round 1.
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Betsy's Coaching Offerings
Nail the Admissions Interview
Practice realistic mock Master's interviews with a trained expert
Starting at $7653h+ of coaching
Polish your Master's Application Resume
Polish and optimize your resume for top Master's program applications.
Starting at $5102h+ of coaching
Pay as you go
Get help with Financial Aid & Scholarships, Editing, and .
Betsy’s Master’s Programs Qualifications
Coaches professionally
20+ people coached for Master’s Programs
Betsy has helped clients get into these schools:
Here's something people don't know about me: prior to business school, I worked on Capitol Hill and for a lobby group of business CEOs. I chose not to go to HKS because I didn't need more politics in my life. However, policy is in my blood, and I love working on the all MPP type applications, including Columbia's SIPA or Georgetown, or Johns Hopkins SAIS. For the Kennedy School, in the two-year and the mid-career program I have close to a 95% success rate. That's because in addition to thinking like a policy wonk, I consider these applications a labor of love. There's no interview for HKS, and the application and resume are demanding! But I'm here for it.
Betsy can help with:
Financial Aid & Scholarships
Editing
Interviews
Waitlist Strategy
School Selection
Secondary Review
Application Strategy
Essays
Resume
Letters of Recommendation
About Betsy
Betsy founded Master Admissions back in 2009 and has worked with hundreds of candidates on their successful admission the top business schools in the world. She was one of the pioneering women graduates of Harvard Business School, worked on Wall Street and in Asia, and was been a long-time communications and career coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She worked for Goldman Sachs right out of business school and has spent much of her career in and around the financial industry, working for both investment banks and investment management firms. Before moving to the Bay Area, she lived in Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong for 10 years. At Stanford, drawing on her skills from her time as a writer, journalist, and editor, she advised Stanford MBA students on the Critical Analytical Thinking course and coached first and second year students on their resumes and presentation skills. Betsy is a lifetime member of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club, and when not counseling applicants for Master Admissions, ice skates, practices Spanish, sails in in a wooden boat and was recently president of the Harvard Club of San Francisco, the third-largest Harvard alumni association in the world. One of her HBS classmates once called her one of the "five funniest women I know."
Why do I coach?
I believe that every candidate applying to business school owns an exceptional story, and that story is the key to your application. This philosophy is based on my own experience applying to business school, and that of the many students whom I have helped. Indeed, my profile three years before applying to business school did not appear to have “top business school” written all over it. I hadn’t taken math since the eighth grade. My grade point average had been no higher than 3.0, if that. Furthermore, my SAT scores had been in the low 500s, and I was petrified of the GMAT. I had not worked in banking/consulting/engineering, but worked on Capitol Hill and later as a legislative assistant to a lobby group. Two and a half years later and I was on my way to Harvard Business School after turning down places at Stanford (with financial aid), Wharton, Chicago Booth, and local, University of Virginia’s Darden School. It’s all about finding the extraordinary in who you really are. Now I realize i was both lucky and strategic. And after having reviewed thousands of essays, maybe even millions of drafts, I'm still excited about learning students' stories and finding out what makes YOU special. I do this job because it's fun, and because the students I work with have fun too -- not every second, because we keep our eyes on the prize. But I am always inspired by candidates I work with. And that's why I coach.
Work Experience
Founder & CEO
Master Admissions
2008 - Present
Hiring Manager
I've successfully coached hundreds of candidates and counted over 175 Harvard, Stanford, Wharton admits over the years who have gone on to do some amazing things! These wonderful applicants are are Baker Scholars and Arjay Miller Fellows, they are CEOs of some companies you know and love, or are VC and PE investors funding the same. They have gotten jobs and are now advancing their careers in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the US. Some are now elected officials, others appointed in city, state and federal government, some work for non-profits and others work for hedge funds. I couldn't be prouder. I started Master Admissions after a long career in the financial markets on the buy and sell sides, in marketing and writing/editing, These experiences underlie the process that helps candidates show their own authentic selves in their applications to business school. Master Admissions acts as a campaign manager and coach. We review work and life experiences and carefully elicit the tangible and measurable accomplishments that the applicant may not have recognized as important. If I don't have the expertise in something, I know someone who does, and we advise you together. If you need me to introduce you to someone, I'll do that too. Also: board member and past President of the Harvard Club of San Francisco, helped shepherd a club with 25,000 members in the Bay Area into its next 150 years.
Past President and Current Board Member
Harvard Club of San Francisco
2000 - Present
The Harvard Club of San Francisco, founded 150 years ago, represents 25,000 alumni from all 13 schools, from the undergraduate college to the medical school to the divinity school, all within Harvard University. In recent years the club has dedicated over 1000 hours of community service. The Harvard Club of San Francisco has granted over $2.5 million in scholarships in the last four decades to 500+ students from the Bay Area.
Communications & Resume Coach for GSB Students
Stanford University Graduate School of Business
August 2009 - January 2014
Official coach for the required Critical Analytical Thinking course; also coach or GSB Career Management Center on resumes, Executive Challenge coach, and coach on the LOW Keynote presentations for Stanford MBA and MsX students -- helping them with executive presence and communication skills in TED-talk like presentations. Editor for professors' academic publications (finance, marketing, accounting, operations, and more fun stuff!)
VP, Consultant, Project Manager, Advisor
Euromoney Institutional Investor
February 1987 - December 2013
Academic journals: Journal of Retirement, Journal of Portfolio Management, Journal of Private Equity and Journal of Trading. Over the years I've been an editor, journalist, project consultant, researcher and marketing VP. New York, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, San Francisco
Manager - Global Investment Commentary
Franklin Templeton
August 2006 - February 2009
Hiring Manager
Managed a team of sophisticated investment professoinals who analyzed market performance and wrote best-in-industry investment reports on fund strategy and activities in all asset classes: US and global equity, fixed income, real estate and exotics. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Principal - Global Index and Markets Group
BlackRock
November 2000 - November 2003
Barclays Global Investors was the world's largest asset manager before its acquisition by BlackRock. Based in San Francisco.
Director - Instutitional Sales
Barclays
1996 - 1998
Sold Taiwanese equities to global institutional investors, based in Hong Kong
Director - Asian Equities
J.P. Morgan
1994 - 1996
Worked for Jardine Fleming, #1 secuities broker in Asia. Sold Asian equities, based in Hong Kong after living in Taiwan for three years working for a local investment firm.
Associate Director
Deutsche Bank
1985 - 1987
Worked for Bankers Trust, acquired by DeutcheBank, in fixed income institutional sales on Wall Street. (130 Liberty Street).
Associate
Goldman Sachs
1982 - 1985
Fixed income investment banking on Wall Street in New York, New York. (85 Broad Street)
Education
Harvard Business School
MBA, Finance
Recently, President of the Harvard Club of San Francisco, which represents over 25,000 alumni in the Bay Area of California from 13 of Harvard University's schools.
Vassar College
B.A., Political Science
50 Reviews
Overall Rating
5.0
Betsy has helped clients get into these schools: