Comprehensive MBA Application Package
My experience is centered on getting applicants admitted to top programs (Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, etc.). This package is built for applicants looking to maximize their chance of acceptance, who are willing to take their application process seriously as an opportunity for reflection, learning, and successful advancement. This package includes all of the following, unless we agree on any adaptations. -- School Selection (if needed): We'll develop a list of best-fit schools based on your profile, goals, preferences and risk analysis. -- Initial Kickoff and Planning: We'll pull together any materials you have, and I interview you to get a clear picture of your background, goals, experience, potential recommenders, aspirations, and more. From there, you'll build a custom MBA plan that helps you stay on top of your application. -- Application Strategy: We will develop a narrative that addresses intellectual and academic strengths, leadership and career highlights and goals, as well as personal elements of your profile. -- MBA Resume: We will revise or rebuild your resume in order to optimize its impact in your application(s). -- Recommender Selection: We will assess potential recommender options, pros and cons of each of them, and then build a plan for engaging with them that leads to the best combination of recommenders possible. -- Recommender Preparation: We will assess how to best prep each recommender and develop any docs required, assuring they can be polished and handed off to your recommenders with plenty of time before deadlines. -- Essay Brainstorming and Feedback: Working on essays is more an art than a science, but having more than a decade of experience reading essays gives me a lot of pattern recognition. We will discuss potential topics and themes, your goals for each essay, helping you narrow and focus your effort before writing with purpose. I'll give feedback and suggestions until the essays are ready for submission. As many rounds of feedback and edits included to ensure you have the right final product. -- Activities & Interests and Awards & Honors: We will review all your personal activities, extracurriculars, awards, and honors, assessing how they be presented and described for maximum impact. -- Final Review: I will review and make final suggestions on all your application materials, ensuring everything works together and is in tip-top shape before submission. This includes your past work experience, supplemental essays, etc. -- Interview Preparation: When you receive interview invites, we'll run through mock interviews to ensure you are prepared and confident. -- Waitlist Strategy (if applicable) — If you're waitlisted, I will work with you to be proactive, creating a targeted plan to improve chances of admission. To summarize, we will be partners on this journey, which is dedicated to your overall success, in this admissions cycle and beyond.
What's included
I typically meet with comprehensive clients weekly, and share feedback on materials in process between sessions. Cadence will depend on deadlines and work requirements. We will do what it takes to submit the best application you can build!
- School selection and overall strategy on MBA programs that would be the best fit
- An effective resume that enhances your credibility in the view of admissions evaluators
- Guidance and editing to maximize the impact of your essays in the context of your overall application
- Multiple holistic reviews of your complete draft application, until it is as strong as it can be
- Mock interviews that leave you feeling prepared and confident
- Recommender guidance and prep documents to ensure they write world-class recommendations for you
Meet your expert
Mike H.
Former Director of Programs and Admissions at Stanford GSB
Because I've been an educator (lecturer, coach, consultant, facilitator, program and admissions director) on the topic of leadership', I primarily think of myself as a student. I recognize great leadership takes many forms, and I believe leadership development starts with who you are, what you have to offer, and where you want to go, rather than an abstract idea of what a leader should look or sound like. As we said at the Stanford GSB, it begins not by asking, "what makes a great leader?," but by asking, "why would anybody follow me?" Keep this in mind when applying to school. Maybe there's an archetype of what the perfect applicant looks like, and there are obvious elements that strengthen any application, but the best schools want to recruit people of diverse backgrounds, talents, and perspectives. Rather than trying to fit a particular mold, show how much you would add to the overall mix--intellectually, socially, personally and professionally. In your application, you need to demonstrate why the faculty would value your unique input, why your classmates would learn from your unique experiences, and why the school would be uniquely proud to call you an alum. Having read many applications, I know that what most often stands out are the unexpected things, making an applicant memorable and authentic. Cookie cutter approaches rarely work. Half my career was spent at the Stanford GSB--first as an MBA student, later as Executive Director of the GSB's Center for Leadership Development and Research, and then Director of the Stanford MSx Program and Director of Admissions. I was brought in to the GSB to help oversee the launch of its MBA core leadership curriculum (Leadership Labs, Arbuckle Leadership Fellows, GSB Executive Challenge). Later, I helped revamp the Stanford MSx Program and oversaw admissions. Outside my academic and admissions work, I've had diverse roles: coached and facilitated leadership programs with community leaders and CEOs, worked as a strategy consultant, co-founded a microbrewery, served as a Peace Corps volunteer, been angel investor and advisor to startups. But while I've worn different hats, my approach to making an impact has generally been to help people with great potential to become better leaders. (...OK, maybe the microbrewery had different goals). My recent personal work is focused on the impact that AI is having on leaders, teams, and ...applicants. After writing a book, "Leading Teams in the Era of AI," I became fascinated with the learning and personal development processes that LLMs could support, and turned some of that learning on the admissions process. These experiments led to the launch of MBAI (mbai.app), a platform that uses agentic AI workflows to help MBA applicants develop richer narratives, focused goals, and stronger applications. Sign up and try out some of our tools for free.
