Uncover YOUR Unique Story! - Narrative Discovery and MBA Strategy Playbook
Embark on your MBA journey with confidence and clarity through the MBA Strategy Playbook, crafted from the Narrative Discovery Workbook. This personalized coaching plan is designed to help you navigate the complex MBA application process with a strategic edge, ensuring your unique story and strengths shine through. With two decades of experience as the Director at Stratus Admissions Counseling and a former admissions committee member at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, I've guided countless clients to successful admissions at top-tier programs like Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, and more. My approach is rooted in understanding your aspirations and crafting a tailored strategy that aligns with your goals. Here's how we'll work together: 1. **Narrative Discovery**: We'll kick off with me providing direction for sharing life experiences that have informed your interests, passions and motivations. Next, you'll identify your 'North Star,' exploring dream roles without any restrictions. Then, we will discuss potential career paths that build on your experience to date and align with your values and the impact you want to make before identifying specific roles that you would target post-MBA. We'll discuss failures and constructive feedback. Finally, we'll uncover the WHY behind your aspirations. 2. **Application Strategy Development**: Based on what we discover, we'll craft a strategic playbook with your goals and areas for development, research into resources at one target program, and key themes that you will highlight across your application. This document will serve as the foundation for building your applications. 3. **School Selection**: Choosing the right MBA program is pivotal. We'll work together to identify schools that align with your career goals, values, and learning style. I'll provide insights into each program's culture, strengths, and opportunities, ensuring you apply to schools where you'll thrive. 4. **Recommender Selection**: Often the best information that admissions committees recieve is from someone who knows you well and is willing to sing your praises. Selecting recommenders who will be your advocates and can showcase your strengths through specific examples is essential to putting together the strongest possible applications. Throughout our interactive sessions and homework assignments, you'll receive ongoing guidance, feedback, and resources to refine your MBA application strategy. My goal is to empower you to present a compelling, authentic application that resonates with admissions committees and secures your place at your dream school. Let's transform your MBA aspirations into reality with a plan that's as unique as your journey. Once you complete your MBA Strategy Playbook, you might opt to work with me hourly for support on preparing your recommenders, revamping your resume, brainstorming, outlining and writing essays and prepping for interviews. Please note, this package does not include work on applications.
What's included
Over the course of 4-5 weeks we will connect every week or so and I will give you assignments to complete on your own. When you share your work with me I will review it and provide feedback before we reconnect to discuss next steps. This is not just a brainstorming dump but an interactive engagement during which you will uncover your goals as you prepare to tackle the applications themselves. I'm committed to 2 business day turnaround.
- A personalized MBA strategy playbook that serves as a foundation for developing the components of your MBA applications.
Meet your expert
Susan C.
20+ year exp. Thousands of acceptances at M7 & T15. Top rated on P&Q.
I bring more than 20 years of MBA admissions experience to my work with applicants—including 10 years on the admissions committee at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and more than 11 years coaching professionals through the MBA application process. I have reviewed thousands of applications and helped applicants get accepted to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT Sloan, Booth, Kellogg, and other leading MBA programs. Since 2021, my clients have received >$12 million in merit scholarships and have been selected as Forté Fellows, Consortium Fellows, and recipients of other competitive awards. My experience on both sides of the admissions process shapes the way I coach. At Fuqua, I learned firsthand what makes an applicant memorable—and how often accomplished candidates undersell themselves, rely on generic stories, or present what they think an admissions committee wants to hear. As an admissions coach, my job is to help clients do the opposite. I work closely with applicants to uncover the experiences, motivations, and patterns that distinguish them; clarify where they want to go and why; and translate that thinking into an application that is both strategic and genuinely their own. I am particularly focused on helping clients move beyond simply describing what they have done to communicating how the impact they have had, the choices they have made, the person behind the résumé inform their aspirations for business school and beyond. My coaching style is thoughtful, candid, and highly personalized. I will ask a lot of questions, push you to dig deeper, and tell you when something is not working. I won’t manufacture a story for you or turn your application into something that sounds like an admissions consultant wrote it. In order to provide the level of service that earned me an 85 Net Promoter Score over the past six years, I take a limited number of clients in each round. The goal is a compelling application that sounds unmistakably like you—and gives an admissions committee a clear reason to want you in its community.
