28,827Leland Reviews

Working with Dione was extremely helpful. I found her to be very focused and always pulling me back to the root cause or 'why' of why I was applying to business school. It sounds simple, but this allowed me to not only hone my story but also reflect personally on my motivations for applying so that when interviews came around, I was able to present my best possible self and story. Dione was very flexible, working with me mostly through pushing my thinking on essay edits, and providing helpful interview prep and tips. She was never pushy and great at explaining her logic and how the adcomm might view a certain element in my application.

I highly recommend working with Dione. As I reflect on the past 6 months of my MBA application journey, what I appreciate about Dione the most was her patience to understand who I was. There was no rush for me to start churning out applications, drafting essays, or pushing out recommendations. Instead, Dione and I spent hours speaking about past experiences, stories, and my friends and family. More importantly, she asked me questions that no one else had ever asked me. Questions that made me dig into my goals, dreams, and aspirations to define where I wanted to go professionally. And once I figured that out, Dione and I explored the experiences I needed to have and the skillset I needed to build to get me to where I wanted to go professionally. Through this patient and introspective process, I was able to prepare applications that effectively demonstrated to schools the important role that I wanted them to play in my journey. After it was all said and done, I was offered admission to my dream school. Six months ago, I wouldn't have believed that the excitement of an acceptance call would be matched by the clarity and empowerment that I received from defining my dreams - and game plan to get there - with Dione.

Dione was an incredible and professional consultant throughout the entire application process. First, she walked through my life story and got a feel for what really made me ‘tick’. Next, she helped me develop a strategic plan for my application and we began the arduous process of developing applications for six elite MBA programs. When I sent Dione my drafts, she would always be quick and thorough with reviews. In fact, I found myself hoping (to no avail) that she might take a bit longer so that I could procrastinate. She has a wealth of experience in marketing and communications, so she understood how to focus my messaging. She helped highlight elements of my personal narrative that I had overlooked but that others would find interesting. In addition, she is very kind and is always helpful even with tight deadlines. My applications would have been far more time-consuming and much less focused without her guidance. Prior my first interview, Dione gave me a mock interview. She shared some honest feedback that I really needed to hear; she is always polite but will never withhold feedback that might help an applicant. In the end – of my six elite target schools – I was admitted to four and am currently waitlisted at one. I received 2 full tuition scholarships and a sizeable scholarship from another program. I have decided to go to MIT Sloan School of Management, and I couldn’t be happier! Thanks Dione!

Dione helped me to prepare for my interview with the GSB. She gave me a LOT of very honest feedback. She pointed out my strengths and weaknesses and managed to give me a clear overview of what was expected of my answers. She helped both polishing my stories and presentation and I really appreciated her supporting words trying to bring my nerves down. I cannot believe we covered so much in the short time we had together. As I got my acceptance call I couldn't wait to share the news with Dione as I feel she really had a big impact on the result.

Laura Nelson was very meticulous, knowledgeable and always ready to assist throughout the entire process of admissions. I just received my letter of acceptance and couldn't be happier!

Like many others who frequent Poets & Quants, I almost went with a consultant from the top 10 list they publish every year. It was actually through luck that one of those consultants referred me to Pam, as they saw us as a better fit. Unlike most candidates, I was already quite far along in my application process. My initial intention on hiring a consultant was to have a second set of eyes on my essays and someone to tweak my resume. A few sessions into working together, I discovered she would bring immense value that I didn’t even know I needed. She diligently gave me feedback on essays, helped me brainstorm and craft my story on certain pieces that needed to be scrapped last minute and counseled me through school selection. She’s down-to-earth and amicable to work with, but will tell you the blatant truth when you need to hear it so expectations are set. I appreciate her efforts in meeting turnaround times and for giving me a thumbs up ONLY when she believed my work was at its best. During an unfortunate testing crisis, she supported me emotionally and talked me through my options. At the end, I was accepted to Duke with a $60,000 merit scholarship (which I had not expected but thanks to her was made possible). If you are looking for a consultant to guide you, I cannot recommend her enough. She only accepts a handful of candidates every year so I would reach out to her as soon as you feel comfortable starting your application process. Through this pandemic crisis, Pam has supported me and provided regular check-ins as both a friend and an advisor. She helped me through the waitlist process for one of my schools, giving me helpful feedback on updates I wanted to send AdCom. When I approached her asking to retry one of the M7 schools I was previously rejected to, she was supportive and transparent. Instead of jumping the gun and agreeing like most consultants would, she carefully reassessed my new profile (with added accomplishments I had achieved since the last round) before giving me honest feedback on my chances of acceptance. Together we decided to move forward in pursuing the opportunity. Like always, she was consistently responsive and gave me invaluable critique on my essays and resume updates. I was working with a tight timeline knowing that my full tuition deposit was due at another school soon, but Pam guided me along the way and told me to reach out to AdCom whenever necessary. Long story short, I received an interview (of which she prepped me for), she followed up to ask how the interview went (as a good advisor would) and a day later I was accepted to Columbia, the school of my dreams. If you didn’t read anything else above, read this: Advisors like Pam are rare and hard to come by. I hope you’ll be lucky enough to work with her!

It has been my life goal to go back to business school but this dream has always been pushed aside due to other competing priorities in my life. Finally, after 10+ years of work experience across the globe, i knew that the time was right for me to get into the EMBA programs in the top business schools. While preparing for an exam and getting a good score was something that I always excelled in, I knew that the second half of the process – Essay writing, Choosing the right school and most importantly knowing how to get through this was definitely alien to me. Pamela was a recommendation through a friend, who herself had worked with her as an admissions consultant. The first time I spoke to Pamela, she was patient and spent her time trying to understand my profile. There are many reasons why I think she is amazing at what she does but for me personally, I felt immediately comforted and knew right away that she was someone who will be my support system and ally to get me into Business School. That’s why I chose her. 1) Focus on the story and not the content : Very early in the process, she asked me to forget the essays, interviews and spent countless hours trying to make my story and target goals clear. This was invaluable and the right approach as once we finalized on that, all the other components of the application process were easy. 2) Honesty and transparency : Pamela is focussed on sticking by her principles of being honest and is a perfectionist. She is clear that if my work didn’t sound good, she would be upfront to me. Looking back, I’m thankful for her and this inherently made me believe her and trust her more. 3) Experience and well connected : Being an AIGAC consultant, she is part of the industry and makes it a point to attend conferences and keep herself abreast about any changes. Even though my contract with her was focussed on just one school, she did educate me of the other schools which were achievable and encouraged me to try those schools as well. 4) Hard worker who goes above and beyond : I had less than two months to complete my application. Being a full time employee, i had limited time availability to connect. She tried her best to be flexible to make sure that we could connect weekly. There were numerous times when she stretched at her end to make sure that my deadlines were met. Needless to say, I can vouch for her as an admission consultant and I’m certain that she will be an invaluable asset for you.

As a non-traditional MBA applicant, Laura's advice was invaluable. Laura helped me identify the best examples from my background to include in my application materials. With her assistance, I molded these leadership stories into great essays that emphasized my strong transferable skills. Her support was essential to my admission into a top MBA program. I would highly recommend Laura to anyone applying to top MBA programs--especially candidates with more unusual backgrounds. She will help you build the best case for your admission.

I worked with Laura Nelson and had a great experience. The process is a lot of work, so I would suggest starting early. It is pretty easy to write good essay, but really hard to write great ones! Laura helped me craft an interesting story that combined my career goals and past work and academic experiences into an engaging story. She also pushed me to convince the admissions committee “why” a specific MBA program is right for me. I got into my top two schools (even with a below average GMAT). Laura was great and I would recommend that anyone use her (services).

Let me start by stating that I am definitely not a good standardized tester. My SAT scores weren't overwhelmingly stellar so I knew the GMAT would definitely be a challenge. That being said I tried all different manners of studying in order to make sure I was at my peak performance for my test day, but if I were to do it again I would definitely start with the private tutoring from Josh. He gave me a variety of incredible strategies and helped instill some fantastic study habits in me. With his help I was able to increase my scores in almost every category and break into a high enough percentile to have a shot at my dream schools. I initially had reservations about online tutoring but I can't stress it enough that it is just as good as in person tutoring. I was even able to schedule sessions BEFORE work so that my brain was at its freshest! If you're tentative about taking the dive, I highly recommend Josh. He will work with your schedule and budget to create a study plan that's perfect for you!