Description

Securing a seat in a top MBA program as you complete undergrad provides and insurance plan which allows you to take risks early in your career. You won't need to worry about 'How will this look like to admissions committees?' Over the past 10 years I've supported dozens of successful deferred enrollment applicants who secured seats at HBS, Stanford GSB, Wharton, Chicago Booth, MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Columbia, Berkeley Haas, UCLA and more. (See https://youtu.be/WkYswiVduvc?si=7CPxhczgee7Ki_l0 for one client's success story.) A compelling MBA application is more than a collection of strong individual components. Your goals, essays, resume, recommendations, short answers and interviews should work together to tell a clear, authentic and differentiated story about who you are, where you hope to go and why an MBA is the right next step towards the impact you want to make. My comprehensive coaching package begins by building that foundation. We will start with my Narrative Discovery Workbook, a structured introspection process designed to uncover the experiences, motivations, character traits, career interests and aspirations that have shaped you. Through a combination of independent reflection, my written feedback and live conversations, we will identify the threads that inform your narrative and should carry through your application. From there, we will develop your MBA Strategy Playbook. This becomes our roadmap for the application process, bringing together your anticipated early career steps, career aspiration and goals, the areas you need to develop during an MBA, the key themes and experiences that differentiate you, your school strategy, potential recommenders and other elements that will inform your applications. Only THEN do we move into application development. What we'll work on Application Strategy & School Research We will use your MBA Strategy Playbook to guide the entire application process. For each school, I will guide you through targeted research to understand how each program can address your specific development needs and why it is the right environment for you. That work will provide the foundation for thoughtful, school-specific essays and interviews. Recommendations We will identify the experiences, qualities and examples that will be most useful for your recommenders to understand as they prepare their letters. I will help you create materials that give recommenders the context they need while allowing the recommendation to remain authentically theirs. I am also available to support your recommenders directly if questions arise. Resume Your MBA resume has to do two jobs: function as one component of a cohesive application and stand on its own when an interviewer reviews it without the rest of your application. I will guide you through reworking your resume with both purposes in mind, helping you determine what to emphasize, what to cut and how to communicate your impact clearly and concisely. Essays For each school, we will begin with a live conversation to discuss the prompts, relevant school research, potential stories and the role each essay should play within the overall application. This brainstorming informs the outlines you will create before you begin drafting. Once you write, we will work iteratively. I provide detailed feedback using Track Changes (or suggesting in google docs) so you can see not only what I think should change, but where an idea needs to be pushed further, a story needs more specificity, or a response isn't yet accomplishing what it needs to. We will exchange drafts until you arrive at essays that are clear, compelling and unmistakably yours. Short Answers & Application Questions Some of the shortest questions on an MBA application can require the most strategy. Depending on the program, you may be asked to describe your goals, explain your responsibilities, highlight activities and interests, or provide additional information within very limited character counts. When short answers relate directly to material we are already developing for your essays—such as your career goals—we will address them as part of the essay-development process. We will also review the other substantive questions on the application to make sure your responses work together with your resume and essays. The goal isn't to repeat information the admissions committee can find elsewhere. Where appropriate, we will use these limited character counts to supplement the rest of your application and share another dimension of your experiences, interests or story. Because every program structures and assesses these questions differently, our approach will be tailored to each school's application. Interview Preparation By the time you receive an interview invitation, we will have already spent considerable time developing your application strategy and stories. Interview preparation is about helping you translate that work into a natural, confident conversation—not memorizing a new set of scripted answers. We will review the interview format for the particular program, identify the questions and stories you should be prepared to discuss, and conduct a mock interview followed by detailed feedback. I typically find that one mock interview is sufficient. However, if either of us believes you aren't yet as prepared as you should be, we will continue practicing until you are. How we'll work together I believe the strongest work comes from combining live collaboration with thoughtful asynchronous feedback. During the application development stage, we will typically kick off each major component with a live call. That gives us an opportunity to brainstorm, challenge assumptions, make strategic decisions and ensure that you have a clear direction before you begin working independently. Between calls, we will exchange materials via email. I will review your work carefully and provide detailed written feedback, including track changes on essays and other written materials where appropriate. This allows you to absorb the feedback, think about it and make the material your own rather than trying to solve every problem in real time on a call. The process is structured, but it isn't rigid. If either of us feels that something isn't coming together, or that we simply need to reconnect and reset, we'll get on a call. My role is not to manufacture a story for you or turn your application into something that sounds like everyone else's. It is to ask the questions that uncover what is distinctive about you, help you make strategic choices about what to communicate, and push you to develop each component until the pieces work together as one compelling application. And my support doesn't end when you hit submit. I will remain in your corner through interviews and, when appropriate, deciding which program(s) you want to deposit with to keep in play for the next several years.