Hi guys,
A friend of mine is applying to MBA programs in Canada and US. Have any of you had any experience with an MBA consulting service? He needs resume/essay reviews and such. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
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I think admissions consulting could be useful if you fall into one of two groups: you are a non-native english speaker and need a lot of help with essays or you have a top-notch resume and could probably get in regardless but are willing to pay the money for a peace of mind. Sandy "HBSGuru" Kreisberg gets a lot of the latter type as his clients.
By and large though, I compare admissions consultants to political consultants-that is, it's very difficult to quantify how much value they actually added and whether the result would have been different otherwise. Both groups also get paid an upfront fee rather than based on performance. And in my opinion, both groups are parasitic, preying on potential clients' vulnerabilities and insecurities through flattery and distortion.
I have talked to people at pretty much every admissions firm out there: stacy blackman, veritas, aringo, amerasia, mbamission, clearadmit, stratus, admissionado. Some of them were a bit more impressive than others, mostly because the person was a really good salesman. But none of them could convince me that their insight/service was so valuable that i should spend $2500 PER application for their services. What makes it worse is that you don't know the quality of their service until you actually pay them the full fee, but by that point it's too late if you realize that it's not that great.
I wrote my experiences with several consultants. See the forum http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/admission-consultants
I've worked with a few in the past, and from everyone I talked to, Sandy is def. the best.
My critique of b-school admissions consulting (Originally Posted: 11/07/2011)
As everyone knows, b-school admissions consulting is now a huge business. My post is purely my personal opinion, and I'm sure many, including virtually all consultants, will disagree. This is not meant to be a personal attack on the consultants or the work they do; rather, it's just my reflection after having used a major service and from talking to many of these people.
Having said that, I have two major critiques.
Many consultants, in order to make more money, exaggerate potential clients' chances at various schools. Usually, they will say something along the lines of, "one of our clients got into wharton last year with a 650 GMAT after we polished his essays." Problem with this is obvious. It sheds no light on the applicant's background, experiences, extracurricular achievments, other special circumstances, etc. As a matter of fact, one consulting service on its website shows a list of sub-700 scorers who were accepted at various top schools but with no other information. I talked to the CEO of this firm and raised my objection with such advertising. Her response was, "well I can't give you more info on these clients since that's confidential." I replied, "But that's critically important. Just giving a laundry list of scores and where they got in, sheds no light on the admissions process or the value your service actually added." She then quickly changed the subject.
The payment system is quite distorted, in my opinion. Aside from the fact that most services charge $2500/school, they demand the entire payment upfront before any work is done and with no chance for any sort of refund. I believe that this actually disincentivizes consultants from putting in their 100%. After all, they are getting paid regardless of the quality of their work or what schools you get into. Furthermore, most consultants will have multiple clients, and you are not going to get quick feedback or the personal attention that these firms advertise.
This will obviously never happen, but I think there's a better way to go about this. Consultants should initially charge a much lower fee for the applications. In return, however, they will sign a contract with their clients whereby they will get paid a bonus depending on the admission results. I believe this will accomplish two things. First, it will provide a very strong incentive for the consultants to put in their 110%, and second, it will encourage them to only accept clients who have a legit shot at the schools they are applying to.
damn i never even knew there were consultants to get you into b school...you must be rich or debt hungry!
It ultimately comes down to your determination and willingness to get into a bschool. Yea you can't change your GPA, but you can excel at work, rock the GMAT, have impressive EC, and blow off your essays. Bschool "consultants'' can't determine how bad you want it. If you want it really bad, you will make sure you're a competitive applicant. Pay me instead and I'll tell exactly what they will.
B school applying is a crap shot. The admissions process is 5% objective and 95% subjective, there's no formula for admissions. These consultants would never base their commissions/fees on a run rate of success because when it comes down to it, they have no idea why you would have gotten in or been rejected from a top school. If you get in and used a consultant, then they will take the credit. If rejected and used them, they will give you a hug and say it's tough and there's no science behind this process, and then offer you a "ding analysis" for another $2500 where they cna take another guess at why you were rejected, the process is actually quite lucrative and some guys have made millions doing this stuff. I know of one wh's now a VCer.
If you want to get into a top b-school, you're better off learning more abnout the school and crafting your essays by knwoing current students there and getting the inside on what the school's looking for at that point in time. Then, yes, using one of these guys to bounce your writing/syntax and style off them to craft your essay will help. Essentially, they are useful, and i bite my tongue with that word, to clean up the style of the essays, but if you're looking for them for content or fundamental strategy in positioning yourself for admission, look inward, not out. They don't know, and for $2500 I'd much rather trust yourself in developing your marketing pitch for the school than some random person who knows me only via the phone and really could care less whether I am admitted or not, because as you said, they collect up front.
Socola, very well put. I agree almost entirely with what you wrote. Thankfully, I have a few good friends who are at top 5 schools this year, and they agreed to help me out with my essays next year. And I have other friends who are applying this year, and they too will also help me as much as possible.
I think you're correct in that b-school consultants have a compensation structure that isn't well aligned with their customers. Instead of complaining about it, start a business that does it better. There's a good chunk of change in that industry.
The flip side, of course, is that whether the applicant gets into school or not, the consultant is likely putting in a good amount of work, applicants like hearing that they have a shot at HBS, and to tell them not to apply won't win over many customers.
Figure out the right balance, come up with a good business plan, and you won't need to go to b-school.
85% of the people who apply don't get in, and the outcome is binary. If they were to base their compensation based on success, they'd never make money. For example, when we do some kind of risk agreement with our client, it's not one of those save $200M and you get all the money or save $199M and you get nothing. It's more of a percentage based agreement. Since Wharton won't admit you 57%, those consultants have a very high risk of losing. Plus, they will charge what you pay. One other interesting part is that their job is very seasonal. They are literally doing this work for only 4 months a year, so have to make up the money for rest of the year.
From my end, expecting to find them somewhat useful, especially for essay review.
the most successful guys i know never even considered b-school:
everyone i know who got GSB, wharton or HBS credentials are still working their shitty 200K jobs
b-school is more debt and more time wasted for the cubicle slave. i don't care if it's harvard or whatever. you will make it if you got it and an MBA won't substitute for what you don't have.
To the OP, the whole admissions consulting game is a scam. I really don't see how the WSO heads will so fervently pimp out Stacy Blackman and their ilk. They must be getting a good cut of that $2500 back.
What admissions consulting firms can member here recommend? (Originally Posted: 07/11/2012)
Can anyone here recommend a b-school consulting firm? They are literally like a dime a dozen and its hard to figure out which are actually worth their high costs.
Any personal anectdotes/experiences for or against?
Stacy Blackman spent a lot of time helping people out on this site. Great rep from what I hear.
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/ask-stacy-blackman-consulting-bus…
There was just a good thread on this: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/admission-consultants
Aringo consulting (Originally Posted: 10/13/2011)
Has anyone used Aringo for b-school admissions consulting? I talked to their ceo recently about the possibility of using their services next year.
What's interesting about Aringo is that they publicize the percentage of their clients who were accepted at various top b-schools. They're also big about helping those under a gmat score of 720 and have a partial list of people with sub-700 who were accepted at top schools. When I was talking to the ceo, I told her, "I'm willing to bet my life that not a single one of those people was an Asian-American male in finance. Guys like me don't get into schools like wharton/booth/columbia with anything below a 700." She did not have a good response to that.
Anyways, if anyone has used Aringo I would love to hear their thoughts.
If you have under a 700, why don't you just take it again?
I don't think Aringo is one of the better consultants out there.
I broke 700, but my quant score isn't that great, so i want to retake it and see if i can get in the 740-750 range.
What have you heard about Aringo? Any consultants you recommend?
I haven't heard much about them (i.e. no one I know in finance/consulting has used them). From what I gather, most people use Amerasia, Stacy Blackman (though mixed reviews), and Inside MBA Admissions (think they run all the MBA presentations for the big companies). That being said, there are a lot of other good ones out there that seem to know what they're doing, but obviously have different strengths (essay editing, complete package, etc. etc.)
I've said it before - I'd use only Sandy or Alex. Most other consultants are crap, with a few exceptions. I don't buy all these stories of some consultancies about how they helped some 600-gmat waiter get into MIT. Usually these people had something great in their background and the consultants did nothing more than help them put together a good app. As Sandy puts it, consultants cannot turn you from a long shot into an admit; they can only make sure that you don't get dinged because you screwed up your application.
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