Best in the business

David and I first made contact around last March. I had talked to a few other consultants beforehand, and I told myself that I wasn’t going to let the stellar reviews for Menlo bias my approach – I was committed to talking to each consultant with a blank slate and pick the one that was the best for me. It quickly became apparent that there is a reason that Menlo is rated so highly – David showed a deep understanding of my story and I could already tell that he would help me craft a compelling narrative.

After confirming my intent to work with him, we narrowed down a list of a few schools to apply to Round 1 and began working on the essays in June. I appreciate that David really took the time to understand my story and helped me craft a narrative that was both genuine and compelling. I appreciate that David sets an extremely high bar – there were many times where I felt that my essay was good enough, only for David to ask me to write a few more drafts, and the result was noticeably better. When I submitted my applications, I genuinely believed that I had a chance to get admitted to each school that I applied to because of the high quality of the applications. After submitting the essays, I received interview invites to several of the top schools and felt that the interviews all went well.

So I was somewhat surprised on the downside when I didn’t get into some of the schools that I felt confident in. David continued to encourage me and picked me up when I was feeling down, and I did eventually get admitted into a M7 school with money. Although I did eventually get into a great school, I got dinged by several schools that I had confidence in and I think my process was probably tougher than that of some of the others that have written reviews here. So I wanted to write the review to paint a full picture and emphasize that there are no guarantees – it’s almost like a game of poker in that one could do everything right and still not get the desired result. But I do believe that I submitted the best application that I could’ve and there was nothing more that I could’ve done, and I attribute much of that to David and I could not recommend him more.

Finally, David sent me a complimentary bottle of wine to celebrating getting an M7 acceptance. For those of you reading and contemplating, I would recommend reaching out to David ASAP and I hope that you will eventually get a bottle of wine from him too!