Hourly Consulting Services Reviews

As someone without any connection to MBA students or alumni, I had a difficulty in compiling my essays and the overall application process. After contacting several admission consulting services and comparing their service, responses towards my questions, explanations, and overall feeling to the consultant, I decided to choose the service from Fortuna Admission. For me, to be comfortable to the consultant is essential as basically they will be your mentor who will guide you through self-reflection and question your motivations pursuing MBA, which could lead to many personal sides of life!

Nicola Sandford was really an amazing mentor. I felt like she genuinely want to know about my motivation and background, pointed out several of my strengths and weaknesses, then showed me how to make my profile stood out as a unique individual. The feedback from her were really accurate and fast! She will not stop until she know the essays and the overall application are ready to be submitted. She sometimes also discuss with Caroline in supporting me and happily answering my (many) questions.

As a result, I am successfully admitted to INSEAD and HEC Paris, with a significant amount of scholarship! I am sure the result will go different way if I didn't have the support from Fortuna Admission. Many thanks to Nicola, Caroline, and Fortuna team for supporting me to achieve my MBA dream!

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My experience working with Judith was great. I was initially drawn to Fortuna after speaking with both Judith and Matt, her business partner. I had spoken with multiple consulting firms, and Fortuna really impressed me with their attention to detail on my background and what I was hoping to accomplish.

Judith gave a lot of great insight into the admissions process at the various schools, drawing on both her own experience in admissions as well as that of her colleagues. I wasn't sure how much detail was needed for each of the essays. During my first pass at an essay, she came back to me and said that I really needed to go deeper and provided a handful of helpful questions and comments that forced me to get super specific with that school. Throughout the process, she was willing to look over essays and answer last minute questions, and overall was an incredibly useful and calming presence throughout the process. Additionally, she held interview prep sessions for both 1-1 and group interviews, all of which were invaluable.

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I decided to use admissions consulting service at a pretty late stage for my application. After reviewing several companies and talking to some of them, I instantly decided to work with Fortuna. The first person I talk to, Matt, knows everything about the biz school dynamics and gave me so much encouragement. I worked with Caroline, whom I believe is the best fit coach if you want to apply INSEAD. I also have a short email contact with Emma, former Head of Admissions at LBS. She is also very professional and highly efficient. I finally got admitted by INSEAD and Judge. Thanks, Caroline!

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I worked with Judith at Fortuna and could not be more thankful for her help. My first conversation with Judith was great – she was very calm, knowledgeable, and really took the time to hear my story. She provided constructive feedback and advice even during my initial free phone consultation, which immediately drew me to choosing Fortuna. They were initially going to place me with a specific consultant who had extensive experience with Wharton, but he/she was not available at the time – thus, Judith helped me instead and did not charge me extra even though she goes for the higher director’s rate.

Judith was extremely responsive, efficient, and provided very helpful feedback to each iteration of my essays and application. With not much time to complete my application, Judith was never the bottleneck - she was rather a calming presence. I knew my story, but she helped refine it and frame it in a compelling way on paper. When I got to the interview stage, I had no idea what to expect as Wharton’s group/team-based interview is unique – luckily, Fortuna also offered mock team-based interview training, which I found very helpful. I went into the actual interview feeling confident and well-prepared because I had gone through it with other candidates and received feedback on my performance from Judith. I felt reassured and confident every step of the way with Judith’s help because I knew she had extensive experience evaluating candidates as an admissions director herself.

I will be attending Wharton and am extremely grateful for Fortuna and Judith’s support. I truly received individualized attention (even as an hourly client), and am very happy with the outcome!

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I hired Fortuna for the 8-hour package and Heidi was assigned as my coach.
Heidi did a fantastic job helping me with both my GSB and HBS applications and I would strongly recommend this package and Heidi as coach to future candidates.

Initially, Heidi helped me develop a strategy for each school and provided advice and resources for my recommendations. I used most my hours, however, to get her assistance on the essays. Here, she helped me dig deep to bring out my authentic story and also tailor my message for each school. The quality of my essays was far better than I would have ever done alone.

Finally, when my HBS application was successful she helped me prep by doing a practice interview with me which really helped build my confidence.

I highly recommend working with Heidi, she is professional and has great knowledge on what both HBS and GSB are looking for. She provided invaluable insights and I am truly grateful for her help along my MBA journey.

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Amy Hugo from Fortuna Admissions helped me with my LBS application for the full-time MBA programme. I am really happy with what we put together for the application within a month, which I initially thought was a very tight timeline.

Amy was extremely professional and efficient, and she gave me loads of insightful advice on every aspect of my application, especially the essays. We only needed about 3 iterations for each essay, because she really knows what LBS is looking for in a candidate and was excellent at helping me streamline my stories into a concise and yet personal statement to reflect my strengths and values. Her comments made a huge difference to the final products.

She also helped me prepare the video interview and we did a mock interview together, which were also really helpful.

With her help, I got an offer from LBS with a significant scholarship, which I am so pleased about. I can definitely recommend her to anyone seeking professional help polishing their MBA application materials.

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Heidi was able to help me refine my application by helping me to explore my personality and key motivations in greater detail, enabling me to considerably strengthen my application. I was ultimately successful in several applications. Fortuna also took the time to have a personalised call at the beginning of the process.

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I was accepted to LBS in R1 (i.e. in Nov 2016). What made this even more challenging was that I'm a reapplicant (wait-listed in Feb 2016) from an over-represented group. With such a short gap between applications, Emma's inputs elevated my application by making it more personal and more differentiated, thus creating a more compelling case the second time around.

Firstly, I wasn't confident if I should reapply given the short duration between apps (6 months!), so phase 1 of working I'd with Emma was a re-evaluation of my prior application. Emma's experience from LBS really helped - she brought a critical eye to my earlier application packet. Through the process, my feeling was that of a live ad com evaluation, and an honest assessment of why I was wait-listed and what I'd likely need to do to cross the next hurdle.

I followed this up with an hourly service for essay review and interview prep. Emma's prior consulting & LBS experience meant she was able to relate to my personal/ career progression, and highlight experiences that made me stand out. Our interactions were informal yet candid, which made working with her very easy even through a tight timeline and juggling multiple pieces of the application packet. Her feedback pushed me out of my comfort zone and towards crafting something that spoke less about only what I do, and more about who I am. Similar to the experience nearly everyone has had with Fortuna, Emma's turnaround was both super-quick and super-detailed (I still can't figure out how both go together :) ). From my first draft to the final version, I was able to clearly see the difference in story that Emma's inputs helped craft. Similarly during interview prep, Emma's inputs helped me better project who I am and brought a sense of informality to my story, as opposed to a linear approach that I'd typically have followed.

I definitely feel Emma's inputs helped me in crafting a better, more rounded and personal application second time around, and was the biggest influence in helping me secure a place at LBS within six months of a prior application decision. If you’re applying to LBS, Emma should be your go-to person!

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Working with Melissa at Fortuna Admissions was a hugely useful and cost effective component to my admission into INSEAD. I had my application largely prepared and was looking for an experienced consultant to review and provide valuable insights about how my application would be received by the AdCom. I wasn't sure I needed to pay for the full application package. Fortuna's hourly consultation was just the solution that I needed. Melissa is hugely knowledgeable about the INSEAD application process (I can't speak for other schools, but expect her to be similarly tuned in). She provided very useful insight into the AdCom thought process and highlighted the areas of my application that were relatively stronger and weaker. With only a few hours of consultation, I noticed a material refining of my application which was very useful. Melissa's consultation comes with my highest recommendation. Good luck!

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I contacted Fortuna with a tight timescale to apply for R4, less than three weeks before the deadline. I talked first to Matt and it clicked quite well. He explained everything about the process and took way more time than the allotted 30 min free consultation (as opposed to other consultancies where I felt rushed), including acknowledging the shortcomings of my application and addressing my concerns with it. After our first conversation he proposed a custom hourly service plan which seemed very sensible to me, so I went ahead with it and started working with Melissa.

Melissa took the time to go through all the data I provided and created a picture of me. During our phone and mail interactions we shaped that picture, with my draft essays and CV as starting point, to create a killer application. We chose on what to focus and dug in the areas that needed some more work. It was really easy to work with Melissa: she's a very open individual, response times were really fast (despite a 6h time difference) and the recommendations were spot-on. We even had one hour left by the time I submitted the application, so we used that for my interview preparation, which was also really useful and efficient.

All in all, A+ for Fortuna and specially Melissa!

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