Sophie Hilaire Reviews

Sophie is the MBA counselor you need if you’re driven, ambitious and want to give your best shot to colleges you consider beyond your dreams

Results: Going to Stanford - Admitted to 3 M7s, waitlisted at 2 other M7s.

Background: I’m an Indian applicant from the most ‘overrepresented’ demographic there could be.

I had exploratory calls with 14 different counselors, both locally and beyond. Within the first 15 minutes, Sophie helped me identify strengths in my application that everyone else (including me) had overlooked. From the outset, I knew working with her was going to be one of my best decisions.

I’ve identified some dimensions one can evaluate MBA counselors on, and shared my experience with Sophie on each below:

1. Empathy - Producing great essays for top colleges needs you to be honest with yourself and dive deep into your personal story. This will often mean revisiting parts of your life that make you uncomfortable. It is thus important to have a counselor who you trust discussing your vulnerabilities with. In this regard, Sophie has a unique talent for instantly creating a safe space when she senses what you’re discussing means a lot to you. At the same time, she knows how to deliver constructive criticism, and you’ll get the hint when it feels like you’re trauma dumping an essay for no good reason. Because of these open conversations with her, I felt confident in sharing these stories in my applications. It was because of her that I was able to discuss many aspects of my life in essays and interviews that I’d have simply swept under the rug working on my own.

2. Approachability - Sophie exudes warmth and energy when you talk to her; she’s super easy to work with. There were several times I struggled to explain problems I faced in expressing some ideas. Even when I was unable to put my finger on what was bugging me about an essay I wrote, she seemed to understand exactly what I was struggling with and gave perfect advice on how I could approach it differently. Such intuitive insights from her were responsible for several step shifts in the quality of my essays.

3. Mindset - Sophie has a winner’s mindset. She isn’t there to just do a job, she is committed to your success. There was not a single moment in the entire process where she didn’t match or exceed my pace. The bottleneck was always how much effort I was willing to put in. Turnaround times were great and she was always available for calls when I needed. Not once did I find myself sitting idle because I was waiting to hear back from her. Further, she isn’t someone who’ll leave you with ‘passable’ work. She was willing to iterate with me until I fine-tuned each essay to perfection, until it got to a point I looked at the essay and was sincerely amazed at what I’d created.

4. Influence - Applying to top MBA colleges will always be an exercise in mental fortitude and grit. While you are the only person responsible for managing your motivation, an indifferent counselor can certainly make things difficult. Someone who doesn’t believe in you will make you fight uphill in a battle where odds are already stacked against you. Sophie, on the other hand, is a natural leader who engages with you on a personal level. I needed to write 17 distinct essays in 2 months working full time, applying only to ‘stretch’ colleges. Naturally, there was a moment or two filled with self doubt, but it usually took just one casual conversation with Sophie before my motivation meter was back to full. When taking on a challenge as monumental as this, she’s the kind of partner you need in your foxhole.

6. The myth, the legend - I could go on for hours about how great she is at MBA counseling. But that’s not even a tenth of how awesome Sophie is. Her visible stats are already impressive (Army, Wharton, McK). But the more you learn about her, the more reasons you’ll keep finding to fanboy over. Through the bulk of your applications, you’ll probably be interacting with your counselor more than your colleagues, maybe even your family. Why not work with someone who’s not only a great counselor but an endlessly inspiring, interesting person as well?

7. Process and logistics:
Sophie’s process is extremely well curated and, in my opinion, nearly perfect. It’s efficient, and minimizes yield loss to make sure you’re always working on something that’s setting you up for success on the next thing. I’ve detailed the steps below:

Introspection - The introspection phase made me dive deep into my life story, with two crucial outputs:
- Defining my personal brand: by understanding myself better, I was able to define who I am in a way that was easy for others to understand - with enough examples to back it up.
- Identifying skill gaps: I already had a good idea of why I was doing an MBA. But through the introspection phase with Sophie, I was able to dive several layers deeper. By the end, I had nuanced answers for each skill gap in neatly defined bullets highlighting why it was a gap, why I needed to fill it and how the MBA would help me.

School research -
Same as before, I already had a good idea of why I was picking the schools I was applying to. But Sophie helped me dive many levels deeper. For every school, I was able to 1 - find exact resources to fill my gaps across several dimensions (curriculum, culture, resources, etc.) and 2 - speak at length about how I would make the school a better place given the skills I had. And because of the work we did earlier, this was a lean process with zero waste. Whether it be a conversation with an alumni or scouring the website, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to understand.

Essay feedback -
Each essay went through multiple iterations of feedback and modification until both of us felt it was the best it could be. The process was fairly efficient with minimal yield loss. For each essay, I drafted an outline and discussed it with Sophie. Based on her feedback, I’d go back to the drawing board and redraft / modify my essay. We would iterate on this step by step, gradually condensing down to word limit.

Interview prep -
After the introspection, school research, and essays, I felt positively thrilled going into the interviews. Most of my groundwork was already done. The only remaining bit was to structure my behavioral stories, which was fairly straightforward. Sophie helped me do mocks for the interviews and gave actionable feedback to improve each time. By my second interview I felt ready as a tank - I was prepared for everything that could be prepared for, leaving my mind free to genuinely enjoy the conversation with my interviewers and be ready for any curveballs. A lot of how your interview goes ultimately depends on how confident you’re feeling with yourself. As a result of all the work we’d done in the preceding months, I was as confident in my interviews as I should have been.

Summary:
Sophie was the difference between my success and failure in this process. Thanks to her, I was able to create applications that I know were the best I could do - which is what really matters. If you work with her, I am confident this is the feeling you’ll walk away with as well.

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I was lucky enough to work with Sophie for my admissions counseling. Before I found Stratus, I had no idea how to effectively position myself to stand out to top business schools and felt lost trying to navigate the admissions process.

Sophie made the whole process very structured and easy to tackle while providing constant support and encouragement throughout the process! She helped me find my confidence and develop my story to stand out in both the essay and interviews.

Through her counseling, I received acceptances to M7, T15, and T20 schools. I truly do not think I would be where I am today without the help of Sophie! Cannot recommend Stratus Admissions enough!

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I got accepted to my dream school and received a generous scholarship offer, despite having a GPA and GMAT score lower than the school's average and I could not have done it without the help from Sophie and the rest of the Stratus team.

Sophie was an incredible mentor throughout this whole process, she help me frame my story in a way that was genuine but also highlighted characteristics that would leave an impression on the admission committee.

Stratus was the best investment I made during this whole application process and I would absolutely recommend Stratus Consulting to anyone who wants to get into the best B-school possible.

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