Admitted to Columbia as a re-applicant!!

Hi all,

I am an older applicant from an over-represented pool. Last year, I applied to multiple top schools on my own and was devastated to discover that I did not receive a single interview invite from any school. This year, I chose to work with Dr. Shel Watts and was admitted to the first and only school that I applied for – Columbia!

As an applicant, I know how difficult it is to judge the quality of all the admissions consultants that are available to us because they all sound great on their own websites. Therefore, I took advantage of free consultations and talked to as many consultants as I could. Initially, I chose a company that featured former admissions staff who used to work at my target schools. I soon realized that I was not getting the insights and in-depth analysis that would justify the high price that I was paying. I decided to move on and search for a new consultant.

I scheduled a free consultation with Dr. Shel at MBA Admit after reading about their success with re-applicants, and I was immediately blown away by her passion and knowledge during our call. She focused on evaluating my profile and discussing potential application strategies rather than giving me generic answers to my questions or trying to hard sell her services like many other consultants do. After our conversation, I was quite excited to sign up with MBA Admit.

For our strategy session, Dr. Shel really dug deep into my background and spent time to know me as a person. She asked a lot of great questions and discovered interesting stories about myself that I had almost forgotten. She helped me come up with a detailed strategy that I truly believed would work (and it did!). Before diving into essay writing, I already had a clear picture of what I needed to highlight in each essay and how my stories would tie together to shine the best light on my candidacy.

After receiving Dr. Shel’s comments on my initial essay draft, I was truly amazed by the level of detail that she went into. She literally provided line-by-line comments that helped me remove/add/reshuffle content to improve the overall strength and flow of my essays. Her thorough analysis showed that she kept every detail of my profile on her mind while reviewing my essays. Her insistence on perfection has pushed me to improve my essays even if it was just a sentence or a phrase. There were several instances in which I felt that I had done a good job with a paragraph, but she would kick it back to me and told me to fix a word or a sentence. It almost felt like she cared about my essays more than I did. This is the type of consultant that you absolutely want. The other consulting company that I had worked with did not come close to this level of detail – they only provided generic feedback that I could have gotten from my friends.

Dr. Shel also helped me identify and approach potential recommendation writers who would most effectively add value to my candidacy. She also helped me refine and tailor my resume for my target school. In every step of the process, Dr. Shel showed her passion in helping me and provided personalized assistance that really propelled me to my dream school. Her personal experience of getting admitted to top universities (Harvard, Oxford) and top consulting firm and investment bank (McKinsey, Morgan Stanley) in the world provides precious knowledge to applicants like us who are considering working in those industries post-MBA. She even gave me career advice and guidance beyond the context of my application. In addition, she also has experience working as an admissions committee member at Harvard. Not many admission consultants can provide such rich expertise from both sides of the table.

Dr. Shel has a unique combination of perspectives that proved to be highly valuable throughout my application process. Furthermore, she charges a very reasonable price that makes me wonder why other admissions consultants charge so much. And most importantly, I was admitted to my dream school! I would absolutely recommend MBA Admit and Dr. Shel Watts to any applicant who is looking for a passionate, resourceful, and knowledgeable admissions consultant!!