Kimberly Hoey Reviews

I started my process at mbaMission with a 30-minute free consultation with the next available consultant, and was intrigued enough that I decided I would definitely be using the service to guide me through my MBA applications.

Once I got the score I wanted on the GMAT (710), I read through all the consultant bios and quickly knew Kim would be the right person for me. I ultimately chose her because I was a D1 college athlete (so was Kim!) and my professional background is in advertising/marketing, which is where Kim spent most of her career prior to doing MBA admissions and consulting work. I decided to do the hourly services rather than the school package when working with Kim, which turned out to be perfect for my needs.

Kim is extremely empathetic, kind, and positive. Her warm personality made the stress and tediousness of MBA applications and interview prep easier to handle. When working with Kim, I almost felt like I was working with a mentor trying to help me succeed, rather than someone I had hired. I decided to apply to 1 reach school (HBS), 3 target schools (Ross, Fuqua, and Darden) and 2 safeties (Kenan-Flagler and McDonough). I had pretty much decided on these by the time I started working with Kim, but I wish I had asked for her input on other schools to apply to or widening my net beyond 6 schools. She was honest with me about what would be a stretch vs doable vs very doable, which I appreciated!

Kim mainly helped me with brainstorming/editing my essays, certain short-answer application questions, recommender prep, interview guidance, and negotiating for additional scholarship money once I got admitted. She is an excellent editor and I felt she made a big impact for me on that part of the process. We would sometimes go over teh edits in Zoom calls (per my request) or just via email/track changes on Microsoft Word. mbaMission provides lots of resources throughout the process that Kim made sure to provide me with - such as interview guides specific to each school - but Kim also went above and beyond by sharing her own school-specifc interview guides based on feedback she had gotten from her own clients over the years. These made the interview process 10x more manageable.

I ended up getting rejected from HBS without an interview, and I think that was mainly due to factors outside of Kim’s advice or control, such my lack of work experience and my recommender choice (due to particular circumstances I wasn’t able to get a current or former manager to do my recommendation). I got interviews, offers of admission and scholarships from all 5 other schools. The lowest amount of scholarship I got was 50% of tuition, and I even got a full-ride scholarship to one of the schools I applied to. I attribute a lot of this success to Kim’s help. Kim also helped me negotiate even more scholarship money at one of my target schools, which I ultimately chose.

Overall, Kim was a fantastic partner, and I would choose her again if I was going through the process all over again. I genuinely hope I stay in touch with her professionally!

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Kim was an instrumental piece in the MBA admissions process for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience working with her. As someone with little knowledge about the MBA admissions process, I had a huge variety of questions about schools, essays, tests, and more that Kim was able to answer in a timely and clear manner.

With a wealth of knowledge about schools and applications, Kim helped me from start to finish. She walked me through building my list of schools, understanding my priority of those schools, managing my time while working on applications, and handling acceptances as they came in.

Kim met with me regularly and always responded quickly over email when I had questions, always providing helpful information that often went beyond what I had initially thought to ask about. One example that stands out was around my test scores. While I wasn’t particularly happy with my GMAT score, Kim introduced the idea of taking the Executive Assessment, which I ultimately performed better on. This not only allowed me to feel better about my candidacy, but also opened the door for more schools that accepted the EA in lieu of the GMAT, and I truly do not think I would have had the options I did without her guidance here.

Outside the tangible parts of the admissions process, Kim was a pleasure to work with. I truly felt she understood my career goals and personality, which made it a joy to meet with her regularly. I am so grateful for Kim’s guidance, insights, and kindness throughout the process, and I would highly recommend working with Kim and mbaMission!

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Thanks to Kim, I was truly able to put my best foot forward in the MBA admissions process. With all the unknowns and mixed information out there about the application process and MBA programs in general, it was so helpful to have a seasoned expert to go to for questions on everything from GMAT vs. GRE scores to school culture and essays. Kim is thoughtful, highly organized, supportive, and encouraging. I even shot Kim a few mid-existential-crisis emails during the process, to which she quickly responded with reassuring guidance. She felt like a real teammate in this process!

While I consider myself a strong communicator, responding to broad application prompts with tight word limits presented a real challenge. Kim helped me to bring out the strongest examples in each of my essays, and tailor my experience and aspirations towards the elements of each program that interested me, producing genuine and enticing applications for each school. As a result of Kim's support, I was accepted to all the top programs I applied to, receiving scholarships at 3 of 4.

If you are hesitant to engage a consultant given the price tag, I highly recommend signing up for a free 30-min consultation, just as I did. During those 30 minutes, I could tell Kim truly wanted to give me the most value, speeding through my many questions, and even following up with a thorough email of recommendations and guidance. I felt no pressure to move forward, and did so only because I was shown how much value she would add to my admissions process - I was 100% correct!! I am incredibly grateful to have had Kim's support during my MBA admissions process, and cannot recommend her more!

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Kim truly was the best consultant I could have asked for in supporting my grad school journey. She handled my story with so much care and positivity. I am incredibly grateful for all the fantastic advice she was able to provide me, especially as I navigated sharing some rather personal aspects of my life in my grad school story. I am confident her support and advice was the reason I was admitted to Kellogg and received an interview at Stanford. I can truly say I have zero aspects I would have change across my applications and interviews and it is all thanks to her! I would choose Kim 100 times over again!

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I can't recommend Kim enough! Her help throughout the entire application process was invaluable. She helped with each aspect of the application from school selection, the application itself, and interview preparation.

She really took the time to understand me, my background, and my story and helped me showcase it in throughout my application. Her suggestions were incredibly thoughtful and you can tell she genuinely cares about her clients success and goes above and beyond to help them get into their dream program!

I am so thankful I had the opportunity to work with Kim and could not recommend her more!

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Having completed the MBA process a few months ago, I can very confidently say that I wouldn’t have had the success that I had in the MBA process (getting into 5 full-time MBA programs with scholarships at each of them, receiving interviews from each school I applied to, and eventually committing to go to an M7 MBA program) without Kim. When I started working with Kim, I told her that I was working on a tighter timeline during Round 2 (I had started the MBA process in the fall of last year) and she constantly exceeded my expectations in helping me achieve all of my goals in this shorter timeline. It is because of Kim that I am going to my dream school. 

The combination of Kim’s many years of experience in MBA admissions consulting, her expertise in English, kindness, patience and personable nature made our time working together such a success. I enjoyed working with her so much! She worked tirelessly to help me during this process and was always so responsive as well as deeply committed to her craft of helping her clients achieve their goals. 

I worked with Kim during the resume/essay editing, mock interview preparation, and scholarship negotiation phases of the MBA process. Her suggestions to improve the quality of my essays and my resume were invaluable. I could tell that she took a lot of time to critically think about how my essays/resume could be refined where needed. Outside of her support in essay/resume review, Kim also conducted several mock interviews with me. She asked thoughtful questions and she thoroughly prepared me for my interviews. After each of my interviews, Kim would check in to see how I felt after completing them. Her thoughtful nature and the personal touch she adds to everything she does truly differentiates Kim from other MBA consultants. Even after I had completed my interviews at each school, Kim would frequently check in to see how I was feeling during the process and provide encouragement. Kim also supported and guided me through the scholarship negotiation phase of the MBA application process, providing me with highly beneficial advice and edits for any emails or documentation that I needed to send out. With the school that I decided to commit to, I received a sizable scholarship from them, which is largely due to the advice and guidance that I received from Kim. 

I highly recommend anyone looking for a highly experienced, wise, friendly and personable MBA consultant to work with Kim. Kim is the best out there! It was highly apparent throughout the entirety of the process that she was so genuinely invested in my success and cared so much about me getting into one of my dream schools. Thanks to her, I did it and am going to my dream school. Thank you SO much, Kim!!! 

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After getting the GMAT score I wanted just about a month before the Round two deadline for the two schools I wanted to apply to and with absolutely no progress in my applications, I got in contact with Kim and she took the challenge of helping me with my application despite the tight timeline.

She was totally invested with my applications. She designed a delivery plan for me to work on and gave me faster than the standard reviews on my work.

After the application, she prepared me for the interviews and gave me tips that definitely made a difference in getting accepted into both schools I applied to.

I really enjoyed working with Kim and I'm 100% sure she will be of great help to anyone working with her (even if it means working on a tight timeline!!)

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I cannot recommend Kim enough. She truly cares about her clients and she goes above and beyond to help them achieve their goals. Kim has a breadth of knowledge about top programs and can help candidates understand their strengths and opportunities. Kim helped me asses my profile and identified areas of opportunity for me. She also reviewed my essays for one of my top programs, and helped me with interview preparation. Kim's feedback and direction helped me improve significantly and she was always cheering me on and rooting for me. I am fortunate to have gotten into all of the schools I applied to and I could not have done it without Kim's help!

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Kim was the absolute best. From the very first call I knew Kim was the right fit for me. She takes a personalized approach to the application process and really cares about her clients and their goals. I took a non-traditional approach and applied to JD/MBA programs and Kim did an outstanding job helping me navigate the complex, unique application to the dual programs. I was incredibly stressed when starting the process and Kim quickly extinguished my stresses and helped me take a level headed approach on my journey. I got into my dream program and a large portion of that has to do with Kim's help and guidance. She really is the best, and clearly loves what she does and loves helping her candidates.

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I had a fantastic experience working with Kim. She was super knowledgeable about all of the schools I was interested in and did an amazing job helping me navigating the process. No one in my close circle had gone through the process before, so having someone who was there to help guide me was really helpful. Would highly recommend working with her!

I started working with MBA Mission a bit later in the game, only about a month before my application. I would recommend earlier for a less hectic month, but either way Kim was patient and super helpful throughout the process.

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