EXPARTUS MBA Admissions Consulting%%www.expartus.com%%

Here at EXPARTUS, MBA candidates come to us at many stages in the application process, and with varying degrees of knowledge about what an Admissions Consultant does.

For some people, hiring an Mba Admissions Consultant is an obvious choice: they know they want the guidance, and they come to us at the very start of the process. Other people reach out to us when they feel like they’ve hit a snag in the process, or they need to re-apply to b-school, or they have concerns about whether their profile is strong enough to get into their target schools.

I’ve written at length before about how to hire an MBA admissions consultant, but I also wanted to take some time to address the questions and misconceptions that people might have about admissions consulting in general.

Myth #1: Hiring an MBA admissions consultant is a magic bullet.

A good MBA consultant is a sounding board. They help you to identify and hone your stories to find what will resonate most with the admissions board. They are not going to tell you what to say; they are going to help you to use your own voice and your own experience in a compelling and authentic way.

What they are not is a magical solution that will absolve you of doing any work. You can’t just hire someone, hand them your application, and sit back and think that your work is done.

A good admissions consultant will push you to think deeply about your experience and reasons for going to business school, and help you develop your brand. They will hold you accountable, and give you an outside perspective on the stories you have to tell.

So often, we see people who don’t know the power of their own story, whether that’s because they don’t want to brag or because they’ve lived it so it’s too familiar. A good MBA admissions consultant can help you cut through that and help you get a sense of how to frame your story.

Myth #2: Admissions consultants have a “formula” for getting in.

Some students think that admissions consultants have a “cookie cutter” mold that they try to fit students into, particularly if they’re editing students’ essays.

I don’t think this is true for highly qualified admissions consultants, and certainly it only takes the briefest glance at EXPARTUS materials to see that this is the antithesis of what we do. I believe strongly in the personal brand – the reason you are admitted to business school is because of who you are and what you’ve done.

Our job as consultants is not to make assumptions, but to help you figure out who you are. We are not going to edit away your voice, and any consultant who would do so isn’t serving you well. A really good consultant is part coach, part advisor.

I don’t want people to walk away from their experience with EXPARTUS with just an application, like “Oh, we edited this so now you fit the mold to get into XYZ school”.

I want our clients to have a better sense of what matters most to them during their MBA program and beyond. That is what admissions committees are going to want to see in their essays and interviews, and it’s also what is going to help EXPARTUS clients as they move on in their post-MBA career path.

There are some firms out there that focus primarily on MBA essay editing, and in those cases, they might be looking to shape the essay so it adheres to their mold. For a true admissions consultant, however, the client’s voice, and needs, should always be paramount.

Myth #3: Admissions consulting is too expensive for most people.

Value is a subjective issue. It is certainly true that good admissions counseling comes at a cost – and as I have pointed out before, if you are not applying to a top-tier MBA program, then admissions consulting may not be the right choice for you.

But if you are looking to get into a highly selective program, where you will be spending nearly $200,000 on your schooling all told, and you are competing against thousands of other students for a few hundred spots, then the cost/ value consideration starts to look very different.

We have seen many applicants who tried to go it alone initially and were not accepted by their target schools, only to be admitted once they started working with us. And that’s not because anything vastly changed in their experience, or because we tried to fit them into some mold, but because we held them accountable and really pushed them to do that intense soul-searching to understand their own brand.

Obviously, admissions consulting is not a requirement; there are many students who are admitted to b-school without it. But at the highest levels – Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, INSEAD Harvard – it can really help to have someone on your side who understands how to help applicants differentiate themselves and stand out from the pack.

And of course, there can be a cost to going it alone, if you end up needing to re-apply to schools because your initial application was not quite strong enough.

No one wants to feel like they are wasting money. If you’re interested in hiring an MBA admissions consultant, do your research. Check with The Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants, ask lots of questions, look into the firm’s track record.

Who We Are

I founded EXPARTUS after serving on the admissions board for Harvard Business School. As a former adcom member, I know firsthand just how many different factors there are that go toward gaining business school admission.

At the end of the day, I know that there is absolutely credible value in bringing on an admissions consultant. We want to give our clients the opportunity to get into the best school they can get into, regardless of ranking: the right school for them, the right fit, the right networking environment to meet the right contacts, to make the right connections, to pursue their ideal career path.

It is incredibly rewarding for us, and many of our clients also tell us about the value they place on that experience: working with a firm that held them accountable and made them think honestly about their desires for business school and beyond.

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