Status: First-time applicant
Pre-MBA industry: Law
Years of experience at time of matriculation: 2
GMAT/GRE score: 710 (V: 40 Q: 48)
Undergraduate GPA: 15.32/20.00
Graduate GPA: 3.42/4.00
Admitted to: Darden, Stern
Scholarship(s): $10,000
While I dreamed about pursuing an MBA in a US university, I was aware that, with only 16 months of work experience at the time of the applications and 22 months upon enrollment, my chances of landing a place on a top-tier business school were low.
Although aware of my problem, I was still extremely skeptic about paying to admissions consultants to help me prepare my MBA applications – thinking I could easily do everything by myself -, until one friend told me to visit www.squareoneprep.com and have a 30-min call with Kathryn.
After my call with Kathryn (who gladly gave me 1 free hour instead of the classic 30 minutes), I immediately decided I was going to hire SquareOne Prep: extremely high-achiever, pragmatic and results-oriented consultants made my choice easy.
As I sit writing this testimonial and think about the journey I embarked on with Lara Avsar (in the end having been accepted by Stern and Darden), I can now gladly tell myself that going with SquareOne Prep was the best choice I made. Lara (and the rest of the team) besides intelligent and creative, was what you need in a consultant: extremely available. I always felt that Lara (and the team) was always there for me. I knew I could email Lara with every dilemma I had (regardless of its relevance) and I would get a reply from her with great advice. (in fact, I just wrote an email to Lara yesterday about a topic other than MBA applications and I got an awesome reply!).
If you, like me at the beginning, still think that hiring consultants is not worth it or that Square One is too pricey, I challenge you to hop in a call with Kathryn and, as you talk to her, see with your own eyes how good these guys are. Their work does wonders, and I recommend them to anyone who wants to pursue an MBA: SquareOne Prep is an advantage you want to have when competing with the thousands of MBA applicants every year.
(side note: I got a scholarship at Darden that itself paid for the services I hired SquareOne Prep for).