Status: First-time applicant
Pre-MBA industry: Healthcare/Business Analytics
Years of experience at time of matriculation: 4
GMAT/GRE score: 315 (V: 157 Q: 158)
Undergraduate GPA: 3.8/4.0
Career Gap: 5 months – no job at time of applying
Admitted to: Harvard Kennedy School, Tepper, Tuck
Service Type: Premium Need-based
Yes, people can and have done the application process without consultants. But SOP’s timeline driven approach broke down this stressful process and gave me the confidence to complete high-quality applications on time. I fully utilized each day for application creation instead of worrying that I missed a step or getting distracted by life. I strongly recommend working with the SOP team with at least a portion of the schools you plan to apply to. I decided to do less than half of my schools with SOP, and they were mindful of this during the process. I never had to obscure my complete application plans from them because they cared that I had enough time to craft high quality applications. In fact, Krasina and Kathryn worked to complete portions of my application sooner so that I could apply them independently to applications that were not with SOP.
Krasina, Kathryn, Wendy, and Bailey are a supportive, effective, and efficient team to work with. Before my first payment I already planned with Kathryn the number of schools I could feasibly apply to (including the schools I wouldn’t be using SOP for) and the complementary timeline to complete such a feat. All this before I even paid one cent. Kathryn’s patience and willingness to give me details about what’s possible by breaking down the exact timeline to reach deadlines, foreshadowed the type of service I would receive. The team assembled to work with me on an application aspect every day, as every day counted. Though I felt overwhelmed by the amount of work I needed to complete, SOP helped me pace and plan to ensure I conquered each and every application before the due date.
The career narrative I created and we collectively vetted, saved me countless hours of review because Wendy, Krasina, and Kathryn questioned my path forward to ensure I had a solid and dynamic plan. Krasina made our conversations feel safe, giving me the floor to really unravel. Krasina got to know me personally and helped me draw out my experiences to realize I had robust answers to deeply personal reflection questions. With this team, especially Krasina by my side, I was prepared for this seemingly never-ending sprint of essay writing and material formatting. For example, I became conditioned to submit all my materials at the end of my day and to find those same materials with Krasina’s thought-out responses and corrections when I woke up the following day. She worked tirelessly alongside me and became my motivation to keep this incredibly efficient pace up; a pace I couldn’t have sustainably achieved on my own. In fact, I found myself in withdrawal following my application submissions because I wasn’t plowing through the same amount of work each day.
Krasina and Kathryn’s expertise on this whole process and potential outcomes quieted my anxiety. I so cherish their answers to my questions that no one, including Reddit or forums, had a definitive answer to. Though not advertised their genuine moral support really propelled me through rejections and waitlists. For this experience, I am forever grateful.