Status: First-time applicant
Pre-MBA industry: Investment Banking/Business Development
Years of experience at time of matriculation: 5
GMAT/GRE/EA score: 675 (87V 81Q 83DI)
Undergraduate GPA: 3.36/4.00
Admitted to: Booth, Columbia, Ross
Scholarship(s): $100,000
Service Type: Premium
I can write a review for Square One prep. I found your team to be very knowledgeable and appreciated the quick response to all questions on the process. Additionally, I enjoyed working with Allison and felt she really elevated my applications. However, I do have some pieces of feedback for you and the team regarding some frustrations about my experience.
• Upon our initial couple of calls, you were very quick to deem me as a T15 applicant, recommending I don’t apply to M7s. I felt you rushed to make this conclusion without knowing much about me or my application, and I think it could’ve really discouraged an applicant less headstrong/determined than me. Additionally, in a later conversation you wrote: “You seemed to understand that M7 applicants are folks who have 20-40 hr/wk in extracurriculars during college – every week of every year and that post college they typically work 70-100 hr/wk and still have 10+hr/wk of extracurriculars. If they have career gaps they are filling that time with 40+ hr/wk of other things we can share with the adcom. You are not that person, and you don’t have to be that person. You are amazing as you are, but my job is to help you understand the competition as well as help you see things clearly so you are informed.” I completely understand that your job is to set realistic goals, but I think this was needlessly discouraging for an applicant who ended up being admitted with scholarship to two M7 schools
• I stated from the beginning of the process that I would like to work on an expedited timeline and apply primarily R1, given I had flexibility and could devote the time to it. Despite my wishes to apply to as many schools as possible R1, the team at Square One continued to push for R2. I ended up applying to 5 schools R1 and felt this was completely feasible given the time I had. I understand you are working with many clients at once and have to be realistic about your team’s time and the client’s time, but perhaps understanding their availability and willingness to work quickly should be considered more
Because of these points, I’d be hesitant to recommend Square One Prep to a potential MBA applicant. Let me know if you have any further questions on any of the above, or still would like me to write a review.
We still welcome you crafting a review and posting it on GMAT Club. We can give you instructions. We may add a comment to your review to ensure both perspectives are covered:
I’d like to address your feedback. You said I didn’t know you, take time to get to know you, and rushed to say you shouldn’t apply to M7. I’ll start at the beginning to help you see why I disagree with you.
July 9: On your free consult, you said you wanted to apply to Kellogg and Booth – their JD/MBA programs – because you knew people who attended. After learning why you thought the JD component was relevant – because you want to join your family business and you thought having the legal knowledge would be vital, I said the JD wasn’t for you, and why. I suggested you talk to more people who did it to learn more before making your final decision. You added that you had already talked to a few people and that they said what I did.
We discussed your career – no issues there. You shared that you left your job in early 2024 to do test prep. When I asked how you have been spending your time since taking the exam in May, you didn’t have an answer. You mentioned your cousin’s start-up, XXX, that you used to spend time with it, but not now. I explained that your competition is working 60+ hr/wk and many will have extracurriculars on top of that, all while also doing test prep. I explained that it is fine if one doesn’t have a job when they are applying as long as they can show that they are very meaningfully and consistently spending their time growing/making impact. You said you did not know this could be an issue. I said that when we work with clients, we always learn about things, that often folks see sample resumes and say “Oh, I did or am doing that. I didn’t know that could matter.” I told you to not worry. That I was, however, trying to be honest with you.
I jumped to extracurriculars during college, explaining that adcoms care more about that because how you conduct yourself in college is typically indicative of how you will conduct yourself in business school. I wanted to make sure you didn’t have a double blemish – low extracurriculars during college and post college. You can’t have that and expect to get into even M15 schools. You said you were part of a business fraternity 2-3 hours/week and that was it. Here too, you said you didn’t know adcoms would care about that. I did not dissuade you from Kellogg and Booth. I did not share the double blemish concern because I did not want to discourage you and thought we’d likely learn more when working with you to mitigate my concern as we typically do. I did, however, ask you what your appetite for risk is and you said that it is not high, that you want a balanced strategy. I said we will help you build a balanced list. That applying to Kellogg and Booth is fine, they are your dream schools, and i can see that.
I asked if you were doing anything with your family company since you aren’t working right now, and you said No.
I shared that I’d build a schedule, adding 5-6 schools on top of Kellogg/Booth to show how time is on your side. You said this app effort would be your priority since you aren’t working.
Jul 10-Jul 14: You did intro calls, selected Allison. You wanted to sign on for 6 schools and I said let’s start with 4.
Jul 15 – You and Allison did your Square One Assessment, during which she explored more to understand your extracurriculars. You struggled to cite any.
Jul 18 I updated our schedule after you said you wanted to apply to Fuqua ED
Round 1: – 7 schools: Ross and Fuqua (build at the same time), Columbia and Kellogg (build at the same time), Booth, McCombs and Stern
R2: Haas and Wharton
I didn’t discourage you from applying to M7 schools – I showed a schedule with you applying to 4. 7 schools in R1, 2 in R2.
Jul 22: we did a school selection call. Prior to this call, I read your Square ne Assessment and reviewed your School Assessment Matrix, in which you stated that your appetite for risk was MEDIUM. Your list of schools was:
Definitely applying to: Kellogg, Booth
Want to discuss/consider: Sloan, Haas, Stern, Columbia, Ross, Fuqua, McCombs
We explained what a MEDIUM risk appetite would mean – that you should apply to 2-3 M15 schools and keep McCombs – all for R1. We did not discourage you from applying to Kellog and Booth. You said you’d do research on schools and get back to us. I added that you had time to apply to 6-7 schools. On this call you said you may want to apply to just 5, weren’t sure yet.
We offered to get on another call several times. You said you didn’t need one
Jul 25 (7.56am) – You sent an email stating what schools you wanted to apply to: Kellogg, Booth, Columbia, Wharton, Stanford, Yale Ross, McCombs.
Jul 25 (11.23am) – I replied:
Hi Xxxx –
How are you this morning? I have updated your schedule, replacing Fuqua with Yale and removing Stern and Haas. I’ve also added Stanford, but please note that Stanford must be built in R2 due to when it is due in R1. Moving it to R1 would require losing TWO schools from R1 that are slightly less competitive. It would be at odds with your appetite for risk and what we discussed on our school selection call with you about how we believe you are a strong M15 applicant and support you applying to some M7 but know that we will have to stretch some truths in order to bolster your profile so you are closer to what adcoms hope to see from folks applying to M7. Does this make sense to you?
Jul 25 (2:24pm) – You replied:
Thanks for updating! Understood on the high risk aspect. If possible, I’d like if we could make Stanford Round 1.
Round 1: Ross, McCombs, Stanford, Kellogg, Booth
Round 2: Wharton, Columbia, Yale
Let me know if this is still an efficient way to do it – happy to hop on a call to discuss as well.
Jul 25 (2:26pm) – I replied:
When we talked, you agreed that applying to the most competitive schools R2 was a smart strategy. You weren’t looking at M7 schools other than Booth and Kellogg because they are proximate to you. You seemed to understand that M7 applicants are folks who have 20-40 hr/wk in extracurriculars during college – every week of every year and that post college they typically work 70-100 hr/wk and still have 10+hr/wk of extracurriculars. If they have career gaps they are filling that time with 40+ hr/wk of other things we can share with the adcom. You are not that person, and you don’t have to be that person. You are amazing as you are, but my job is to help you understand the competition as well as help you see things clearly so you are informed.
Stanford is the toughest school in the world to get into. We support you applying to it. We just think moving a less competitive school to R2 to accommodate Stanford R is not smart. But it is your decision. So I will update your schedule accordingly. You will now working on Stanford first, followed by Yale and Kellogg together.
End of email correspondence on the matter.
At no point did we show you applying to fewer than 6 schools in R1. For R2, we showed you applying to 2. That never wavered. In the end you applied to 5 schools: Ross, Kellogg, Booth, Stanford, and Columbia. It was due to your lack of focus on your apps; it wasn’t due to us.
But before I focus on your point about us not supporting your R1 effort, I must share what we knew after your school selection call and was reinforced based on your email on Jul 25.
We sensed that you’d continue to replace schools with M7s. And you did, You applied to 4M7 and 1 M15. You were going to fail because your headstrong/determined position was leading you to not listen to us. We cared about you so much that we fabricated, not stretched a truth, but fabricated. We’ve never done this. Please look at your final resume:
1) We depicted you working with your family business 1-2hr/wk the past 5+ years.
2) We included extracurriculars during and post college that were all stretches.
3) We depicted you working fulltime at your cousin’s start-up since you left your prior company
We needed to show that you have been engaging with your family’s business to make the case that you’d want to build a career there. We needed to show that you had involvements; a double blemish eliminates Tier 1 schools. Lastly, 15% of our clients don’t have jobs when they apply or have 6+ month career gaps in their resume. They succeed when they apply, in part, because we are able to show how they still were spending 40+ hr/wk doing things that show efforts to grow/contribute – mission work, taking online classes, applying to jobs/doing school research, doing community work, catching every type of salmon in the Alaska rivers, etc. You weren’t doing anything.
Your lack of acknowledgement is unfortunate.
Let’s now talk about your point 2, our focus on you when you say this was your focus and you were ready to work in an expedited manner accordingly – that we were not.
We were there for you from beginning to end, trying to guide you proactively and encouragingly. You had 57 days to Sep 11 (the date by which 4 of your 5 schools were due). When we started our work with you, you could have applied to 7 and never been rushed if you worked at a consistent pace. Your schedule showed that. You did not do work consistently at any point over 8 weeks. Without telling us even once proactively, you disappeared 18 days of the 57 available to you (Jul 18-21, 23-24, Aug 2-4, 9-11, 22-24, Aug 31-Sep 2). When you returned to us after weekends off, you expected Allison to work at a RUSH pace to get you back on track. Had she worked at a normal pace you’d have applied to only 2 schools. She worked in overdrive because she cared so much about you. I did too. If you look at your schedule, even though I get 3 days to review work, in all cases but 3, I got and returned work to you in less than 24 hours. Do you know how many emails Kelsey and Allison sent you to try to get encourage you to make this work a priority?
You disregarded your schedule and Kelsey’s effort to manage your partnership/support you. You didn’t want to finish your first two schools – Kellogg and Ross- before starting work on Booth. On that day Aug 22, you said you now wanted to move Stanford to R1 and start it alongside Booth. You then canceled your Stanford essay topic call on Aug 23 and did not work again until Aug 25. You wanted to build Stanford in 14 days, when it typically takes 24+ days to build it on its own. You wanted to build it alongside Booth, while also still working on Kellogg and Ross. THIS is when we said RUSH fees are due. You refused to pay, said we were unreasonable, but would move Stanford back to R2. But then you got on a call with Allison, who said she would do what she could to guide you to make R1 with the school. Allison worked at a rush pace to help you. You then took Aug 31-Sep 2 off without telling us. You submitted Stanford, saying you were proud of it, despite it being unfinished. The only person on your team who wasn’t fully focused on your success with this process is you. Please understand that.
When you are in business school, your classmates, faculty, and recruiters will expect you to communicate proactively, contribute consistently, get involved meaningfully, and make the most of your experience. You did not do any of those things with us.
Still, we are very happy for and proud of what you accomplished, what we accomplished with you as a team. We genuinely welcome a review from you.