Application Services

APPLICATION SERVICES & PRICING

If you work with us, prepare to work harder and spend more time on your applications than you will if you work with any other firm. Why? Because of the rigor and hands-on care we bring to partnerships. We understand that could be all you need to read to decide that we aren’t the right partner for you. If so, no worries. We wish you well with your applications.

For those of you still reading, know that our rigor and care are just a natural part of the bespoke experience your 4-person Square One team will give you. As we help you build strong applications, you’ll also build confidence and clarity that transcends them. With three services – Premium, Premium Need-based, and Premium Essential – we hope one meets your needs and budget. We’re excited to get to know, challenge, and guide you!

Square One Prep Team Members
Premium  Essential
(PE)
Premium
Need-based (PNB)
Premium
(P)
Advisor

They are all M7 MBAs with professional writing and coaching in their background, with one exception: Kelsey Kephart, who is a Former Columbia Admissions Officer. After several years with us as a leadership team lead and partnership manager, she's proven to have what it takes to be an advisor.


Our advisors are all over the world. Some do this fulltime, some are entrepreneurs, and some have traditional 40hr/wk careers. Some clients want their advisor to be dedicated to admissions only while others value their advisor having a wider spectrum of present-day expertise than admissions. Our advisors who do this fulltime work with 4-6 clients at a time. Everyone else works with 1-2 clients at a time. Our focus isn’t volume; it’s you. To be transparent, we share in this table how much time we typically spend on each application component.

Partnership Manager

Your partnership manager oversees your partnership logistically to ensure you meet your application objectives and have a great experience with us.  We proactively guide you. For example, let's say you know you are going to be unavailable in two weeks for one full week due to your job. We will assess how we can work around that with you so you don't feel any guilt or stress about your apps during that week. We'll update your schedule to reflect your revised gameplan. We'll also tell you if you can't have a full week and work with you to create a plan that gives you as many days off from app work as possible.


When you work with us, we are mindful of your overall goal. Most clients work with us on 2-4 schools but are applying to 6-8 schools. Your partnership manager assesses what our pace with you should be to ensure you have the time to apply to 6-8 schools; your schedule reflects your overall goal. Often, we must explain to clients, two months before their deadlines, that they are moving too slowly. We are able to show them visually in their schedule what their current pace will enable as well as how much they need to improve their pace to make their deadlines. No other firm offers this visibility/capability and effort to support you.

Career Narrative Expert

Your career narrative expert (CNE) is an M7 MBA and current (Wharton/Anderson) MBA Career Management team member. S/he works with you and your advisor to help you craft your career goals in both a visionary and practical (short-, mid-, and long-term) manner, fundamental for your goals essays and interviews. No other firm has CNEs, as they're expensive. We believe they are invaluable. Most clients echo that sentiment in their testimonials!

Leadership Team Lead - Square One Owner

Your leadership team lead (LTL) works with you and your advisor to select your schools and define your recommenders. She also assesses your career vision and reviews both your resume and all essays for schools you build with us comprehensively. All schedules show work being reviewed by your LTL lead twice, not once.  If she needs to review more than two times, she will; your schedule will relfect that so we are transparent with you.

Leadership Team Lead - Former M7 Adcom Member

Your leadership team lead (LTL) works with you and your advisor to select your schools and define your recommenders. She also assesses your career vision and reviews both your resume and all essays for schools you build with us comprehensively. All schedules show work being reviewed by your LTL lead twice, not once.  If she needs to review more than two times, she will; your schedule will relfect that so we are transparent with you.

Leadership Team Lead - Square One Senior Advisor

Your leadership team lead (LTL) works with you and your advisor to select your schools and define your recommenders. She also assesses your career vision and reviews both your resume and all essays for schools you build with us comprehensively. All schedules show work being reviewed by your LTL lead twice, not once.  If she needs to review more than two times, she will; your schedule will relfect that so we are transparent with you.

Years of admissions experience on your Square One team
19-42 years
24-52 years
30-60 years

Our Pricing Philosophy and How We Spend our Time On Our Work With You
Premium  Essential
(PE)
Premium
Need-based (PNB)
Premium
(P)
Our Pricing Philosophy and Payment Structures

You can start with one school and add as you need to/build trust in us; the price to add a school later is the same then as it is now.


We will tell you if we think you should work with us hourly or comprehensively on a school. If we suggest hourly and you cross the break-even threshold, we'll convert you to comprehensive. If you choose hourly after we explain why you should choose comprehensive, and you cross the break-even threshold, we will not convert you.


If schools you apply to have few unique essay themes, we will assess the feasibility of building two schools comprehensively with you for the price of one. We will include interview prep for one school. We want to be as fair to you as possible.


For payment, we offer two options: 1) 75% upfront and 25% when you complete the written application work for the final school in your package with us or 2) interest-free monthly payment plans that start with you sign on and end in August (for clients whose apps are due in September), December (for clients whose apps are due in January) and March (for clients whose apps are due in April). For example, if you sign on in February for ED/R1 deadlines, you could lock in a 7-month payment plan. With either payment structure, you can add schools as you go. Just note that with the monthly payment option, adding schools as you go, could lead to much bigger payments in later months since you will have fewer months to allocate those additional costs across.

View our Refund Policy for Comprehensive Services.

How we typically spend our time with you on your first school - written application work

As a team, we'll spend 40-60 hours guiding you on your written application work. You'll work harder and spend more time on your apps with us than you will with other fims because we want to help you transform on your journey to success with your applications. Providing bespoke care and rigor takes time. Below we break down how we typically spend that time:


Your Advisor:

5-6.5 hours – conducting your Square One Assessment and creating a file for you that captures everything discussed 

1.5-2 hours – selecting schools and recommenders (as well as references and letter of support writers if applicable) with you

3-5 hours – participating in career narrative development work with you

1-1.5 hours – creating your first draft resume skeletal structure for you

3-4 hours – building your resume with you

3-4 hours – building/reviewing LOR packages (include all schools you’re applying to) with you

1-2 hours – conducting essay topic calls with you

8-9 hours – building/reviewing essays from first to final draft with you (assumes 3 essays)

1-2 hours – building/reviewing the LOR files with you

1-1.5 hours – helping you craft online application content and reviewing your online application

1.5-2.5 hours – conducting full mock interview (45 mins) and doing debrief with you

Your Career Narrative Expert:

4-6 hours – leading career narrative work with you and your advisor

Your Partnership Manager:

2-3 hours – overseeing your partnership proactively and logistically

Your Leadership Team Lead:

1-1.5 hours – reviewing career narrative progress between calls and participating in a call during which you present your vision

1-2 hours – selecting schools and recommenders with you

1-1.5 hours – reviewing your resume once the partnership thinks it's ready (typically 2 times)

2-4 hours – reviewing your essays once the partnership thinks they’re ready (typically 2-3 times)

1-1.5 hours – helping your partnership manager guide your partnership logistically

How we typically spend our time with you on your first school - interview prep work (excluding Booth, HBS, Sloan, and Wharton)

Your Advisor:

1.5-2.5 hours – conducting full mock interview (45 mins) and then debriefing with you. If you struggle with your first mock interview, we will do 1-2 mini-mocks (18-22 minute interviews with 20+ minutes of debrief) with you. We won't let you go into an interview unprepared.

Not Included
How we typically spend our time with you on each additional school - written application work

As a team, we will spend 8-15 hours guiding you. Below we break down how we typically spend that time:


Your Advisor:

1-2 hours – conducting essay topic calls with you

5-9 hours – building/reviewing essays from first to final draft with you (assumes 3 essays)

0-1 hour – building/reviewing the LOR files with you

0-.5 hours – helping you craft online application content

1 hour – conducting mini-mock interview (20-25 mins) and doing debrief with you

Your Partnership Manager:

.5-1 hour – oveseeing your partnership proactively and logistically

Your Leadership Team Lead:

1.5-2 hours – reviewing your essays once the partnership thinks they’re ready (typically 2-3 times)

0-.5 hours – helping your partnership manager guide your partnership logistically

How we typically spend our time with you on your first/additional school - interview prep work on Booth, HBS, Sloan, and Wharton

As a team, we will spend 2-2.75 additional hours guiding you on Booth:

Your Advisor:

.25-.5 hours - conducting a video topic call wth you

1.5-2 hours – building your pre-interview video script and recording with you

Your Leadership Team Lead:

.25-.25 hours – reviewing your pre-interview video script and recording with you


As a team, we will spend 4.5-7 additional hours guiding you on HBS:

Your Advisor:

1-1.5 hours - we revert to a 45 minute mock and mimic the HBS pace/focus, followed by debrief

.75-1.5 hours - post-interview reflection essay topic call with you

2-2.5 hours – building your post-interview reflection essay with you

Your Partnership Manager:

.25-.5 hours – planning/overseeing your post-interview reflection essay timeline

Your Leadership Team Lead:

.5-1 hours – reviewing your post-interview reflection essay (typically two reviews)


As a team, we will spend 2.5-4.5 additional hours guiding you on Sloan:

Your Advisor:

.25-1 hours – conducting a pre-interview essay topic calls with you

2-3 hours – building your post-interview reflection essay with you

Your Leadership Team Lead:

.25-.5 hours – reviewing your pre-interview essays (typically two reviews)


As a team, we will spend 1.75-2.25 additional hours guiding you on Wharton:

Your Advisor:

.5.-1 hours - conducting a team-based dicussion pitch topic call wth you

1.5-2 hours – building your pitch and practicing it with you

Your Leadership Team Lead:

.25-.25 hours – reviewing your pitch (typically two reviews)

Not Included

Pricing with Senior Advisor
(has 5+ years experience with Square One; several have 20+ years)
Premium  Essential
(PE)
Premium
Need-based (PNB)
Premium
(P)
First school

Includes: Square One Assessment, school/recommender selection, career narrative development (1.5 hour limit with PE), resume, essay topic call(s) and essay development, LOR Packages (includes ALL schools), LORs, on-line app work/review, interview preparation (with P/PNB), waitlist strategy call if necessary (with P/PNB), waitlist work if necessary (with P), deferral request if necessary (with P/PNB), and test waiver request if necessary (with P/PNB)

$6,400
$8,400
Each additional school

Includes: Essay topic call(s) and essay development, LORs, on-line app work/review, interview preparation (with P/PNB), waitlist strategy call if necessary (with P/PNB), waitlist work if necessary (with P), deferral request if necessary (with P/PNB), and test waiver request if necessary (with P/PNB)

$1,900
$2,400
1 school
$6,400
$8,400
2 schools
$8,300
$10,800
3 schools
$10,200
$13,200
4 schools
$12,100
$15,600
5 schools
$14,000
$18,000
6 schools
$15,900
$20,400
Hourly

If you are seeking targeted assistance and want to set the agenda, or you have a limited budget and need us to help you decide how to best use it on your applications, partner with us in this capacity. You can start with as little as one hour. With hourly work, after the first hour, we charge down to the minute for calls, strategic emails, and file reviews. 


Candidly, we don't do much hourly work, as it requires us to work with you differently than we do when we work wth you comprehensively. For example, because we must be mindful of time, we can't read an essay in five different settings when we conduct a review to ensure we don't miss anything. We do that when we work with clients comprehensively. Additionally, we can't ensure you build a full application to be stellar and consistent when we work with you in an hourly manner; we can help you build a component to be stellar. When applying to the top global programs, one must ensure their applications are consistent and consistently strong.  Below are activities one does with us hourly, along with hourly estimates.


Candidate assessment and admissions strategy................................................................................................4-6 hours

Application development schedule..................................................................................................................... .5 hour

LOR package creation.......................................................................................................................................... .5 hour

Career narrative/goals exploration and definition...............................................................................................3-5 hours

Resume review (one in-depth review)...................................................................................................................1-2 hours

Resume refinement (from first draft to finished product)....................................................................................4 hours

Essay topic selection (one school’s essays - assumes 2 unique essays)..........................................................1 hour

Essay review (one in-depth review of one school’s essays – assumes 2 essays)............................................ 2-4 hours

Essay review (review of one school’s essays from first review to finished product – assumes 2 essays)..... 5-6 hours

Recommendation guidance (selection, preparation, review).............................................................................. 4-5.5 hours

Interview preparation............................................................................................................................................. 2.5-3 hours

Waitlist strategy call................................................................................................................................................1-1.5 hours

Waitlist communications........................................................................................................................................2-3.5 hours


$300
$400

Pricing with Standard Advisor
(has 0-4 years experience with Square One)
Premium  Essential
(PE)
Premium
Need-based (PNB)
Premium
(P)
First school

Includes: Square One Assessment, school/recommender selection, career narrative development (1.5 hour limit with PE), resume, essay topic call(s) and essay development, LOR Packages (includes ALL schools), LORs, on-line app work/review, interview preparation (with P/PNB), waitlist strategy call if necessary (with P/PNB), waitlist work if necessary (with P), deferral request if necessary (with P/PNB), and test waiver request if necessary (with P/PNB)

$4,300
$5,400
$7,400
Each additional school

Includes: Essay topic call(s) and essay development, LORs, on-line app work/review, interview preparation (with P/PNB), waitlist strategy call if necessary, waitlist work if necessary (with Premium), deferral request if necessary (with P/PNB), and test waiver request if necessary (with P/PNB)

$1,300
$1,700
$2,100
1 school
$4,300
$5,400
$7,400
2 schools
$5,600
$7,100
$9,500
3 schools
$6,900
$8,800
$11,600
4 schools
$8,200
$10,500
$13,700
5 schools
$9,500
$12,200
$15,800
6 schools
$10,800
$13,900
$17,900
Hourly

If you are seeking targeted assistance and want to set the agenda, or you have a limited budget and need us to help you decide how to best use it on your applications, partner with us in this capacity. You can start with as little as one hour. With hourly work, after the first hour, we charge down to the minute for calls, strategic emails, and file reviews. 


Candidly, we don't do much hourly work, as it requires us to work with you differently than we do when we work wth you comprehensively. For example, because we must be mindful of time, we can't read an essay in five different settings when we conduct a review to ensure we don't miss anything. We do that when we work with clients comprehensively. Additionally, we can't ensure you build a full application to be stellar and consistent when we work with you in an hourly manner; we can help you build a component to be stellar. When applying to the top global programs, one must ensure their applications are consistent and consistently strong.  Below are the most common activities one does with us hourly, along with hourly estimates.


Candidate assessment and admissions strategy................................................................................................4-6 hours
Application development schedule..................................................................................................................... .5 hour
LOR package creation.......................................................................................................................................... .5 hour

Career narrative/goals exploration and definition...............................................................................................3-5 hours
Resume review (one in-depth review)...................................................................................................................1-2 hours
Resume refinement (from first draft to finished product)....................................................................................4 hours
Essay topic selection (one school’s essays - assumes 2 unique essays)..........................................................1 hour
Essay review (one in-depth review of one school’s essays – assumes 2 essays)............................................ 2-4 hours
Essay review (review of one school’s essays from first review to finished product – assumes 2 essays)..... 5-6 hours
Recommendation guidance (selection, preparation, review).............................................................................. 4-5.5 hours
Interview preparation............................................................................................................................................. 2.5-3 hours
Waitlist strategy call................................................................................................................................................1-1.5 hours

Waitlist communications........................................................................................................................................2-3.5 hours

$300
$300
$400

Application Component
Premium  Essential
(PE)
Premium
Need-based (PNB)
 Premium
(P)
Email Support (unlimited)

We are here for you. We have a general protocol to reply within 4 hours, but typically reply to emails within minutes. Of course, there are times that won't happen, but that's our goal.

Phone/Video Support (unlimited)

We love to talk to our clients, as we want to learn about you, explore, educate you, and answer questions you have. We are not form-heavy. The only form you will fill out with us once you are a client is a school assessment matrix. For all other matters - getting to know you, defining your schools, recommenders, career vision, and essay topics - will be done on calls. We can't begin to capture your voice in your work if we don't hear your voice enough to understand it.  

Our Portal and Your Application Development Schedule

Our portal includes your customized, graphic, day-by-day schedule, which captures every activity you must complete for your application effort and is task-based, always in real time, and dynamic (activity timelines adjust based on your pace). Your schedule includes:


  • All the schools you are applying to, not just those you are building with us, as we want to help you create a pace that will give you the time to apply to all your schools
  • Embedded samples of everything for your applications (essays, resumes, LOR Packages, LORs, career narratives, etc). We share essay samples for schools you build with us comprehensively. If you work with us on 3+ schools, we share essay samples for ANY school you'd like.
  • Essay and LOR questions for all your schools (you have access to our unabridged library of Essay/LOR questions for top schools)
  • Profile/Program data for all your schools
  • Important dates (deadlines, interview notification protocol/dates, decision dates, deposit due dates)
  • Your test dates (placeholders and confirmed) if you are doing that while working on your applications
  • Recommender information, including how/if they are working with you to build their letters of recommendation


We give you transparency while guiding you proactively. We hold ourselves, and you, accountable. No other firm offers this level of support. This schedule, and your partnership manager who oversees it, allows the rest of your team at Square One to focus on you strategically and creatively.


Our portal also includes your Profile Page, which has your:

  • Background/life stats
  • Partnership details/pricing
  • Real-time progress data in prose in case you prefer that to a visual schedule
  • Recommenders' details and how your recommenders plan to work with you/us to build their LORs. That's also reflected in your schedule
  • Table showing the number of recommenders/references your schools require and what kind of recommenders/references your schools prefer/allow
  • Tables that track your progress once you are at the interview and offer stages with the schools


Our portal also includes School Profile/Data Pages and Dashboards so that school information, as well as an ability to quickly compare programs, is at your fingertips.

Square One Assessment

This is how we kick-off all comprehensive partnerships. It is a call between you and your advisor, typically 4-5.5 hours long, that allows us to begin to get to know you (and you to get to know yourself) as a top business school applicant. We help you understand who you are as an applicant, who you are relative to the overall pool of applicants, and what admissions committees care about. We focus on who you are from an academic, professional, extracurricular, personal, and school-positioning perspective, define your areas of strength/weakness, and begin to set forth strategies to mitigate your weaknesses/highlight your strengths in your applications. At the end of this call, which is just the beginning our work with you, you will know you made the right choice by partnering with us.  

School Selection WorkEven if you partner with us on just one school, we assist you with selecting all your schools because we want your application strategy to be a smart one; we want you to succeed. 
Your leadership team lead leads this work with you and your advisor on calls (unless you are already set on your schools, of course). Prior to the first call, you will fill out a form that includes questions and a matrix. The matrix has 30+ school traits, each of which you will rate (high, medium low, NA). The matrix will educate you about schools - some of their similarities and distinctions as well as programming highlights. To be clear, we do not spoonfeed you all the information on schools; we do not give you white papers, as that could lead all clients to talk about schools in the same way. It could also lead you to not learn as much as you should. We want you to have some accountability, to do school research and share with us what you are drawn to; we will fill in blanks and share other aspects of a program that could be of interest as well as correct any misconceptions you have about programs. You'll also answer questions that help us understand your appetite for risk, broader psychology about succeeding/failing, need for a scholarship, and perspective on schools. Then we talk - you learn from us as we learn from you. We do not coddle you. We will tell you what schools you are capable of getting into as well as what schools you should avoid, if any, and why. We will help you understand what type of program to consider if you are strong candidate for several types (full-time, part-time, 1-Year, Leadership, EMBA, etc). If you need to do more research before we define your school list, or if you are still doing test prep and the score could dictate what schools are within/out of reach, we will do another call. 
School selection can be very fluid for months if we start work with you early in the season.
Recommender Selection

Applicants often underestimate how much weight admissions committees place on LORs. They are considered the most objective piece of your applications. They must have the right tone and be consistent with all the other content in your applications, all while being additive and having a distinct, independent voice. We help you select your recommenders. 


First, in our portal you will list all your recommender contenders, answering 10-12 questions about each. Your advisor will discuss each contender with you during your Square One Assessment, taking notes on each person, to define who they think the right 2-3 folks are.  Your leadership team lead (LTL) will then assess all of that information. If selecting the right people was very straight-forward, your LTL will sign off without a call. Otherwise, she, along with you and your advisor, will discuss the contenders as a full team. Prepare, as most of the time we prefer to get on a call to discuss the options to ensure we have been thorough. Occasionally, a second call is necessary.  We will also discuss who your references and letter of support writers should be, if your schools require references and if you have contenders for letters of support (note than 99% of applicants don't and many schools no longer consider them, most notably HBS)

Letter of Recommendation (LOR) Package Creation

Once we define your recommenders (and schools), we build LOR packages, which include ALL your schools, with you to help you ensure your recommenders’ time assisting you is as effective and efficient as possible. Because you show such respect for how busy they are, and build robust brainstorming packages for them that enable them to spend no more than 2 hours of time even if you apply to 12+ schools (please don't do that!), your recommenders create strong LORs that are customized for each school and complete/submit them well before your deadlines, often months before.

Career Narrative Work Sessions/Development

Unsure what you want to do post-b-school - are hoping to figure that out while in business school? Worried your ambitions are too conventional or won't differentiate you from other applicants? Have a visionary idea only? Or know what you want to do in the short-term, but after that could see yourself going in three distinct directions? We help you develop a narrative that has continuity, logic, and ambition, is differentiated from other applicants' visions, and includes a 15+ year roadmap.  


We kick off this effort with you by asking you to build a "starter career narrative file." We share 4 approaches with you to use as a guide if you struggle. Your career narrative expert (CNE) reviews your starter file, shares comments/questions, and then schedules the first work session with you and your advisor.  We also give you access to a folder with 500+ final career narrative files (titled descriptively by industry/function to make finding samples relevant to you easy). We suggest you not look at them until you've made headway with your own, as we want to help you learn about yourself and your options. We do this by asking you tough questions that help you define a path, paint a landscape/tell a data story for that path, and establish why you are the person to take that path.  


Many clients say the career narrative work is the most rewarding part of their application journey because it includes an a-ha moment when they realize how strong and differentiated they are as an applicant. They know that we didn't just help them create an "admissions case." We straddled the fence between the real world and application world to help them explore and define what they really want to do and how business school will give them skills for every set of their future career path.   


Premium and Premium Need-based clients:

We do work sessions (typically 3-5 that are 30-60 minutes each) over 10-20 days with homework in between each that your CNE reviews prior to each session. Once you define a vision and write a 600-800 word file that articulates your motivations, why you, the landscape of the space you want to be in (including a data story), and your practical gameplan (short-, mid-, and long-term goals), the CNE sends a synopsis to your leadership team lead (LTL) to review. As your LTL doesn't participate in the work sessions, she is at the admissions level, assessing the efficacy of your vision. She makes comments and ask questions that could mean another work session is necessary. Or she signs off, at which point the CNE plans the final career narrative call so you may present your vision in a relaxed manner over 5-7 minutes. Afterward, your CNE, LTL, and advisor offer feedback. If we feel you need to present again, which can occur for many reasons - you don't own the content, you don't tell you story clearly, you fail to share critical data that is in your 600-800 word file, or you appear to be reading that file as opposed to referring to it - we will ask you to address the issues and present again. If you do a great job, you're officially done with this work and ready to begin work on goals essays. 


Premium Essential clients:

1.5 hours of support are included with your package. In that time we aim to do at least 2 work sessions (assuming preparing for the first session takes 10-15 minutes and the first session is 30 minutes). Your CNE helps you develop a career vision synopsis, time permitting, and sends it to your LTL to review. We give you access to a folder with 200+ career narrative synopses (titled descriptively by industry/function to make finding samples you feel are relevant to you easy).  You can say at the outset of this work that you want to purchase hourly time to give yourself and our team a longer runway to help you explore. You can also see what you're able to accomplish in 1.5 hours and add hourly time afterward if you feel you need it. You can add as little as 1 hour. 

1.5 hours
Career Narrative Synopsis Review by Leadership Team Lead

Please see "Career Narrative Work Sessions/Development."

Career Narrative Presentation to Leadership Team Lead

Please see "Career Narrative Work Sessions/Development."

Resume Development

The resume you submit to get a job is not the resume you submit to get into business school. Admissions committees want to see your academic, professional and extracurricular stories on the page. They want you to focus on your accomplishments and impact rather than your tasks and responsibilities. They also want to know what you did in college – in and out of the classroom, understanding what kind of time you gave to involvements and what kind of impact you had. 


We take the time to get to know you before we start work on your resume. That, in part, is why our kick-off call, your Square One Assessment, is 4+ hours. We share resume guidelines/samples with you. Your advisor works with you iteratively to build your resume, ensuring every line is additive and won’t lead the admissions committees to ask questions due to a lack of general clarity, or because they aren’t intimately familiar with your industry and work. Your resume will set you apart from your competition, even if you are coming from a traditional b-school feeder industry like consulting, investment banking, private equity, or software engineering. 

Resume Review by Leadership Team Lead 

Once you and your advisor build your resume to what you both believe is a completed state, your leadership team lead (LTL) reviews it.  Be ready to do more work as our role collectively is to help you craft the most effective resume possible. Your LTL often needs to see your resume more than once to ensure it's submission ready. This is built into and tracked in your schedule to be transparent with you. If your LTL needs to see it a third or fourth time, she won't hesitate to say so. We're here to help you build the best work possible.

Essay Topic Call(s) and Essay Development 

Essays are the most important part of the written application. Writing essays that resonate with the admissions committees and make them want to know even more about you isn’t easy – not when you are competing against thousands of other extremely accomplished, dynamic people from around the world. We share successful samples with you, encourage vulnerability, brainstorm with you to select the right collection of essay topics, and help you craft work that is strategically, creatively, and editorially so memorable that admissions committees physically lean in when they read your work. This leads them to invite you to interview. With all schools in your partnership, your advisor iterates with you to build your essays (we have no limits, but most drafts require 4-8 reviews) until both of you feel the essays are complete, ready for your leadership team lead.

Essay Review by Leadership Team Lead 

Be prepared! Akin to the resume reviews, your LTL often needs to see essays 2-3 times before they feel your essays are submission ready. Building essays, like your resume, is a real team effort! 

LOR Construction

Your recommenders craft robust answers to LOR topics based on thorough brainstorming packages you send them.  Once they craft those answers, we work with them/you to build the final LOR files for the schools you are working on with us comprehensively. We ensure the content respects the various schools' word limits. This can take time.  For example, while most schools have the same three LOR questions, using the Common LOR, some schools have no word limits, others 1,000 words, and others only 550 words. Many recommenders, for example, see that HBS and Stanford ask the same questions, but that HBS has a 300 word limit for the performance v peers topic and Stanford has a 500 word limit for the same topic. They often want to just remove 1-2 strengths to quickly trim the answer by 200 words.  We help them understand how to, instead, trim the content strategically to tighten the messaging but not lose ANY of the substance. It takes real time to do that work, but we are eager to do it and help your recommenders, and by extension, you.

Online App Review

We help you build all your content - whether it's 250-character text boxes or additional essays - and review your online application before you hit submit.

Interview Preparation

With traditional interview preparation, we send you 40+ questions that we have learned are in rotation for you to study. After you prepare on your own, we discuss what to be aware of in the interview experience - virtual and/or in-person. We then give you a 45-minute mock interview and 45-90 minutes of debrief. We give you as many mock interviews as necessary to ensure you're prepared to ace the real interview. If you secure interviews at schools that have pre-interview essays/videos, post-interview essays, or team-based discussion pitches, and we worked with you comprehensively on those schools, we will share samples and assist you with that work.


If you secure interviews at schools that have a pre-interview essay, post-interview essay or team-based discussion pitch, and we worked with you comprehensively on those schools, we assist you with that work, sharing samples, doing topic calls, and building work with you iteratively with leadership team lead reviews.


When you work with us on 1-2-3+ schools, we offer you traditional interview prep on any 1-2-3+ schools. The prep does not have to be for the schools we prepared with you at the written application stage. Note, this flexibility does not include coverage of pre-interview essays/videos or post-interview essays. We will replace a traditional interview with team-based discussion pitch preparation.


For all schools but HBS, once we have fully prepared you to go into a traditional interview experience, we stop doing full mock (30+ minute) mock interviews. We don't want you to do so much prep that you could begin to sound canned/scripted. Instead, we do 17-22 minute mocks. With HBS, because of the pace and resume-focused format of their interviews, which is slightly different than a behavioral interview, if you apply to/secure an interview at that school, we do a 30-40-minute mock interview, no matter how much interview prep we have done with you for other schools.

Scholarship Negotiation

We love helping with this, as it means you have succeeded!  We help you craft your strategy to secure funds (or more funds if that is your situation!) and review any emails you craft to make your request(s). This does not include helping you craft essays to apply for scholarships available to you, but not part of the school's basic application.

Deferred to Next Round Support (if necessary)

If you are deferred to the next round with a school, we will share samples with you. If we are working with us comprehensively on a school at which you are deferred, we will help you strategize and build support materials that the school will accept.

Test Waiver Request (if necessary)

If you apply to a school that allows applicants to request test waivers, we share samples with you. If you are working with us on that school comprehensively, we help you strategize and build your request. 

Waitlist Strategy Call (if necessary)

Of course, we hope to avoid this with you. But if you get waitlisted at a school on which we guided you comprehensively, we send you an email that explains what being waitlisted means and all the various reasons it could happen to you. We give you homework to do, which your leadership team lead will reference as she leads a waitlist strategy call with you that is customized per your specific situation to help you define actions/next steps. This call is typically 45-75 minutes.

Waitlist Materials (if necessary)

If you get waitlisted at a school on which we guided you comprehensively, we work with you on your waitlist strategy in an ongoing manner and help you craft all responses to the school(s). We typically spend 3-6 more hours over the course of 3-6 months, as the most common month to convert to an offer is May. Some schools welcome new materials with no limits. In those cases, we work with you to send updates every 5-6 weeks. Other schools allow only 1-2 updates per round with a limited number of words (HBS), and other schools allow you to send 2,000 character updates up to 7 times (Stanford).

If you work with us comprehensively on a 4+ schools, we will assist you on ANY school at which you get waitlisted.