About
THIS SECTION EXPLAINS HOW MBA STUDIO HELPS ITS VALUED CLIENTS
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Who are you?
Avi Gordon
The MBA Admissions Studio is directed by Avi Gordon, a specialist MBA admissions coach, and author of McGraw Hill Professional’s MBA Admissions Strategy: From Profile Building to Essay Writing. Avi is an ex-business journalist, with a communications-marketing background, MBA Adcoms experience, World MBA Tour experience, and is also a graduate of a top-10 MBA program.
Avi has helped hundreds of successful applicants since starting The MBA Admissions Studio in 2002. He maintains a significant profile in the admissions community, and is published in various places. See, for example, articles in The Times and MBAPodcaster and The World MBA Tour. Avi is also Business Week’s invited MBA Admissions expert, founder of the MBA Admissions Forum on Business Week’s Business Exchange (BX).
Avi Gordon, MBA Admissions Studio, is admitted as a full member of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC)—the oversight and credentialing body in the admissions field—and practices to the standards and ethics set by the association.
Avi personally directs application strategy and profile building for every MBA Studio client, and also personally reviews and edits essays. Note that there are no trainee or junior consultants “learning” on your application. Marketing and support people are involved in promotions and client services, both in the US and around the world.
In serving clients Avi is most easily reachable on Skype: [mbastudio] or email: avi.gordon(at)mbastudio.net or Twitter @mbastudio, and you are welcome to be in contact at any time.
How is the MBA Admissions Studio different from other admissions consultants/coaches?
At one level, we’re all the same. We help candidates make the best possible application to competitive-admission business schools. There are, however, a few key attributes that distinguish MBA Studio:
1. There are no solicitations; no per-school guides that give you a ‘taster’ of what you need to know and then ask for cash; no downloads that lead to sign-up options and outlays. Every resource on this site is free, and the free essay review or spot assessment is exactly that: free. Service prices are transparent, and competitive among credible competition.
2. You get the expert. Many MBA admissions consulting firms have many consultants, and while you pay for the top insight and editing, you may get the local duffer. At MBA Studio you get Avi, from start to finish.
3. In terms of approach, MBA Studio avoids the (selling) game of telling you what different schools each “look for.” Why? Actually Avi does have insider experience with a number of the top schools, garnered over many years, but has learned many times that the best admissions strategy is to focus on the candidate not the school. Of course candidates must be able to name attributes, courses, professors, and extra-curricular features of the particular school that enhance his/her purpose (“the fit”), but they should not let the school’s alleged ideal-applicant profile determine their pitch. This is because all schools seek a rich mix of different candidates of all types and backgrounds (to achieve class balance and better peer-learning). There is a more ideal or less ideal applicant in general, but there is no such thing as an ideal applicant for any one school. That’s just marketing hot air. (Also, currents move quickly in MBA admissions, so claims to past admissions committee experience at any institution is of very little consequence.)
So how would you define your approach?
The only way to get into business school is via a complete, balanced, thorough application, that captures your current value as a person and as a professional, and validly implies much future success. It takes work, yours and ours. This is what is meant in our “production studio” approach. Together we find the value elements in your profile, and organize, produce, and polish them to make a great finished product. We take your application from where it is to where it needs to be, to be competitive.
It follows that the MBA Admissions Studio is not an essay supermarket. We believe in a personal one-to-one approach. Everything we do is highly customized to the applicant and his or her particular needs. We build a relationship with you.
What is MBA Studio’s success record?
MBA Studio’s success percentage, over seven years, is about 95%. But we don’t champion this fact. Why? Because there is no auditing body that verifies this - so anyone can claim whatever they like as a success record. Also, more importantly, consultants looking to achieve a 100% success record will steer applicants to lower-reputation schools. We believe a candidate should apply to “reach” as well as “realistic” schools, in a portfolio-based approach.
Do you write essays?
No. The MBA Studio wholly endorses the ethics of MBA admissions, the standards of business schools, and the codes of practice as outlined by the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants of which we are a member. In short, a candidate’s essays must be their own work. We do not ghost-write or otherwise condone clients submitting work that is not their own.
Having said that, every athlete has a coach, and every film star has an agent, and every business leader many expert consultants. So MBA Studio will absolutely coach you, advise you, troubleshoot for you, and guide you every step of the way, so you make the most compelling and persuasive case come “race day.”
Think of it this way: almost everyone gets coached in the GMAT, whether through guidebooks or prep classes or online - so the candidate’s final GMAT score does not represent the candidate’s raw ability. Admissions consulting, interview prep, and essay prep go by the same rules. It’s all about what you can achieve after consulting and coaching – just like in the real business world. Everything we do is by way of expert suggestion. You are the boss and you retain full ownership and control of your application.
How do Adcoms view admission consulting, interview prep, and essay editing? Is it “legal”?
There’s no problem as long as you don’t get anyone to do your application for you. In fact, Adcom prefers applicants who understand their strengths, weaknesses, and educational needs, and are able to express themselves clearly. What gives them a headache is the obviously talented and successful individual who submits a weak application.
Is it confidential?
All interactions are 100% confidential. MBA Studio maintains strict confidentiality of any material you send us, any discussions we have, and the fact of our relationship itself. You may publicize it at your discretion. Client contact data (email/phone) is closely guarded and never revealed under any circumstances.
I can get editing on the Web for 99¢ per 1,000 pages from sweetalkediting.com. Why should I come to you?
There are many cheap editing services around. Some are clear charlatans, but others are okay. What they don’t have, and what you almost certainly need if you are on this site, is an editor who understands what works in MBA admissions. Getting text correct is not so hard. What’s hard is understanding your value profile and communicating it to MBA admissions officers through the set questions, and getting the essays to dovetail with your file, recommendations, resume, and interview. A text-editor cannot take you there.
Also, MBA Studio focuses only on the MBA. If you want to go to law school or med school, etc., we send you to consultants better than ourselves. But for top-tier MBA admissions, this is the place. For more, see “16 Reasons to Choose MBA Studio as your Application Partner“.
You make a big deal of profiling and profile building. What is it and why do I need it?
The Greek Oracle at Delphi said: “know thyself” and that’s the single key to MBA admissions. If you know who you are and where you’re going, and why it requires an MBA, you’re already halfway to getting in. Our profiling tool is a quick and effective way to achieve this basic self-insight. We assess your strengths, weaknesses, achievements, preferences, goals, motivations, etc., which becomes the basis of your essay and interview content. If you don’t do adequate individual personal profiling, you’ll end up sounding like a generic candidate. Ding.
Do you sell sample essays? If not, why not?
The MBA Admissions Studio does not traffic in sample essays. Samples can be good, if used in the right way (as a learning tool). We can send you good samples of excellent and shoddy essays. But we do not suggest you use these essays as any sort of model. Firstly there’s the possibility that Adcom will directly recognize the essay, and therefore your plagiarism. But even if they don’t, the expression pattern will be different to your own and the essay will likely not fit in with the rest of your application, which will raise a red flag.
Second, unless you are an immensely centered individual, you will be influenced and sucked in to mimicking the model essay that worked for someone else – which by definition won’t work for you. Our advice is: have a look at some examples, understand the principles of success, then put others’ work away and concentrate on telling your own story and communicating your own value.
How do I know if I should be an Essay Makeover client, or a Per-Hour, or Per-School option A, B, C etc., client? Do you advise me?
All options (at the same price point) are designed to provide more-or-less the same value. Some people are more comfortable with a per-essay system they can control; some are more comfortable knowing “what they’re in for” in total.
Having said that, the Essay Makeover options (without profiling) do help clients move through the essay-writing process more quickly and cheaply. This is suitable when the candidate has done their own profiling, that is, knows their value points and has their own clear idea of the strategic base of their application.
School package Option A is an Essay Makeover option, but priced per school not per essay.
Packages B, C, and D, are more “deep dive,” for those who are ready to build (or rebuild) their admissions strategy, profile, essays, interviews, references, file etc., into one coherent, competitive picture from the ground up. It takes longer and costs more, but returns commensurately higher benefits to you.
Okay, assuming I sign up for the Essay Makeover. What then?
You submit your essays or essay set. These will be reviewed initially for content and structure. We don’t do a full interview but we do ask you to send as much background about yourself – resume, etc., so we can do a better job.
In reviewing an essay we first ask questions such as: Do you answer the question? Does the essay communicate a value point? Does it have an argument (for your value) which follows a logical structure? Do the introduction and conclusion work? Have you shared a distinctive memorable attribute? Does the story you chose work in its context? Have you been specific enough and given examples? If you submit various essays for one school, we check that they complement but don’t overlap each other.
Your essays will be returned with extensive content, profile, and structure/flow comments and advice, as necessary. This is Round 1. Then you’ll take them, rework them, and submit them again. Depending on how the essay looks, Round 2 may do more of this, but where the content is more-or-less right, progresses to look more closely at the text, focusing on language, expression, and style. Have you briefly and clearly said what you need to say, using clear expression and good writing technique? Are all errors of style and grammar cleaned up? etc.
Sometimes, if an essay is really good and clean, it takes only one review. Normally it takes 2-3 reviews to get it right.
Assuming I sign up for profile building, or a per-school package that includes it. What happens then?
The full service admissions consulting is designed to get all parts of your file, interview, reco’s, essays, as good as they can be, and working in harmony. We invariably start by asking for as much background information as possible to be sent via e-mail. We’ll send you our profiling worksheets and set up a time to talk on the phone or Skype — where we get to know you and ask you questions about your personality, background, goals, motivations, community service, successes, failures, etc. Thinking like Adcom, we’re more interested in the human interest and stories and choices in your life than the bald facts and events.
When we have your profiling work, we will sift through them together on the phone, deciding which parts of you to promote to create a valuable, compelling candidate. This is the profiling interview. Together, we assess your key value points and how to thematically organize and evidence them via achievements for best effect. Then we will ask you to “map” this profile onto the essays you face (as well as the recommendations and interview), and help you do this. We don’t leave you to write until we have defined what goes in each essay, and set up a structure and outline for each one. This will give you clear guidance as you progress.
After that, the process resembles the Essay Makeover, except there is no limit on number of edits. We take your essay through various edits and rewrites until it is complete. This is all done via email, with occasional brief phone calls, where necessary.
The more extensive package options - C and D - have more services built in.
What’s “Essay Mapping”? That’s not a term I’m familiar with.
With our system you don’t start by answering the essay questions. You start by deciding what you should tell Adcom. You arrive at your application message before you look at the questions. You’re in control. Mapping is the process of “painting” your message onto the essay questions so that (a) the questions are answered and (b) your message is transmitted. If you follow our process, you will have a map to follow before you start writing.
So it is all done by phone and email?
Absolutely. The MBA Admissions Studio has locations in the US and the UK. But whether we’re working for someone in Trenton NJ, or Osaka, Japan, we actually work the same way – via phone, email, and/or internet chat. There’s no difference, except that, if calling from abroad is expensive, we’ll keep that to a minimum or we’ll call you.
So what does this all cost?
The MBA Studio offers various flexible options: essay makeover, per school package options, and a completely a-la-carte menu. See the services and prices page. With us you always know exactly what you are paying for and you have full control over it.
We don’t expect you to plunk down a lot of money without experiencing the benefits of the process. Therefore we encourage you to take advantage of our free essay edit, or just some consulting, so you can get an idea of the value-add. Only disreputable providers try to sucker you into a big upfront payment based on sweet words. We don’t hard-sell you and we don’t expect you to pay for more than one service at a time. (Obviously, significant discounts apply when you ready to make a bigger commitment to the process.)
What if I want to try out, and purchase more services later?
The whole philosophy of The MBA Admissions Studio is that you have the power to choose. You can do whatever you want, and play it as your time and budget demands.
How long does it take?
A full profiling and consulting package typically takes two to six weeks to work through. It really depends on how fast you work. General guidances is that work for review by MBA Studio will be returned in 48 hours, but may be turned quicker.
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