What you should expect from a Professional MBA Admissions Counselor

We received today this statement from one of our MBA candidates this year (we keep the name confidential, as per NACAC’s Statement of Principles of Good Practice – SPGP regarding client confidentiality). If you are seeking a college counselor or graduate school admissions consultant, this can help you evaluate if a consultant will provide the support you need…

“It is my pleasure to recommend a marvelous professional, Claudine Vainrub, and to write this letter on her behalf. We worked together for almost 6 months in the preparation of my applications to an MBA. She helped me through every phase of my applications, from understanding the MBA program as a whole and the particulars of each school, to applying, interviewing, getting accepted and even getting a full scholarship.

At first she executed a series of test to pinpoint my unique value as a professional and as a human being in a process called “Personal Branding”. This process lasted close to a month, during which I completed various assessments while members of my family, friends and co-workers answered questionnaires about me, my personality and my ethics in general. I was amazed by the results of this Personal Branding process, it basically captured in one single line the uniqueness that describes me.

Parallel to this, we were scouting various MBA programs and we narrowed the selection down to 3 programs and a backup MBA program, just in case. The chosen MBAs where: MBA 1 (omitted for confidentiality), MBA 2 (same), MBA 3 (same) and MBA 4 (same) (My backup school, were I could attend while living in city with my family).

The application process was for me a real pleasure, while I saw many of my friends battling to get through it, I really enjoyed it. With the guidance of Claudine, her motivation and energy, I was able to write all the essays before the first round of my three main schools, while a previous employer and my thesis tutor wrote the recommendation letters. Together we delved into the intricacies of every essay topic and choose the best life experience to match what the school was expecting from a prospective MBA student.

A couple of weeks after I confidently submitted my applications I received calls from the three schools to schedule interviews. Immediately Claudine gave me the coaching I needed to not only get through an interview successfully, but also to thrill the interviewer and leave him with a feeling of “I wish I could go back to the MBA with you”. With her direction I felt absolutely comfortable in all the interviews, and that made a big difference.

Within a month after this I received the responses from the schools. Take into account that I’m a 23 year old Venezuelan and I only had at the time a little over a year of work experience, which is well below the regular requirements for an MBA.

MBA 3 put me in their Waiting List, I talked to Claudine about this and she already had a plan to start getting MBA 3’s attention and get an official acceptance. The plan included diverse actions, first to write a letter, then to go visit the campus and then to follow up with a second letter trying to attack any weaknesses that they may have perceived of me as a candidate.

MBA 2 accepted me. This was a joyous moment for me and Claudine. All the work had, thank G-d, paid off, and now I was accepted to one of the top ten business schools in the country. But I couldn’t decide yet, I had to wait for all the answers.

MBA 1 accepted me also. Not only they accepted me, but they offered to sponsor half of my tuition. We didn’t even ask for a scholarship, which means that the application really impressed them. Now I had a tough decision to make, should I do everything in my power to get into MBA 3? Should I negotiate a scholarship with MBA 2? Should I forget about the other schools and just go to MBA 1?

At this point in time you would think that Claudine’s work was over; she got me into two top business schools and even got me a scholarship in one of them. But, she counseled me and analyzed with me the pros and cons of all my options, not to make a decision for me, but to allow me to realize what my decision should be.

The first decision was not to even apply to the MBA 4, which was no match for the other programs I got in. After this, I talked to the schools without making a decision and to our surprise I immediately got a FedEx package from MBA 1. They decided to offer me the Dean’s Scholarship, a full scholarship to an MBA. This was very exciting news!

Any regular person would tell you to run to MBA 1 and accept the offer. But, Claudine gave me a better recommendation, she told me to avoid making a decision only based on the money I could save, I should further analyze the kind of life I could have in each of the cities, the life my wife would have and the better return on my two year investment.

This was great advice. I took a plane with my wife to city we checked out the city, the Jewish community, the student life and many over things. At the end of the trip, we were both sure that MBA 1 was the right option, not only because of the scholarship, but more importantly for the kind of life we could live while I studied at MBA 1.

I can never express my full gratitude to Claudine for all the help and support she gave me in this whole process. During the whole time she was fully involved and always injecting me with energy and enthusiasm to do the best I could. One of the biggest surprise while working with her is that instead of me calling her and asking for her help, she was always one step ahead of me, she would call me before I did and she was fully accessible anytime.

Bottom line, I was 1000% (yes, One Thousand percent) satisfied with her work and I’ve recommended her to all my friends, and that is why I took the liberty to write this letter of recommendation on her behalf, because I believe everybody is entitled to know that if you are seeking for this kind of high-level assistance, in an ethical way, to apply to any program, you can find that in Claudine Vainrub.

Sincerely,

MBA Student

Class of 2010″

School were not disclosed in publication to protect student identity – Schools included Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Management, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, The University of Miami School of Business, and The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.