Ask AdmissionsConsultants

[surya167]

Hi David,

I am Surya and I hail from India. I have been a member of both TM and Business week for a year now and I strongly believe that these are the best available resources in their respective areas.

I wanted to discuss abt my profile with you. As soon as you hear an MBA aspirant from India, the S/W engineer tag comes into picture. Well true, and unfirtunately I am no exception in that. So here goes my profile.

Total Experience - 3 years(worked in Financial as well as Telecommuncation
domain) [No international exposure yet may be soon]

GMAT score - 660 (Planning to retake in 3rd week of May)

Aspirations - To study in a B School that would end up landing me a good job with a descent enough salary so that i could end up paying off my loan easily) -HEC Paris is on my mind right now

Financial Aid - Absolutely essential (Planning to buy entire fees on loan)

Application Progress- Have got positive response from HEC Paris Candidate evaluation review

Community Services - My experiences with Green peace for 5 months & a local Orphanage through work place for 4 months (in the role of a teacher, a guardian & a friend) have been great challenges.

Extra curricular activities - Studies, Sports and Stage- my identity as a school captain! I was the Best footballer in town (2 years); the Best cricketer; led school victories for interschool cricket/football tournaments. Event organization, compeering and participation in plays were a norm, which continues till date. I have appeared in print for a Fashion magazine & media advertisements during College. Currently at Amdocs, I am member of the Creativity & Cricket teams.

David, I request you to please give me an honest opinion of my chances of getting into a good B School. Also, i would like to take this oppurtunity to give some of your valuable comments on HEC Paris. If you could recommend me some schools seeing my profile it would be really great of you.

Thanks in advance,
Surya

[arindam_gmat]

Hi David,
I'm a college senior,presently in my final year at IIT,Kharagpur(India)...have got an interview call from HBS for R3...considering the fact that i've no relevant work experience,is the interview supposed to be a bit different??what kinda different questions can i expect from the adcom member?
Thanks
Arindam

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Thank you so much for your reply! I wanted to ask one more question and in addition, answer a couple of questions that you raised. I will first start off with your questions.

The reason I started college late is quite personal - I was quite young when I was forced to support myself and be on my own (as mentioned - 16 when this happened) and although I was quite determined to put myself through college, it became quite difficult for me to do so for several reasons - financial reasons and the lack of mentorship, "adult support" and lack of understanding about the student aid available to me comes to mind...But I was able to get my things together, learn about the resources, and finally through persistence and determination, enrolled in a university, that I was accepted to immediately. That last statement brings up another reason - possibly it was the lack of confidence and fear that I would not be able to be accepted to school. That was over 10 years ago and I have grown significantly as a person. Although I am proud to have lived through that and feel very strongly that my life experiences reflect positively on my character, I have some reservations about mentioning such personal matters in admission application. What are your thoughts?

You asked if I have participated in any extracurricular activities. Before I started college, I worked as a volunteer for an organization serving food to homeless people called Food Not Bombs. But since then I have not participated in any activities. Do you have any recommendations?

As for references, I will be using my direct supervisor and my past supervisor at Stanford University and possibly a couple of professors that I know very well. I believe that I can get some decent letters of recommendations.

Looking forward to hearing from you again.

Thanks again.

Hi and thanks for your inquiry again.

Your story is very compelling and unique, and more importantly it is a sincere and life changing story. Thus, referencing your background in your essays I believe will truly help to differentiate you from the rest of the applicant pool. Moreover, your hardships were overcome by ambition and drive and this helps to illustrate your hard working character. Therefore, as mentioned, do not be afraid to use your personal experiences within your essays for they are a part of you and you have grown due to them.

In regards to your concerns regarding extracurricular involvement, your prior commitment is a starting point; however, it would not hurt you to join another organization or project to gain some more experiences so long as the perception of expediency does not become an issue. Nevertheless, it is important to choose an extracurricular activity that is of interest to you, one that will assist to highlight your passion for other areas outside of your work arena.

Best of luck with your applications!
Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi everyone,

I encourage everyone to take a look at the following thread on the businessweek forums. A number of people have felt cheated by this company's service and I think it may in be in everyone's best interest to review some of the stories posted on this thread prior to signing up. Also, there are number of other consultants on the businessweek forum who can provide much more accurate advice.

http://forums.businessweek.com/n/pfx...ools&tid=71981

Best of luck to all

Hi and thanks for your post.

This BusinessWeek thread that you are referring to is an issue that has been brought to my attention. I must state that I do respect every individual’s right to an opinion – that is an informed opinion. However, the difficulty that is presented within this particular thread is that many of the users who have posted comments are not clients of ours and we’re bound by a strict privacy policy. Moreover, I always welcome comments and feedback from current and past clients and thus welcome everyone who has an issue to contact me directly and we may address those concerns.

If you complete a comprehensive Internet search on AdmissionsConsultants, you find a high number of positive comments. In addition, the customer satisfaction surveys that we receive on a consistent basis indicate the high number of satisfied clients who have obtained great results due to the level of professionalism and knowledge that all our consultants exude.

Furthermore, the Better Business Bureau reports that only one complaint has been filed against our firm in the past 36 months, and that complaint has been resolved. In that period we have gone on to serve 1,000s of clients. That’s an enviable track record and hardly one that you would associate with the level of rhetoric being thrown around on the BusinessWeek forum.

If anyone would like to discuss this issue further, please do give me a call and I would be happy to take the time to speak to you in more detail

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi David,

I am Surya and I hail from India. I have been a member of both TM and Business week for a year now and I strongly believe that these are the best available resources in their respective areas.

I wanted to discuss abt my profile with you. As soon as you hear an MBA aspirant from India, the S/W engineer tag comes into picture. Well true, and unfirtunately I am no exception in that. So here goes my profile.

Total Experience - 3 years(worked in Financial as well as Telecommuncation
domain) [No international exposure yet may be soon]

GMAT score - 660 (Planning to retake in 3rd week of May)

Aspirations - To study in a B School that would end up landing me a good job with a descent enough salary so that i could end up paying off my loan easily) -HEC Paris is on my mind right now

Financial Aid - Absolutely essential (Planning to buy entire fees on loan)

Application Progress- Have got positive response from HEC Paris Candidate evaluation review

Community Services - My experiences with Green peace for 5 months & a local Orphanage through work place for 4 months (in the role of a teacher, a guardian & a friend) have been great challenges.

Extra curricular activities - Studies, Sports and Stage- my identity as a school captain! I was the Best footballer in town (2 years); the Best cricketer; led school victories for interschool cricket/football tournaments. Event organization, compeering and participation in plays were a norm, which continues till date. I have appeared in print for a Fashion magazine & media advertisements during College. Currently at Amdocs, I am member of the Creativity & Cricket teams.

David, I request you to please give me an honest opinion of my chances of getting into a good B School. Also, i would like to take this oppurtunity to give some of your valuable comments on HEC Paris. If you could recommend me some schools seeing my profile it would be really great of you.

Thanks in advance,
Surya

Hi Surya and thanks for your inquiry,

As mentioned, you will indeed be competing within a very competitive demographic group. Thus, it will be critical that all your strengths and chosen "wow" factors tie in cohesively and strategically throughout your applications and essays to present a solid profile. After having reviewed the information that you have provided, I can see that you have a very interesting background in regards to your extracurricular involvement. This background can help balance and add to your professional experiences. Thus, you do have a solid foundation to begin crafting your essays with in the next coming months.

You did not mention your GPA, thus I cannot truly evaluate your academic profile. In addition, your current GMAT score is relatively low, thus it will be important that you score a significantly higher mark for your next GMAT sitting (700+ would be ideal.) Take the next coming weeks to really prepare for the exam so that you walk in feel confident and well practiced.

Finally, you mention that you are possibly interested in applying to HEC-Paris. However, you did not list a set of criteria you are considering to help you evaluate possible schools. Make sure that you complete your research and that you choose schools based on your overall fit and need. Admissions committees are looking for future candidates who are confident that they can succeed in their respective school environments. Without more information from you, I cannot begin to comment on your choice of schools.

If you would like to discuss your candidacy if further detail, please do not hesitate in contacting my office.

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

[rkjha]

Hi david,
Read a lot about you and your advices given to people. I have recently taken toefl and am planning for future. Hope you have something in store for me too! My profile is as follows:

GMAT: 710(Q50,V36)
AWA: 5
TOEFL: 104(25,29,22,28)
CGPA: 3.8
Work ex: 41 months by aug.2007: 14 months as merchant navy officer on a foreign going vessel,rest as maths teacher at a local school:

Community service: 30 months as an NGOist :

EC: house captain at school, school topper: cleared prestigious IIT exam, organize sports tournaments at college: captained medical committee for four years: college cricket team member: organized vaccination camps: organized fund raising programs on many occasions.

Work place: appreciation for outstanding performance while the ship was at peril recently,several appreciation letters: organized sports tournaments onboard: safety committee representative at ship: served at higher rank than allotted( got a certificate with regard to this), organized a few cultural fests at district level.

Target school: Stanford,duke,kellog,isb,oxford,darden,annarbor

Query: should I retake gmat as I recently tried one of the sets and there was a difference of 50 points than earlier time?what about toefl? May be you can help me with your insights regarding the admission process ,preparing good application packet etc.please do mention references,links or any thing else you find helpful. Please comment on my selection of the schools. thanks and in anticipation.

[oxygen08]

Why do you think many of those people are not clients of yours?? i have spoken to many of them via e-mail and discussed their experiences at length.

Also, when i have contacted you, you gave no options or recourse and have at times simply ignored my e-mails!!

Finally, you tout on your website about your admissions success rates, however, as a former customer I have never once been asked about the results after working with Doug Braithwaite. In addition, i know of at least 3 other people, 2 from this year and 1 from last who were never asked either.

NO OTHER MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTANCY ON THE WEB HAS EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO THE NUMBER OF COMPLAINTS THAT YOUR COMPANY DOES.

With the number of options that available, I highly recommends people to do their due diligence prior to signing up with this service!! The BWeek forums have numerous threads where people have posted their feedback on various consulting services. There you can get a tremendous amount of information on various consultancies.

In addition, admissions411.com has a section with ratings on various consultants AdmissionsConsultants.com has one of the WORST ratings out of all the consultants listed.

I DO NOT WANT SOMEONE TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE THAT I, AND MANY OTHERS HAVE!!

Hi and thanks for your post.

This BusinessWeek thread that you are referring to is an issue that has been brought to my attention. I must state that I do respect every individual’s right to an opinion – that is an informed opinion. However, the difficulty that is presented within this particular thread is that many of the users who have posted comments are not clients of ours and we’re bound by a strict privacy policy. Moreover, I always welcome comments and feedback from current and past clients and thus welcome everyone who has an issue to contact me directly and we may address those concerns.

If you complete a comprehensive Internet search on AdmissionsConsultants, you find a high number of positive comments. In addition, the customer satisfaction surveys that we receive on a consistent basis indicate the high number of satisfied clients who have obtained great results due to the level of professionalism and knowledge that all our consultants exude.

Furthermore, the Better Business Bureau reports that only one complaint has been filed against our firm in the past 36 months, and that complaint has been resolved. In that period we have gone on to serve 1,000s of clients. That’s an enviable track record and hardly one that you would associate with the level of rhetoric being thrown around on the BusinessWeek forum.

If anyone would like to discuss this issue further, please do give me a call and I would be happy to take the time to speak to you in more detail

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi David,
I'm a college senior,presently in my final year at IIT,Kharagpur(India)...have got an interview call from HBS for R3...considering the fact that i've no relevant work experience,is the interview supposed to be a bit different??what kinda different questions can i expect from the adcom member?
Thanks
Arindam

Hi Arindam and thanks for your inquiry.

I apologize that it has taken me so long to get back to you but we have been quite busy at the office. Given my late response, I am not quite sure if you have already had your interview. Regardless, let me state that the fact that you received an interview offer is already a great accomplishment. It has become a bit more common to see a college senior being interviewed at HBS, but it’s still quite an accomplishment. Thus walk into your interview feeling confident and review your application once again in its entirety. In addition, make sure you have a clear understanding of your overall work objectives. There is a good likelihood that the interviewer will want to discuss your future career goals in order to better determine your potential for future leadership positions.

Best of luck with your interview!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi david,
Read a lot about you and your advices given to people. I have recently taken toefl and am planning for future. Hope you have something in store for me too! My profile is as follows:

GMAT: 710(Q50,V36)
AWA: 5
TOEFL: 104(25,29,22,28)
CGPA: 3.8
Work ex: 41 months by aug.2007: 14 months as merchant navy officer on a foreign going vessel,rest as maths teacher at a local school:

Community service: 30 months as an NGOist :

EC: house captain at school, school topper: cleared prestigious IIT exam, organize sports tournaments at college: captained medical committee for four years: college cricket team member: organized vaccination camps: organized fund raising programs on many occasions.

Work place: appreciation for outstanding performance while the ship was at peril recently,several appreciation letters: organized sports tournaments onboard: safety committee representative at ship: served at higher rank than allotted( got a certificate with regard to this), organized a few cultural fests at district level.

Target school: Stanford,duke,kellog,isb,oxford,darden,annarbor

Query: should I retake gmat as I recently tried one of the sets and there was a difference of 50 points than earlier time?what about toefl? May be you can help me with your insights regarding the admission process ,preparing good application packet etc.please do mention references,links or any thing else you find helpful. Please comment on my selection of the schools. thanks and in anticipation.

Hi and thanks for your inquiry.

Regarding your academic qualifications you have a very strong GPA and your GMAT score is solid. However, your verbal skills seem somewhat lower than average given your TOEFL score and the verbal score from the GMAT. This is somewhat of a concern and while I understand you are not a native English speaker, it will be important that you eradicate any doubts that the admissions committee may have regarding your language capabilities. Therefore, I suggest that you re-take the TOEFL and you may also want to consider re-taking the GMAT in hopes of scoring higher on the verbal section.

Your work career profile is quite interesting and your experience with the navy could be quite a distinguishing factor to highlight within your applications. In addition, you have active extracurricular involvements thus you have quite a few solid points to use to help differentiate you from the rest of the competition. To help complement your work experience, it will be important that you choose recommenders who you believe will be able to best articulate your strengths and highlight your leadership potential.

If you are successful in bringing up your TOEFL score, and if you are able to present well-prepared applications, you could be quite competitive at the aforementioned schools.

As you begin preparing your applications, please do check out our website. We maintain a very active blog which discusses some of the key issues and topics related to b-school admission and we also have a link to our newsletter which is published monthly and it too addresses important issues to consider throughout your application process.

Best of luck with your applications!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Why do you think many of those people are not clients of yours?? i have spoken to many of them via e-mail and discussed their experiences at length.

Also, when i have contacted you, you gave no options or recourse and have at times simply ignored my e-mails!!

Finally, you tout on your website about your admissions success rates, however, as a former customer I have never once been asked about the results after working with Doug Braithwaite. In addition, i know of at least 3 other people, 2 from this year and 1 from last who were never asked either.

NO OTHER MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTANCY ON THE WEB HAS EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO THE NUMBER OF COMPLAINTS THAT YOUR COMPANY DOES.

With the number of options that available, I highly recommends people to do their due diligence prior to signing up with this service!! The BWeek forums have numerous threads where people have posted their feedback on various consulting services. There you can get a tremendous amount of information on various consultancies.

In addition, admissions411.com has a section with ratings on various consultants AdmissionsConsultants.com has one of the WORST ratings out of all the consultants listed.

I DO NOT WANT SOMEONE TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE THAT I, AND MANY OTHERS HAVE!!

I regret that you continue to portray facts incorrectly. One BBB complaint in 36 months is a record most businesses would envy. We had an average rating on Admissions411.com based on the experiences of only a dozen people who posted their results since that site started in the Spring of 2005. During that same period, we have placed thousands of students in MBA programs.

To all readers of this thread. We have all learned that, on the Internet, it is often difficult to tell the difference between legitimate criticism and flaming. We are not a perfect company, we're human, we make mistakes, but when legitimate mistakes are called to our attention, we respond and correct them. Unfortunately, privacy considerations preclude our revealing all the reasons why we consider "Oxygen" to be a flamer versus a legitimate critic. We can only continue to refute his consistently inaccurate allegations and let you judge for yourself.

Regards,

David Petersam