Application Services & Pricing

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.

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 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.

Your career narrative expert 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!

Your leadership team lead works with you and your advisor to select your schools and define your recommenders, 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 leadership team 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.

Your leadership team lead works with you and your advisor to select your schools and define your recommenders, 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 leadership team 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.

You can start with one school and add as you see the need/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 when we think you should choose comprehensive, explaining in detail why, and you cross the break-even threshold, we will not convert yu to comprehensive.

If schools you want to apply to have few unique essay themes and only traditional interviews,  we will assess the feasibilty of building two schools with you for the price of one. We will include interview prep for one school. We make this decision on a case by case basis. We want to be as fair to you as possible.

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

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.

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

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)

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)

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

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

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.

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 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 related to your applications (essays, resumes, LOR Packages, LORs, career narratives, team-based discussion pitches, HBS interview reflections, test waivers, deferral requests, etc). We share essay samples for schools you build with us comprehsively. 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 libarary of Essay/LOR questions for top schools)
• Profile/Program data for all your schools
• Important dates (deadlines, interview notifiation 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 is reflected in your schedule as well
• 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 abiloty to quickly compare programs, is at your fingertips.

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 our work with you, you will know you made the right choice by partnering with us.  

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 voice. We help you select your recommenders. Second, due to our thorough process,, building LOR packages, we 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, they remain happy throughout the process. Because they are well supported due to our process, they create strong LORs that are completed well ahead of your deadlines.

Second, we build LOR packages with you for each recommender; those packages include ALL your schools (not just those you are doing with us) and will enable your recommenders to spend no more than 2 hours even if you apply to 10 schools. We ensure each school’s LOR is customized for that school. For example, while most schools have the same three LOR questions, some schools have no word limits, others 1000 words, and others only 550 words. Our process enables you to get robust answers from your recommenders so you can then build each school's LORs in a customized manner. We don't expect your recommender to do that; we do that hard work with you on however many schools we work on with you comprehensively.

Unsure what you want to do post-b-school? Worried your ambitions are too conventional? We help you develop a narrative that has continuity, logic, and ambition while being differentiated from other applicants' visions. We do the hard work with you over 3-5 calls with homework in between them. Some clients say this is the most rewarding part of the application process because the work we do with them is helpful well beyond the application process. 

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Once you build your career narrative, which includes writing a 700-800 word file that articulates your motivatios, why you, the landscape of the space you want to be in (including a data story), and your practical

The resume you submit you 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 are more focused on your accomplishments and impact than your tasks and responsibilities. They want to know what you did in extracurricular organizations, not just that you were a part of them. They want to know what you did in college – in and out of the classroom. One reason our Square One Assessment calls are the length they are is because we are preparing to help you transform your resume into a piece of work that will resonate with the admissions committees. We share resume guidelines and samples with you. We then work with you to ensure every line in your resume 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.

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're focused on your accomplishments and impact, what you did in volunteer organizations, and what you did in college – in and out of the classroom.  We work with you to ensure every line is additive and clear to the admissions committees. Your resume will set you apart from your competition, even if you come from a traditional b-school feeder industry. 

Once you and your advisor build a strong resume, your leadership team lead will review it. Get ready to do a little more work as our role collectively is to help you craft the most effective resume possible. Your Leadership Team Lead will othen need to see your resume more than once to ensure it is submission ready. This is built into and tracked in your schedule to be tranparent with you.

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 you to share your vulnerabilities, brainstorm with you to help you 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 that they invite you to interview. With all schools in your partnership, once you and your advisor believe the essays are complete, your leadership team lead reviews them. Be prepared! Leadership often needs to see essays 2-3 times before feeling they are submission ready. Building essays is a real team effort!

We brainstorm with you and help you select the right collection of essay topics to best capture who you are. We help you craft work that is strategically, creatively, and editorially so memorable that admissions committees invite you to interview. 

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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.

With traditional interview preparation, we send you 40+ questions that we have learned are in rotation for you to study. After you do some prep on your own, we discuss fundamental guidelines to be aware of in the interview experience, what to be mindful of if you are doing a virtual interview, and give you a 45 minute mock interview, and offer debrief that is 45-90 minutes. 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.

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 repace 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.

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.

If we worked with comprehensively on a school at which you are derferred to the next round, we will help you strategize and build support materials that the school will accept regarding that status.

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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 waitiosted means and all the various reasons it could happen to you. We give you some homeowkr to do, which your leadership team lead will reference as they lead a waitlist stratgy call with you that is customized per your specific situation to help you define actions/next steps. This call is typically 45-75 minutes.

If you get waitlisted at a school on which we guided you comprehensively, we work with you on your waitlist strategy, help you define actions/next steps, and help you craft all responses to the school(s).

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