Choosing an MBA Admissions Consultant

In this conversation, Harold Simansky and Gavriella Semaya discuss how to choose an MBA admissions consultant and the qualities that make a consultant effective. They emphasize the importance of finding a consultant who works well with you and pushes you to elevate your application. They also address common questions about whether a consultant needs admissions experience or needs to have attended the schools you're targeting. They highlight the value of consultants who have strong writing and MBA backgrounds. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the level of commitment and effort required when working with a consultant.

Takeaways

• Choose an MBA admissions consultant who works well with you and pushes you to elevate your application.
• Admissions experience is not necessary for a consultant, but strong writing and MBA backgrounds are valuable.
• A consultant does not need to have attended the schools you're targeting; they need to understand you more than the school.
• Working with a consultant requires commitment and effort, with an average of five hours per week and a marathon-like mindset.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to the mbaMission Podcast
• 0:24 How to choose an MBA admissions consultant
• 1:07 Do I need a consultant with admissions experience?
• 3:02 Does my consultant need to be a graduate of the MBA program I'm targeting?
• 3:51 How do we get the most out of our clients?
• 6:43 What types of clients do Gavi and Harold work well with?
• 8:29 How much work goes into the MBA application process?
• 9:32 Sign up to work with mbaMission on YOUR MBA applications!

Transcript

Harold Simansky (00:11)
Hi, this is Harold Simansky with the mbaMission Podcast. I'm here once again with my colleague, Senior MBA Admissions Consultant, Gavriella Semaya. Hi, Gavi.

Gavriella Semaya (00:19)
Hi Harold.

Harold Simansky (00:21)
Gavi, one thing that we were frequently asked is, okay, how do I pick a consultant? And this is something that's very important. Obviously, our livelihood, we have some strong opinions about it, but trying to be as objective as possible. How do I pick a consultant? How do we pick a consultant that will work well with me?

Gavriella Semaya (00:40)
The last piece of what you said is one of the biggest factors that's maybe undervalued is work well with me. You're gonna spend a lot of time with this person and you want them to get the best out of you and you wanna be able to get the best out of them. I often say to my clients that they'll ask me, what do you expect from me? Or how do we get the most out of this? And part of it is we push each other to continue elevating. And so it has to have that two -way street kind of dynamic. But.

To take a step back, I think some of the questions we often get that are natural are things like, do I need someone with admissions experience? And the short answer is, we certainly don't believe so. Partly because the analogy that one of our colleagues, Jessica, always uses, and I think it's spot on, is it's the difference between a food critic and a chef. One knows what they like in a meal, but the other knows how to create it.

Harold Simansky (01:16)
Yes.

Gavriella Semaya (01:36)
And so, you know, an admissions person has read thousands of applications and they've learned how to quickly identify different, you know, pieces that they like or that they value, but that doesn't mean they know how to create that story and how to put together that package. And that to me is far more valuable. I think it's one of the things that distinguishes us as a team is that we all have that writing and MBA background. You have to be a good writer to do this effectively. And being an, it's not required of you to be an admissions committee member.

Harold Simansky (02:01)
Yeah. Gavi, I'm gonna... No, I'm gonna use a different analogy, maybe a little bit of a softer analogy. And that is, well, it takes any jackass can knock down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one. Yeah.

Gavriella Semaya (02:08)
Please. Softer is better.

You know, yes, I've heard you say that before and I love it.

Harold Simansky (02:21)
Because the reality is the admissions committee is not really the admissions committee. It's the rejection committee So they're truly looking for things for reasons not to reject you because that's the job and at the end of the day Yeah Exactly there and they really have to look for reasons why these great great group of people made themselves will admit they could fill the class many times with equally quality people So from our perspective, it's really about building this story. That is almost

Gavriella Semaya (02:26)
Fair point.

Mm -hmm. Right. They have too many people that they have to turn down.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Absolutely.

Harold Simansky (02:52)
can't knock it down. This story that's fucking impenetrable.

Gavriella Semaya (02:53)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think having those reps is far more important than having, you know, read hundreds of applications or even thousands. The other question that we often get is, you know, does your consultant have to go to the schools that you're targeting or have attended the schools that you're targeting rather? And I think, again, you know, it's our jobs to know all of the schools really well. And we work on all of the schools, round in, round out, season in, season out. We're meeting with the, you know,

admissions directors and things like that. So I don't think that it's critical. They need to understand you more than they need to understand the school. Not to mention that most of us haven't been there in 10, 15, however many years and likely it's evolved since then. So while yes, we can certainly speak to our experiences there, it's not going to be as valuable as speaking to what distinguishes you as an applicant.

So that's kind of my two cents on that.

Harold Simansky (03:53)
No, that makes sense. And how do you feel like you get the most out of your client when it comes time to interact with them or when it comes to prompting them?

Gavriella Semaya (04:02)
I mean, I think for me, I always want to be transparent. It's a question of how. Different people are more receptive to different types of feedback. You know, for me, it's, I never want to hold back. I don't want to pull my punches. And so I will always give you the most feedback, every detail of that feedback, and then we can pick and choose. But, you know, some clients are more conversational and they brainstorm collaboratively. And so we'll review more material live.

Other clients are more, you know, I want to take the time to digest it and think about it. And it's more of an email relationship, but figuring out what works and capitalizing on that. I think I try as much as possible not to be formulaic with my clients because so much of what we do is showcasing their individuality. And I think that applies to kind of the process itself too.

Harold Simansky (04:56)
I also feel that it's my job to not allow hand waving and what I really mean by that is frequently you'll find people who will have some expectation about what they believe that the admissions committee members are looking for. Then they'll say they want to do A, they want to do B, and then hand waving, go to business school and do XYZ And the reality is I think what I always push my clients to do and I think what I'll do is this notion of specificity.

Gavriella Semaya (05:02)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Harold Simansky (05:24)
with this idea here of, you know, don't tell me you're from an underrepresented, overrepresented group. Nobody's overrepresented. You know, tell me exactly, you know, what you mean when you say you have a dream of becoming a, like you said, going into private equity or venture capital. We say, well, listen, private equity and venture capital are different. Okay, you want to go into venture capital. Venture capital is a hundred different things. What are we talking about here? What industry, what function, what point of a company, for example?

Gavriella Semaya (05:30)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Right, right.

I just had a client now who was admitted to Kellogg, which was his top school, and he was saying that one of the things that he valued from our dynamic was that I pushed him to clarify his goals and to really understand why he was doing what he was doing. I think that's important for the application process, but it's also important for your life. I think to what end do you want to go into healthcare? It's easy to say you want social impact. What does that mean to you?

That can mean any number of things, not to mention that there's going to be hundreds of other applicants who say they want to go into social impact. How are you going to distinguish yourself? You can't just like check a box. And I think to your point, like that's the hand waving is, you know, Wharton's great for finance, so I'm going to say I want to go into finance.

Harold Simansky (06:36)
Absolutely. And the reality is, it's great for entrepreneurship too. And you have to explain that. So in any case, I'm going to actually answer my own question first. Who is somebody that I work with well? And what I frequently tell people is folks who don't look like me.

Gavriella Semaya (06:40)
Very true.

Yeah.

Harold Simansky (06:58)
So then I can really push them and I really push them to explain to someone else, someone who's different, who comes from a different world, explain to them what's really going on. Exactly right. Or just, you know, I play it from, it's very easy for me to play it dumb and I say, explain this to me. I don't understand. What did you actually do? And from that perspective.

Gavriella Semaya (07:02)
That's interesting.

So you're not kind of bringing in your own assumptions or falling back on things you take for granted.

Yeah.

I find myself asking, what do you mean by that and what did you actually do quite often?

Harold Simansky (07:26)
Yeah, which I think speaks to the need for us to have this really strange relationship with our clients and what that is that they're the customer but we're the boss and So if yes, we recognize you're paying a lot of money, but at the same point, we're really relying on us to be hard and stern at times

Gavriella Semaya (07:33)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, well, our goal is for you to succeed. And if we don't push you, then you're staying in the same place you are now. In which case, why go through all of this? I think the thing I tell people as far as who I work well with is someone who wants to do the work. I can bring everything I have to the table, but you still have to do the work. You have to want it. You have to be willing to put in the effort. And you have to be open to...

Harold Simansky (08:10)
Yes.

Gavriella Semaya (08:14)
you know, the idea that you're going to learn something. It might be different than what you first thought you were going to do. You know, so open -minded, you know, receptive to feedback and willing to do the work. That's kind of like the ideal, you know, the ideal client for me.

Harold Simansky (08:25)
Yeah, now that makes sense. Right now, question about it. And when people ask you, well, how much work is this going to require? How do you answer that question?

Gavriella Semaya (08:37)
That's a tough one because I've been successful with clients who apply to five schools in two months and end up getting into four of those schools. And I've been successful with clients who spend six months, day in, day out working on this. It's just sometimes it's different mindsets. So I don't know that there's one right answer. I tend to say that on average, you're going to put in, I kind of made this number up, but like five hours a week, let's say.

I talk to my clients on average for one hour a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, but we're emailing back and forth all the time. For me, it's less about how many hours am I going to spend drafting an essay and more about how much mental energy am I going to put into this. Because you're kind of thinking about it nonstop for however long you're working about it, whether it's three months or six months. It's definitely a marathon, and so you've got to be committed.

Harold Simansky (09:25)
Right. Yes. Why?

Yeah, absolutely. And that's a good place to end. Meaning that when you come to work with us at mbaMission, you got to be committed. There's no question about it. Absolutely, 100%. So, Gavi, listen, it was great speaking to you today. I know we've done a few different podcasts together, which have all turned out terrific, so I encourage everyone to listen.

Gavriella Semaya (09:41)
We are, so you better be.

Yeah, you too.

Well, I very much enjoy chatting with you, Harold.

Harold Simansky (09:57)
Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you want to chat with me, Gavi or one of our other colleagues, by all means sign up for a free 30 minute consultation on MBA mission. Great. Well, Gavi, have a very great day today. Bye.

Gavriella Semaya (10:08)
You too, be well, bye.