Do I need an Admissions Consultant?

Is Investing in a B-school Consultant worth it?

Before we start, here are a few facts, which will help you better understand what/who a Consultant is:

• Nearly 57% of B-School Applicants who responded to a survey, said they sought help from a consultant.
  
• Nearly 91% of the Applicants who used the Consultants, mentioned that they benefited the most from their Essay services.
  
• Almost all the respondents said that they spent a minimum of 70 hours on their b-school application process.
• Majority of the respondents who have gone for consultants to help them have mainly targeted the top 10-15 schools such as HEC, ESSEC, LBS, DUKE, Kellogg, WHU and so on.

The above figures show that more than half of the B-School aspirants take help of Consultants for their admission process and benefit heavily from the same, in fact, a majority of them credit the advise offered by the Consultants to increase their odds of getting an admit manifold.

In today’s competitive era, ad-coms of all top b-schools, receive thousands of applications each cycle! So it makes sense to understand how the expertise of people who have inside knowledge into the field, can give you a severe competitive advantage.

 Now more than ever it’s not enough to submit a “good” application, you need to be better than your competition.

In some cases, the odds of securing a coveted seat at such institutions are down to 1:10 or 1:12.

Not only are the odds steep, but so is the competition. Each candidate finds himself competing with several others like him/her, with similar, or sometimes, even better profiles than them.

Since Consultants have experience working with several aspirants over the years, they know the process in and out. They can guide you in everything from School selection and crafting your School-Specific Essays/ SOP’s, to helping you refine your resume and aiding your Recommenders in writing your LOR.

They can not only take a look at your profile and help you determine which schools you have a shot at but guide you in crafting your application such that your odds increase significantly in schools where you earlier had little chance at.

Apart from all this, you as an aspirant, get the following extra facilities:

• Selecting the best school for your profile, no matter how long you have been scouring the internet for blogs, Q/A forums etc for data on schools, and which one fits in with your goals the most, they all pale in comparison to the understanding a good consultant has of the schools and the degree. Add to this the fact that they have seen 100’s of profiles similar to yours and helped them get into the schools, and you begin to realize the depth and breadth of their experience. No matter how many hours you spend researching or pinging people on Linkedin, it cannot match the advise and pointers a good consultant can give you.

• Most B-schools provide financial aid to several of their students each year. The decision for such Merit-Based Scholarships is solely based on your overall profile with special attention given to the SOP and Essays. Hence, an admission consultant, not only increases your chance of scoring an admit but also your chances of getting a coveted scholarship increase manifold. In fact, many students every year land a scholarship mainly because they had proper guidance about it.

 For example, we at MiM-Essay have helped students get over 578,000 Euros (and increasing) in Scholarship so far. 

• The Non-Refundable Application fees of about 120 USD for most programmes may seem not much of an investment, but for people who apply to 5-6 schools often pay a lot of overheads simply on their application itself.

However, with a consultant by your side, you can narrow down your choice of colleges, thereby greatly reducing unnecessary application cost. Also, due to their expertise, they can actually match you with schools where your chances of admission are high and hence you don’t have to panic about sending applications to every corner of the world.

Add to this the cost of retaking the GMAT, the cost of sending the scores to additional schools, and it becomes clear how much money you can actually save.

There are several other utilities of having a consultant by your side during the strenuous process of B-school Applications, but out of this, the most ‘bang-out-of-the-buck’ comes when their assistance helps you get through the door of your dream B-school.

As proven by several surveys, a great percent of admitted b-school candidates have stated that their chances of admission have increased manifold, thanks to the prompt and professional guidance they received.

Hence, if you are in doubt about your chances to make it to the top MiM or MSc Programs, a consultant will in all probability help you get admitted!

• What is their product/service Guarantee?

How do I choose which consultant is a good fit for me?

There are tons of consulting companies out there…how do we know which makes the cut? which is better?

Here are a few things that can guide you:

•  Who will be guiding me? A BSc in English? A “so-called” expert? An alumni?

We at MIM-ESSAY, are a group of alums of top notch MIM Programmes ourselves. So not only have we been through the process ourselves, we have also helped several MIM applicants over the years to get admits to top schools.

•  Do they understand the degree?

Being students ourselves at one point of time, we basically have lived the experience of an MIM degree. So not only are our consultants knowledgeable about the admission process, they can actually give you inside information on the various specializations and other nuances which are not otherwise available to the aspirants. They can help you add information and highlight qualities in your essays which the schools value and would love to see in their applicants.

•  What is their track record?

A good way to assess the credibility of any consultant is to contact people who have already taken their help. With a conversion rate of more than 92%, you can understand that most of our clients leave with smiling faces. You can read their experiences at our website under testimonials. Also, check the level of schools they have helped applicants get into, are they top 10? top 20? or other little-known schools.

A good test of credibility and knowledge is the number of students placed in top 10 schools.

•  What are the terms of Service Provided?

Our Services all come with the same bottom line: We will keep on editing and perfecting your application unless you are satisfied with our work. No questions asked. So unlike others, we don’t believe in making 1-2 edits and sending you off with a sub standard application. We understand the importance of a perfect essay and also understand that perfection comes over time. So, we provide several edits, as many as needed, to make sure your application stands out. Apart from that, our consultants are ever-ready to remove any doubts you have, either over email, Skype, phone, text message or any other way that you are comfortable with.

• What is their product/service Guarantee?

We are extremely particular about our client’s success and although it may seem just another cliche line, we are not saying it for the sake of it. If you do not find our services to be up to the mark, we guarantee you a 100 % cashback of your money. So if you are skeptical about our service, all you need to do is try us out and see if we are worth the time and money invested, or else, you get your money back. That simple.