The Top MBA Admission Consultants Of 2024

top MBA admission consultants

Scott Edinburgh, founder of Personal MBA Coach, tops this year’s list of the most favorably reviewed MBA admission consultants

HOW CONSULTANTS MAKE OUR LIST

To make our annual honor roll of top MBA admission consultants, every counselor’s review had to pass a rigorous two-step process. Unlike some other pay-to-play and unverified lists on the Internet, where advisers actually have to pay a fee to allow reviews on their profiles, this is a pure journalistic endeavor, not a pay-to-play model. In our database, you’ll find both positive and negative assessments of consultants and firms (if you have had a bad experience, we strongly encourage you to share it with others so that they can avoid those issues). Whether positive or negative, no review is published unless it passes through a fine screen.

First, every review up until our deadline of August 31st had to be independently verified by Poets&Quants with both the client and the service provider. Secondly, every appraisal was then painstakingly reviewed so that only MBA consulting assignments were counted. Eliminated from the count were reviews for undergraduate or Executive MBA applicants, free introductory consultations, career counseling, case prep advisement, and group sessions for such organizations as the Forte Foundation. Those restrictions often brought down the number of favorable reviews for the top consultants and kept others off the list.

Skeptics may argue that consultants who rack up the most positive reviews are merely more assertive in encouraging their clients to write favorably about their experiences. Or that the list would exclude part-time counselors who could be just as good as full-timers but aren’t exposed to as many clients. But MBA applicants who take the time and effort to write their expressions of praise are the ultimate endorsements of superior consulting work. The more reviews any consultant has, the more credible and authoritative the result. When a client writes a positive referral for a consultant, that action goes beyond customer satisfaction: It becomes a measure of customer loyalty.

EDINBURGH STARTED HELPING CANDIDATES DURING HIS FIRST YEAR IN WHARTON’S MBA PROGRAM

That’s a high hurdle the best consultants must meet with today’s more anxiety-ridden applicants. “Today’s MBA candidates want clarity and transparency in the MBA admissions process,” explains Petia Whitmore, founder of My MBA Path, who made our Top Ten list. “They want MBA programs to clearly articulate their expectations so they can craft compelling applications in response. This is not to say they are unwilling to put in the hard work—quite the opposite. They aim high and they are ready to invest substantial effort. They just want to know where the goalposts truly stand.”

Edinburgh knows the goalposts well. A former business analyst at Deloitte and a manager in corporate strategy and business development for IHG Hotels & Resorts, he first started helping candidates in his first year in Wharton’s MBA program. “My friends were applying to schools and they each used some other existing firms out there,” he recalls. “As they shared their essays with me, I thought certain things were lacking. Some took a cookie-cutter approach. Some of the consultants weren’t as well connected with the schools so I started editing. Two of them got into Harvard and one got into Wharton.”

For the first few years, Edinburgh did admissions consulting as a side hustle while working at IHG Hotels from 2010 to 2012. Even so, he would spend as much as 50 hours a week during the admissions season on this part-time gig. He went all in just before leaving his IHG job and has been doing it ever since with a professional services model of a full-time consultant and a separate editor.

‘I PERSONALLY KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH EVERY CLIENT’

“We tend to take a very direct approach to the whole process,” says Edinburgh. “There are players who like a lot of brainstorming and creating PowerPoint. Our approach is pretty efficient. We invest a lot of time in figuring out what admission officials are looking for. We have a pretty detailed approach to how we help clients with their essays. That is what tends to help us go through the journey. I always start with a discussion on goals. We tend to be a bit more conservative so what people write about makes sense.”

Though he works with a handful of staffers–consultants and editors–Edinburgh says he is very hands-on. “I personally know what is happening with every client, even if it’s not my client,” he says. “My whole team meets multiple times a week for project management. Our average client applies to six schools. I think that is a nice range, though it depends on their stats. We are having more and more people who are focused on fit. Sometimes they think that HBS is not a very good fit for them. They might do Stanford, MIT, and Wharton. Some feel HBS is too competitive and cliquish.”

For Edinburgh, the motivation is the pleasure he gets from helping someone put his or her best foot forward. “It’s fun,” he says. “I meet so many different people. When I was in consulting I loved solving client problems and meeting people from around the world making global business decisions. When I left to work in the hotel industry, some of that went away. Our clients are truly global. We have anywhere from five to 15 clients from Africa every year. So we are learning about the world and helping people get to places they wouldn’t be able to get to on their own.”

Elite Company: MBA Coaches With 100 Or More Positive Reviews Over Time

Of the 606 MBA admission consultants in the Poets&Quants’ directory, only 15 have 100 or more favorable testimonials from clients. Here they are:

Consultant Firm Positive Reviews Client Satisfaction Score
1. Rajdeep Chimni Admissions Gateway 285 9.89
2. Scott Edinburgh Personal MBA Coach 263 9.81
3. Eli David Ivy MBA Consulting 165 9.93
4. Alex Leventhal Prep MBA 164 9.75
5. Paul Bodine Admitify.com 158 9.83
6. Katharine Lewis mbaMission 145 9.88
7. Jessica Shklar mbaMission 133 9.88
8. Rishabh Gupta GyanOne Universal 132 9.88
9. Devi Vallabhaneni mbaMission 124 9.77
10. Angela Guido Career Protocol 122 9.93
11. Candy Lee LaBalle LaBalle Admissions 121 9.95
12. Karen Hamou Fortuna 113 9.85
13. Alice van Harten Menlo Coaching 105 9.74
14. Liza Weale Gatehouse Admissions 103 9.96
15. Nisha Trivedi mbaMission 101 9.83

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