P&Q’s Must Reads: The Top MBA Admissions Consulting Firms Of 2025

 

Hello everyone  — Welcome back to Poets&Quants’ Must Reads, a quick, digestible recap of the top business school news, sponsored by CentreCourt, P&Q’s virtual admission events.

I’m your host, Kristy Bleizeffer, and I’ll be highlighting the most important P&Q stories you might have missed. So, let’s get to it. 

No. 1:   B-School Deans Love AI — B-School Faculty, Not So Much

Business school deans are aflutter over so-called generative AI and what it can and does mean for graduate business education.

B-school faculty are more cautious.

A new poll from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business finds a wide disparity between deans and faculty across several AI-related questions. However, 70% of all respondents agree on one point: that GenAI is rapidly, and likely irrevocably, transforming productivity in higher ed.

You can dig into the poll data in this story, now on our homepage.

No. 2: Is it the Trump Effect? Growing Study-Abroad Reluctance Among MBA Students

Right around the time Donald Trump won re-election as president of the United States, respondents to a major annual poll decided in droves that they were suddenly less interested in studying internationally for an MBA.

Coincidence?

The latest Tomorrow’s MBA study doesn’t assert a direct correlation between the election of an avowed anti-immigration president and the sudden widespread disinterest in studying abroad. But the reversal is striking: In the study carried out last November and December among 1,908 prospective MBA students across 37 countries, fewer than 1 in 5 respondents (19%) expressed a preference for studying overseas — anywhere overseas — compared to 39% in the previous edition of the study in 2024.

Read more about the study and what it means for MBA programs in this story, in our news tab.

No. 3: The Top MBA Admission Consulting Firms Of 2025

MBA admissions consulting is a hotly competitive business. The vast numbers of available coaches and firms aggressively compete with each other for clients.

Who comes out on top?

Poets&Quants annually assesses the success of the 70 firms that have been reviewed by their clients, dividing up the business by large, medium and small firms. And we rank them on their success of getting prospective clients into their target programs.

Get the full list now from our homepage.

No. 4: Our Weekly Round Up of  News You Can Use

No matter where you are in your MBA journey, we bring several helpful stories for you this week.

First up: HBS Interviews. In this article, the HBS admission guru admits that the purpose of the interview is to flunk you.You can find it on our homepage. 

Next: 5 Tips For Addressing A Gap In Your MBA Resume. In this story, up now on our admission hub, you’ll learn why silence is not a winning strategy in MBA admissions. 

Finally:  2025 MBA Interview Questions: A School-By-School List. This story provides a list of questions from all the top schools, from Chicago Booth ot Yale SOM. Find it in our admissions hub.

And, that’s it for this week’s Must Reads recap. 

I also want to alert school seekers to our events tab from our main menu. There, you’ll find all the upcoming admissions events for a range of degrees and programs including full-time and online MBAs, specialized masters, entrepreneurship and more. Registration is free.

Again, I’m Kristy Bleizeffer, and you can join me next week, right here, for a recap of what’s important in the world of business education. Thanks for listening.