MBA Admissions Consulting: When Tough Love Matters

If you ask Susan Cera if she considers herself a badass, she laughs, taking it all in stride. As a leading MBA admissions consultant, Cera knows that applicants, who try to navigate their journeys into a highly selective business school while holding down demanding jobs, often need more than a nudge. They may need to be shoved, pushed and challenged.

Cera, MBA director at Stratus Admissions Consulting,  has no problem doing just that. As the mother of four twenty-something children, and having dispensed admissions advice to somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 prospective students over the past ten years, she has a reputation for simply telling it like it is.

Her tough love approach has brought Cera much success and accolades as well. One of the few consultants who had been on Poets&Quants‘ annual rankings of the most highly reviewed counselors, she boasts a net promoter score of 9.96 on a ten-point scale with 82 verified five-star reviews from clients in the Poets&Quants‘ MBA admissions consulting directory. That comfortably puts Cera among an elite group of admission counselors. Her clients often single out her candor but also her deep investment in the people she advises.

‘I’VE MADE A LOT OF PEOPLE CRY, NOT JUST HAPPY TEARS BUT SAD TEARS AS WELL’

“I’ve made a lot of people cry, not just happy tears but sad tears as well,” concedes Cera who is the director of MBA admissions consulting at Stratus. “I can’t be the same coach to everyone in the same way at every monument. I say, ‘Look I can give you hugs and high fives but I will also give you a swift kick in the butt if you are not doing what you need to do.”That is not to say that Cera is not empathetic or understanding. “I shed some of my own tears with people,” she says. “I never feel that people should get in anywhere. A rejection is crushing. But there are always two parts of the process: evaluation and selection.  Even if you are well qualified, it doesn’t mean you will get a spot. Maybe there was someone who looked remarkably similar to you.”

Cera concedes that elite admissions can be surprisingly random. “The schools ultimately decide who should sit in their classrooms. No two individuals are the same. They are crafting a community of learners. Only they know what kind of class they are putting together. I never think someone deserves to get in because it is not my decision.”

That was not always true. Before joining Stratus Admissions Consulting ten years ago this month, Cera had spent nearly a decade in admissions at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. During those years she evaluated reviewed thousands of applications for Fuqua’s full- and part-time MBA programs.  Cera guided a team of five staff and contract readers to identify and recommend the strongest prospective students from South Korea, Japan and 40 other Asian countries.

‘I WAS NOTORIOUS FOR BEING THE HARSHEST CRITIC AT DUKE’

As is often the case, admissions consulting was hardly a first choice for Cera. After graduating with an economics degree from Dartmouth College in 1989, she landed a job with consulting firm Charles River Associates. She leveraged her experience there to gain an admit to Fuqua’s MBA program in 1992. She applied to Fuqua on her own, without an admissions coach. “Back then, it was not a thing. I got help from my roommates’ boyfriend who was about to leave and go to Darden. He gave me his GMAT study books and guided me on how to approach the essays. This goes back to the time when you mailed in your application with typed up-recommendations in sealed envelopes. I am totally dating myself there.”

Armed with her MBA, she took a product management post with Lotus Development Corp. in 1994. Cera found her way back to Duke in 2010 as a teaching assistant in the school’s Master of Management Studies program, switching to admissions early in 2006.

“At Duke, I was notorious for being the harshest critic,” she recalls. “I could find the needle in the haystack by taking the time to look at a LinkedIn profile or a startup or nonprofit someone founded. Some people would create a website with a couple of photos but there was nothing to it in terms of impact. I could see through any exaggeration or embellishment every time. I called BS very frequently.”

‘THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF MBA ADMISSIONS’

And yet there often were times when, she says, “I knew in my heart that someone was stronger than they appeared on their application, but we had to admit them based on what they presented. But the reality is that there are way more qualified applicants than there are seats in a class. Still, it’s hard to say no to people who are really very qualified.”

That made for an easy transition to the other side to help people get admitted. “This is much more meaningful than reading someone’s application and saying ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Now I get to really get to know people, help them tell their story, and put them on a path to achieve their goals. I can hammer them in the interview prep to make sure they are ready for whatever comes at them.”

None of this comes cheap. Cera’s rates for a comprehensive consulting package for four schools is $16,700, while her hourly appointments fetch $1,260 for two hours of advice. But her clients rave about Cera’s commitment to them and the results of that collaborative work. “Susan is the Michael Jordan of MBA Admissions,” declares one successful candidate who used her to get into Harvard Business School. The applicant, who graduated from HBS last year, was no shoo-in. The candidate had a low GPA, sat for the GRE instead of the GMAT and had reapplied after having no success at all during their first go-around.

KEEPING TRACK OF CLIENTS VIA POST-IT NOTES ON AN OFFICE WALL

“She took the time to really get to know me so that I could identify what is unique about me and present my most authentic self through my essays and interviews,” wrote the successful applicant. “Her introspective inquiry process helped me come to realize my personal and career ambitions. She provides super timely feedback and communication and was even willing to give me helpful pep talks and prep sessions before interviews to keep me on point. She was able to flawlessly apply the lens of a tenured admissions officer with her feedback on all areas of my application, including making my resume more poignant and impact-oriented. While I was waitlisted and was losing faith in myself, she encouraged me to not give up and helped me secure interviews/acceptances from that seemingly unfavorable position.”

At Stratus, Cera’s counseling is guided by a well established framework. It starts with a series of introspective activities. “We walk people through it, asking them ‘what is the impact they want to have in the world.’ Once a primary counselor helps a client put together their strategy, we do a three-way call with another counselor to pressure test what the first counselor put together. We make sure that client has a solid story to tell. We spend four to six weeks doing that introspection. If it is not abundantly clear what matters most to you and why, we have not done that job.”

Cera keeps close track of her clients through Post-it notes that hang on her office wall at home. “People stay on that wall until they are done,” she says. “Last year this one blue note was on the wall until late summer. The wall was bare except with this one until August. Then August 12th and 13th came and went and this sticky note was still on the wall. I carried this with me forever, until the day that school had its round one deadline and told my client he didn’t need to reapply. The school said, ‘We have a seat for you next year.'”

‘I HAVE SOME INTERNATIONALS ASKING IF THEY CAN EVEN DO THIS NOW’

This year’s admissions season is more anxious than most, finds Cera. “I have some internationals who are asking if they can even do this?,” she says. “There is anxiety around this. I reassure them that there may be fewer people applying from your country or from abroad. But if you don’t apply you aren’t going to get in. None of us can predict what willl happen. There is really limited risk in applying. There is an effort you have to put in to submit a good application but you are unlikely to lose your job for applying to business school and you can always turn it down. I also have a couple of people who are done with the jobs they have so what is going on in the economy is irrelevant to them.

“To me what the current administration thinks is irrelevant. The schools will want a diversity of candidates. Applicants should be true to themselves and present their authentic self in their application. A lot of schools have done a good job in putting in an optional essay, asking candidates to explain how their backgrounds have influenced the choices they have made. Everyone has their own story to tell, whether it is growing up a child of immigrants or as a white guy who grew up in a country where English is not the native language.”

Dishing out tough love, of course, can take many forms. Most often it involves leveling with a candidate, confronting them with a suspicion or a truth. Calling a candidate out for writing his own recommendation, for example, is a true no-no in Cera’s book.

‘YOU WROTE ONE OF YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS, DIDN’T YOU?’

“Thinking that it’s okay to write your own recommendation is a mistake. One guy who interviewed at Stanford but failed to get accepted had a terrible application. He gave me his recommendations.”

Cera noticed a pattern in the phrasing of sentences in his essays and his recs.

“I said, ‘So you wrote one of your recommendations didn’t you?’

‘How did you know?,’ he asked.

“If I know, you can be sure that the software Stanford uses to assess recommendations means that they will know, too. It’s quite possible that Stanford was ready to admit you and then put you on a black list.”

The story has a happy ending, however. The candidate graduated last year from Harvard Business School.

‘YOU NEED TO LOSE THE ATTITUDE!’

Another client, applying to the most highly ranked Executive MBA programs, bragged that he “slays Wharton MBAs every day at work.”

Cera’s retort: “You need to lose the attitude if that is the way you look at yourself. I took him down a notch. I was shocked when he signed up to work with me. But he applied and got into Columbia, Yale and MIT and cried on the phone for 30 minutes when he got in.”

Yet another applicant was set on applying round one to Stanford’s MBA program. Cera had been working with him for a couple of month before the first deadline, but the candidate was not comfortable with his test score. Ten days before the round one deadline, he was still insisting on submitting his app.

“‘Dude,'” Cera recalls saying, “I know a lot of people told you to apply in round one. But you have to apply when you can put in your best application.'”

‘I WANT CLIENTS TO SHOW UP, PUT IN THEIR BEST EFFORT & FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS’

“I finally convinced him he could not do it. I said go away and spend a month working on your test. He came back with a 730 and we worked through his Stanford essays and he graduated from Stanford last year. There is no way he could have gotten in if he had rushed that application.”

A few months back, an applicant who had applied to all the M7 schools but failed to get an admit asked Cera to do a ding analysis. The woman did manage to land an interview at Wharton and was on the waitlist at Columbia. After reviewing her applications, Cera believed the candidate’s best option was Columbia where she was still in play. But the candidate told her she wanted to do a four-school package next year. It was a no go for Cera.

“‘I cannot ethically take you because it is a gift that you are still in play at Columbia,'” Cera told the candidate. “I am glad to work with you for Columbia but you are not hearing me. I will not take your money. You are not going to have success, and I don’t see how you will be a better candidate next year.”

What does she most dislike about the profession? “When people waste my time. If people don’t put in the effort, that just drives me nuts. Or people who don’t follow instructions. I want you to show up, put in your best effort and follow my instructions. If you don’t, we are going to have a problem.”

HELPING PEOPLE SEE THEMSELVES DIFFERENTLY

And what does Cera find most enjoyable about the work she does? The answer can be found in a recent anecdote. A few weeks back, Cera met with one of her very first clients, a woman who had recently given birth to a daughter.

“Did you know you were one of my first clients and I was kinda making it up as I went along,” laughed Cera.

“Susan, if not for you, Emma would not even exist.”

After working with Cera, the former client had gotten her MBA at Fuqua where she met her husband. Her life had been completely transformed by the experience.

“What I like most is helping someone see themselves in a way that they had not seen themselves before,” says Cera. “In many instances, they think it is just who they are but that is what schools really want to know.”

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