mbaMission | MBA Admissions Consultants

I signed up for a mock HBS interview with Devi after doing lots of research on consultants who specialized in coaching for HBS interviews. Devi was ranked by many as a top HBS consultant, and I figured that despite the higher rate she charged, I should make the most of my opportunity to interview with HBS by paying for the best. I unfortunately had a very negative experience working with Devi, and I ended up getting into HBS, along with Stanford GSB and Wharton, in spite of working with Devi, and not because of her.

The session began with quick intros and background on how the mock interview would work. Then, we began the interview itself. Devi had read my entire application beforehand and prepared questions which filled the 30 minutes. The questions themselves were well-thought-out and I felt my answers were reasonable, although fairly rough as I was early on in my interview prep. But during the feedback Devi gave after the mock interview, I found her quite rude and unprofessional.

For example, referring to one of the features I built at work, she said, “That’s such a tiny use case… Thank god I’m not a shareholder in your company.” At another point, she said, “You answered like an intern, versus a senior person.” In her entire feedback, she didn’t mention a single positive thing that I did, to improve my confidence or reinforce what was going well. Instead, it felt like she was tearing me down.

Devi was the first mock HBS interview I did, and the goal of the session was to get constructive feedback to improve my interview performance. Naturally, given how expensive the service is, my intent was to receive reasonable criticism and solid actionable feedback so I could improve. Instead, Devi went well past the point of constructive feedback and it felt like a personal attack, and I had to work a lot afterwards to rebuild my confidence.

Again, I feel very lucky to have gotten in to HBS and Stanford GSB. I think I would have had a better time preparing for interviews at both schools had I worked with another consultant instead of Devi.

I worked with Heidi during the 2018 Round 1 and 2 admissions cycles and came away with very little to show for both the large time and money investment. While Heidi can seem nice and encouraging, she poorly managed my expectations as a client and at times seemed to put little effort into reviewing my materials. After applying this past year, I was actually able to gain an acceptance but it was not with any of the materials I created with Heidi. I now believe that the consulting services from her and MBAMission added no value and I was scammed.