Colleen McLaughlin

If you are looking for a motivating, collaborative, and expert admissions consultant, look no further – Colleen and Admissionado are the best! As someone applying to B-school as part of a career transition from outside the private sector, I wanted professional guidance about the best way to structure my application to have the best chance of admission. I applied to a tier-2 b-school on a tight timeline, and I can wholeheartedly say that working with Colleen and Admissionado made a world of difference.

I cannot recommend Colleen highly enough. Her diverse background in global settings provided plenty of common ground to form a connection as thought partners, and her friendly personality made it such a pleasure to work together with during an intense application sprint. Colleen is an absolute pro – the quality of her suggestions and support were top-notch during each round of essay and CV edits. She takes the time to really know you as a person, to understand your story and your goals, so that she can help you frame your application in the best way possible. She has an amazing talent for identifying strengths and unique features that can help your application shine, and at the same time she is honest about what characteristics are potential barriers… and how to overcome them!! Time and again I was amazed by how Colleen could navigate my strengths and weaknesses to help support an application that was creative, compelling, and most importantly, authentic. Colleen always showed genuine interest in my success as a candidate, which is a quality that shines bright in a collaboration like this. She doesn’t just provide expert guidance, but she truly cultivated a sense of confidence that shined in both my application and more broadly as a professional.

The entire Admissionado team was absolutely incredible to work with, everyone is exceptionally responsive and supportive. They were quick to make an excellent first-impression, and their enthusiasm, collaboration, and support was impressive throughout our collaboration. I also opted for interview practice as well (it had been a while since interviewing) and I am so glad I did! Colleen and the team provided thoughtful questions, critical feedback, and a few chances to get the jitters out before the real thing.

I applied to a single tier-2 program and was admitted with a scholarship. 10/10 recommend – working with Colleen and Admissionado will add so much value to your application and to your professional development in general. Thank you again!

When starting the application process, I was having a really hard time deciding what pieces of my background to focus on. I had a 710 GMAT with a Big 4 consulting background, and Colleen immediately helped me walk through my story and recognize the pieces that should be highlighted. Furthermore, she took great care to make sure I understood her process and her thorough feedback. With Colleen and Admissionado’s help, I got into my dream school CBS! Thanks, Colleen!!

Colleen and the Admissionado team were an incredible help and I would highly recommend to anyone applying to an MBA program. They helped me obtain admittance to MIT Sloan with $$$, Kellogg with $$$, and HBS.

Admissionado as a whole was a great experience in which a full team supported me in different ways including writing, resume building, interviewing, guidance on topics that I needed to be political about, and more. The agency was more relaxed and a little less formal, which I enjoyed, but had extensive experience in the nuances of top programs, how the program’s personalities differed, and what the programs specifically looked for. The structure of the agency is very personal in that you regularly work with a single consultant, but an entire team supports you and they can tap into the agency’s community with a considerable knowledge base. The personal and relaxed nature allowed me to bring out the best of my qualities and strengths. Unique qualities, I wouldn’t have known to utilize otherwise. In addition, the team does a great job of strategizing the approach based on the program without losing your true theme and personal story. Furthermore, I found that the Admissionado team had a great personal touch. For example, I would receive all sorts of emails from Admissionado team members wishing me good luck and support.

I worked directly with Colleen as my consultant and I would not have been able to achieve these admittances without her. She was amazing for four major reasons. First, Colleen is incredibly personable, honest, and easy to have a conversation with about anything and everything. This allowed me to open up and feel comfortable about discussing some of the more private portions of my life and perspectives which in result helped us build a stronger and more impactful story that stood out. Second, she has extensive experience and knowledge about the M7 MBA programs and the intricacies of each. She was able to help me strategize my approach to best suit each program and dig into why my skillset matters so that it was relatable and impactful from the admissions committee standpoint. Third, Colleen was available and had quick responses. There were a couple of “crunch” moments right before deadlines in which she would hop on right away and help. Fourth and above all, Colleen put in the effort. As hard as you are working to get into these schools, she is right alongside you being thorough, honest, and truly caring about your success. I couldn’t have been happier with the experience and it has led to me asking for guidance in more than just applications, but some decisions as well.

Once again, I’d highly recommend Colleen and the Admissionado team to anyone looking for support with their applications. They can take your application to the next level and help you put your best foot forward.

Overall I had an incredible experience with Colleen, Claudia, and the rest of the Admissionado team. Colleen was instrumental in guiding me through the application processes at two tier-1 MBA programs, leading to an HBS acceptance (my top choice).

After speaking with 3 different companies in the summer of 2019, I was immediately drawn to Colleen and impressed by the support of the entire Admissionado team provided. Colleen was thorough in getting to know my background, personality, and interests, and she was incredibly easy to be vulnerable with. For personal reasons, I decided to push my applications by a year and Colleen was very flexible and went as far as to create a detailed script of strengths and weaknesses for me to work on over the course of the next year.

We picked the conversation back up in July 2020 and didn’t skip a beat. Colleen pulled stories and motivations out of me, helped me to frame my academic and professional journey thus far and gave me the confidence to put together a very compelling application (even though my 690 GMAT was at the lower range of tier-1 programs). She was great at putting together a detailed roadmap which was demanding but not unachievable – giving me much-needed flexibility closer to deadlines which ended up being invaluable. Both of our dogs would occasionally kick off our zoom calls and made application planning fun!

My final drafts were unrecognizable from the first ones thanks to her constantly asking me to focus on the “So What?” of my stories. Likewise, my last rounds of interview prep with her were a lot more concise and eloquent than initial mocks.

Colleen works wonders and I was fortunate she not only took me on but was willing to wait another year to guide me through the process.

Here is a debrief of my application process and my experience with Colleen from Admissionado. As an overview, I had a 710 GMAT and had good but maybe not great profile, especially for top tier schools, which were a stretch. To cut a long story short, the outcome was that I got into my first choice school – Cambridge Judge Business School – with a significant scholarship. I cannot recommend Colleen highly enough and attribute a huge amount of this great outcome to the help I got from her.
I got in touch with Admissionado for the free initial consultation they offer and was connected with Colleen for a skype call. Colleen was clearly very knowledgeable, gave great feedback on my CV and gave very good general advice over about a half-hour call. After a bit of deliberation, I went with the Junior Deluxe package. I had heard and read mixed reviews about the benefits of using consultants so I was initially quite skeptical but thought if it does end up making my application better and helps me get into my dream school that it would be completely worth it so I went ahead.
The process entailed a discovery session where I answered questions, had an interview with Colleen and then she went off and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses in my profile and helped to put together a strategy on how to approach the application. Using this strategy, I then wrote my essays and followed a process of iterating with reviews and rewrites with Colleen and her team. After a fantastic experience with Colleen and getting an invited to interview, I upgraded my package to include interview prep.
Key points to mention:
· Colleen is incredible at her job. She is very knowledgeable, has an MBA herself from Harvard so knows the process intimately and has a genuine desire to help you tell your story in a compelling way and this comes across in everything she does. She always went over and above to help me at every stage.
· I had very little in terms of a cohesive story for my application. Colleen was instrumental in helping me string together my experience, background, and goals into a compelling story. This was extraordinarily helpful and set a very strong basis to build the application on which I would not have had with her.
· The essay process added more value than I could have anticipated going in. Colleen is fantastic at making every part of the story shine and saying all the right things in exactly the right way. It’s very difficult to condense a large amount of information into such concise polished essays and this was done beautifully by Colleen. This process is extremely detailed and the product was outstanding.
· Colleen has a great skill for answering your questions in such a way as to give you strong direction but not dictate the answer. I found this made my applications very authentic. She helps you tell your own story as opposed to writing it for you, which makes all the difference in hindsight.
· Regarding the interview prep, my first practice interview was shaky, to say the least. By the end of the work I did with Colleen, I was significantly more confident. I carried this through into my interviews, both for admissions and for scholarships, and confidently executed both. The frameworks she provided and the practice and training proved to be exactly what I needed.
In summary, I don’t know how I would’ve managed without Colleen. My applications would’ve been nowhere near as polished and I believe it made all the difference in helping me get admitted and win a scholarship. Apart from the technical aspects of putting together the application, it also just a very daunting process to go through. Having someone on your side throughout the journey also just makes the whole thing seem far more manageable. Colleen is empathetic and caring and really helped me on all fronts to get through it. I wholeheartedly recommend Colleen to anyone who is thinking about getting help with the MBA process. Feel free to DM me for more info, more than happy to go into more detail if you need