Kimberly Hoey

I started my process at mbaMission with a 30-minute free consultation with the next available consultant, and was intrigued enough that I decided I would definitely be using the service to guide me through my MBA applications.

Once I got the score I wanted on the GMAT (710), I read through all the consultant bios and quickly knew Kim would be the right person for me. I ultimately chose her because I was a D1 college athlete (so was Kim!) and my professional background is in advertising/marketing, which is where Kim spent most of her career prior to doing MBA admissions and consulting work. I decided to do the hourly services rather than the school package when working with Kim, which turned out to be perfect for my needs.

Kim is extremely empathetic, kind, and positive. Her warm personality made the stress and tediousness of MBA applications and interview prep easier to handle. When working with Kim, I almost felt like I was working with a mentor trying to help me succeed, rather than someone I had hired. I decided to apply to 1 reach school (HBS), 3 target schools (Ross, Fuqua, and Darden) and 2 safeties (Kenan-Flagler and McDonough). I had pretty much decided on these by the time I started working with Kim, but I wish I had asked for her input on other schools to apply to or widening my net beyond 6 schools. She was honest with me about what would be a stretch vs doable vs very doable, which I appreciated!

Kim mainly helped me with brainstorming/editing my essays, certain short-answer application questions, recommender prep, interview guidance, and negotiating for additional scholarship money once I got admitted. She is an excellent editor and I felt she made a big impact for me on that part of the process. We would sometimes go over teh edits in Zoom calls (per my request) or just via email/track changes on Microsoft Word. mbaMission provides lots of resources throughout the process that Kim made sure to provide me with – such as interview guides specific to each school – but Kim also went above and beyond by sharing her own school-specifc interview guides based on feedback she had gotten from her own clients over the years. These made the interview process 10x more manageable.

I ended up getting rejected from HBS without an interview, and I think that was mainly due to factors outside of Kim’s advice or control, such my lack of work experience and my recommender choice (due to particular circumstances I wasn’t able to get a current or former manager to do my recommendation). I got interviews, offers of admission and scholarships from all 5 other schools. The lowest amount of scholarship I got was 50% of tuition, and I even got a full-ride scholarship to one of the schools I applied to. I attribute a lot of this success to Kim’s help. Kim also helped me negotiate even more scholarship money at one of my target schools, which I ultimately chose.

Overall, Kim was a fantastic partner, and I would choose her again if I was going through the process all over again. I genuinely hope I stay in touch with her professionally!

Kim was an instrumental piece in the MBA admissions process for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience working with her. As someone with little knowledge about the MBA admissions process, I had a huge variety of questions about schools, essays, tests, and more that Kim was able to answer in a timely and clear manner.

With a wealth of knowledge about schools and applications, Kim helped me from start to finish. She walked me through building my list of schools, understanding my priority of those schools, managing my time while working on applications, and handling acceptances as they came in.

Kim met with me regularly and always responded quickly over email when I had questions, always providing helpful information that often went beyond what I had initially thought to ask about. One example that stands out was around my test scores. While I wasn’t particularly happy with my GMAT score, Kim introduced the idea of taking the Executive Assessment, which I ultimately performed better on. This not only allowed me to feel better about my candidacy, but also opened the door for more schools that accepted the EA in lieu of the GMAT, and I truly do not think I would have had the options I did without her guidance here.

Outside the tangible parts of the admissions process, Kim was a pleasure to work with. I truly felt she understood my career goals and personality, which made it a joy to meet with her regularly. I am so grateful for Kim’s guidance, insights, and kindness throughout the process, and I would highly recommend working with Kim and mbaMission!

Thanks to Kim, I was truly able to put my best foot forward in the MBA admissions process. With all the unknowns and mixed information out there about the application process and MBA programs in general, it was so helpful to have a seasoned expert to go to for questions on everything from GMAT vs. GRE scores to school culture and essays. Kim is thoughtful, highly organized, supportive, and encouraging. I even shot Kim a few mid-existential-crisis emails during the process, to which she quickly responded with reassuring guidance. She felt like a real teammate in this process!

While I consider myself a strong communicator, responding to broad application prompts with tight word limits presented a real challenge. Kim helped me to bring out the strongest examples in each of my essays, and tailor my experience and aspirations towards the elements of each program that interested me, producing genuine and enticing applications for each school. As a result of Kim’s support, I was accepted to all the top programs I applied to, receiving scholarships at 3 of 4.

If you are hesitant to engage a consultant given the price tag, I highly recommend signing up for a free 30-min consultation, just as I did. During those 30 minutes, I could tell Kim truly wanted to give me the most value, speeding through my many questions, and even following up with a thorough email of recommendations and guidance. I felt no pressure to move forward, and did so only because I was shown how much value she would add to my admissions process – I was 100% correct!! I am incredibly grateful to have had Kim’s support during my MBA admissions process, and cannot recommend her more!

I can’t recommend Kim enough! Her help throughout the entire application process was invaluable. She helped with each aspect of the application from school selection, the application itself, and interview preparation. She really took the time to understand me, my background, and my story and helped me showcase it in throughout my application. Her suggestions were incredibly thoughtful and you can tell she genuinely cares about her clients success and goes above and beyond to help them get into their dream program! I am so thankful I had the opportunity to work with Kim and could not recommend her more!

After getting the GMAT score I wanted just about a month before the Round two deadline for the two schools I wanted to apply to and with absolutely no progress in my applications, I got in contact with Kim and she took the challenge of helping me with my application despite the tight timeline.

She was totally invested in my applications. She designed a delivery plan for me to work on and gave me faster than the standard reviews on my work.

After the application, she prepared me for the interviews and gave me tips that definitely made a difference in getting accepted into both schools I applied to.

I really enjoyed working with Kim and I’m 100% sure she will be of great help to anyone working with her (even if it means working on a tight timeline!!)

I cannot recommend Kim enough. She truly cares about her clients and she goes above and beyond to help them achieve their goals. Kim has a breadth of knowledge about top programs and can help candidates understand their strengths and opportunities. Kim helped me asses my profile and identified areas of opportunity for me. She also reviewed my essays for one of my top programs and helped me with interview preparation. I am fortunate to have gotten into all of the schools I applied to and I could not have done it without Kim’s help!

Kim was an absolutely amazing resource on my application journey. Applying to schools was incredibly stressful but when I met Kim she quickly extinguished all stresses and helped me take a disciplined approach to my applications while creating a compelling story for myself. I took a non-traditional approach and only applied to JD/MBA dual degree programs and Kim was really helpful in understanding the less common process and navigating multi-part applications. I truly can say Kim was a pleasure to work with and I could not recommend her enough.

I had a fantastic experience working with Kim. She was super knowledgeable about all of the schools I was interested in and did an amazing job helping me navigate the process. No one in my close circle had gone through the process before, so having someone who was there to help guide me was really helpful. Would highly recommend working with her!

I cannot recommend Kimberly Hoey highly enough as an MBA Admissions consultant. It was evident from our first call that Kimberly cared deeply about my application. She was patient, thorough, organized, thoughtful, and incredibly helpful to talk to. From the short to long essays to my resume, Kimberly helped me submit an application that I was truly proud of and reflected my work and personal experiences, and passions. Kimberly was relentless in her pursuit of helping me put my best foot forward during what otherwise would have been an incredibly stressful process. Cannot recommend Kimberly highly enough!

I was lucky to find mbaMission and Kim for my business school journey – even when I wasn’t sure I was going to apply yet, Kim clearly laid out the timeline and next steps so that I could have a better idea of what I needed to do next and what I should consider doing to set myself up for success. When I began the process in earnest, I was on a very accelerated timeline for R2, but with Kim’s help I was able to take the GMAT & GRE, find the right recommenders and submit my applications all within a span of about 4 months. I got into both the T15 school and the M7 school that I applied to (with scholarships at both). I’m excited to matriculate at the M7 this fall and I couldn’t be happier that I chose mbaMission and Kim to help me through the process. I was able to craft a compelling story and had so much more confidence in my applications than I would going at it alone. Kim’s knowledge and perspective on my career will serve me in business school and beyond.

The prospect of applying to business school can be very stressful (at least, it was for me) and that stress can be compounded when faced with the challenge of applying to multiple schools in any one round.

However, having Kim as a partner and guide throughout this journey made the entire process manageable, exciting, and ultimately very rewarding.

From our very first call, Kim made a genuine effort to understand who I was as a person, and what made me unique to the thousands of other applicants applying to top schools. Kim guided me through all phases of the application process (researching schools, recommendation letters, writing essays, interview prep, etc.) organizing our work on multiple schools so that I never felt overwhelmed with managing the multiple applications. She was always very thoughtful and quick to respond to any of my questions/revisions (sometimes even working on the weekends to provide feedback in order to meet a tight deadline).

While a very knowledgeable partner, what made working with Kim so special was how genuinely invested she was in my success. I’m so glad that I got the opportunity to work with Kim, and highly recommend her to anyone applying to B-school!

I can’t imagine going through the application without Kim at MBA Mission. From day one she was one of the most organized and efficient professionals, I have ever worked with in any capacity. She was as invested in the process of my applications as I was and paid considerable attention to every single detail of my application. I’m also not a very strong writer, and her guidance for preparing my essays from outlines to the final drafts and many revisions gave me so much more confidence than I ever would have had on my own. I cannot recommend her enough and would absolutely use her services again if I were to repeat the process.

Having had a negative experience working with another consultant previously from another company, I decided to reach out to Kim from MbaMission. Kim exceeded every expectation. She was kind, supportive, and most importantly INCREDIBLY thorough.

She asked all the right questions and answered thoughtfully. Helped frame my applications through the lens of my personal story, and gave me a lot of suggestions that made the difference to becoming accepted at the universities of my choice. Kim went above and beyond to make sure that I put my best self forward to the admissions committees at my university choices.

She even offered to introduce me to an executive in a company and a role that fit with my professional experience.

I couldn’t recommend Kim enough. She would truly push you from being a possible to a definite admit at the school of your choice.

I had the great pleasure of having Kim Hoey as my MBA Admissions consultant. Coming from a non-traditional background, I knew that I needed someone strong to be on my team. Kim’s deep expertise in brand management and the CPG industry as a whole was invaluable. Kim was heavily invested in my success and would check-in frequently to ensure that I was on-track with my business school essays. In addition, she offered invaluable guidance on how to best tell my story and helped me to tie in different elements of my personal and professional life- even when I didn’t see the connection at first! Kim is proactive and always strives to her best in investing her time and energy in helping me. From my written application all the way to my initial interview preps, Kim had remained a consistently strong advocate. With Kim’s guidance, I will be enrolling at Stanford GSB this coming fall.

I would highly recommend Kim to anyone on the fence about hiring an admissions consultant, or unsure of which consultant to work with. I took a chance on Kim and mbaMission after a brief phone consultation, and will be forever grateful that I did. Kim invested an extraordinary amount of time and energy into getting to know me as a candidate (and person) and channeled that understanding into helping me craft an incredibly well-packaged narrative highlighting my strengths and personal brand. Kim guided me through the admissions process every step of the way, acting as a coach, cheerleader, and teammate in one from our kick-off call to the day I received my acceptance letter from CBS. Most importantly, Kim clearly believed in me as a person and cared deeply about my success. As a result, the application I submitted was distinctly my own, rather than a contrived attempt at following some prescribed “CBS formula,” and this fact gave me a great deal of confidence going into my interview. Overall, working with Kim was an overwhelmingly positive experience, and it is safe to say that I would not be headed to my dream school next fall were it not for her guidance.

One final note: I myself was a skeptic of admissions consulting prior to working with Kim and mbaMission. After all, how much value could a consultant really add on top of what I would gain from completing a “self-guided” tour of the latest admissions literature and MBA applicant forums? As it turns out, a great deal. For example: I was by no means the perfect applicant, and had a gaping hole in my application in the form of a 710 GMAT score with a 40 on the quant sub-section (yikes). Although I had decided to hang up my cleats on the GMAT after several failed attempts at improvement, Kim talked me out of testing retirement for one last Hail Mary on the Executive Assessment. After two weeks of brush-up studying, I took the home version of the EA and walked away with a 95th percentile score. Instantly, the biggest weakness of my application transformed into a strength; not only did my EA score represent an improvement on a percentile basis, it also enabled CBS to focus on the other, stronger aspects of my profile, since EA scores aren’t factored into school rankings. Despite the confidence I placed in my own “self-guided” admissions research, I had somehow missed this incredible opportunity that ironically exists somewhat uniquely for CBS (that is, applying with the EA for the full-time program). That Kim was familiar enough with the school to catch this technicality (along with the fact that she was able to coach a very reluctant standardized tester back into the game) speaks volumes about her abilities as a consultant. If you were initially skeptical about bringing in outside help for your applications, I hope that I’ve now convinced you.

My experience with Kim Hoey at mbaMission was amazing! When I was stressed about my past, Kim always encouraged me to look at the positives. With her innovation and experience, she was able to refine my story into a clear and concise narrative. She was always meeting my deadlines and always checking in on me. One thing to point out especially when you are applying to 4 or more schools is that from brainstorming to drafting essays, before you know it, the deadlines are approaching. Kim took the time to create a detailed schedule for me to stay on track. She has a special quality of empathy. I would recommend her to anyone considering an admissions consultant. Last but not least, mbaMission is a rockstar firm with many great resources for its clients. Jeremy Shinewald is leading the best team in the industry.