Susan Berishaj

I highly recommend Susan to anyone looking for help with the MBA application process. She was extremely helpful with figuring out my point of view, editing my resumes, essays, and recommendation letters, and getting everything across the finish line. I only used my package for help with two reach schools and was not interviewed at either, but Susan still helped me with interview prep for the school that I ended up getting admitted to. I cannot thank her enough!

I cannot recommend Susan enough as an admissions consultant. With Susan’s help, I got into all five MBA programs that I applied to (Wharton, Booth, Kellogg, Haas, and LBS) with several scholarships including my top choice school. Susan led me through a thorough and structured process from start to finish, including personal story and goal development, school selection, application development, recommender strategizing, interview practice, and even acceptance decisions and early recruitment planning. Susan was truly talented in her ability to identify a rich and thoughtful application story that was true to myself and my passions – a task that seemed daunting at first. Her feedback is succinct and effective, and she was willing to dedicate whatever time necessary to ensure my best application.

I chose to use an MBA consultant because I entered the application process slightly late and was overwhelmed by the amount of work in front of me. Susan’s role in distilling this work into actionable steps and helping to guide me through the decisions and priorities was invaluable.

Susan provided extensive, detailed knowledge specific to each of my 5 schools to help tailor to unique preferences, notable offerings/professors, and school culture. This encyclopedic knowledge of each school was invaluable in customizing each application and resonating with the schools’ interests.

I strongly recommend Susan as an MBA consultant to anyone applying. She offers specialized skills at each step in the process as well as an impressive ability to maintain the bigger picture and guide you through the process from start to finish (and even further than that).

Susan is simply amazing. Her support is end-to-end and you get more mock interviews than necessary to absolutely knock the MBA interviews out of the park! Susan was my guiding light in preparing my essays, narrative, and interviews.

She is extremely knowledgeable in the MBA space. She has a finance background from Yale which was extremely comforting. I am from a state school background with no remarkable employers, so there was a lot of impostor syndrome going in – Susan helped me feel more confident about the schools I chose.

Before Susan, I was thinking I would barely make my way into a top 50 school due to my background and very average GMAT/below-average GPA. After Susan’s guidance, I confidently applied to LBS, Oxford, Cambridge, Duke, NYU, Cornell, and Vanderbilt. I was only dinged from LBS, waitlisted at Cornell and Cambridge, and accepted everywhere else, even receiving a $76,000 scholarship to Vandy.

Really at the end of the day, it’s next to impossible to maximize your MBA potential without a seasoned consultant who knows how to play the game. I’m not sure if I would have gotten into any of these schools if it wasn’t for her.

At the end of the day, if ROI is your concern, Susan’s extremely fair fees will pay themselves over with better acceptances or scholarships.

Susan also simply just cares! I concluded working with her in December 2021 but she still sends me monthly email updates with info to help me prepare for my MBA.

She doesn’t just want you to get accepted, she wants to see you succeed.

Susan is the best consultant I’ve worked with. I initially looked to her for help on applying to MS, but a few days later I noticed she could also help me practice for job interviews. Susan really helped me know myself as a professional and person because she was interested in knowing me before helping me with my resume and cover letter. When I applied for MBA programs, I had help from two other consultants. They were great, but Susan was amazing. I not only got offers from the schools I applied to (Emory, Vanderbilt) but I also got job offers. I was very stressed about the whole process of interviewing. As an international student, I knew my accent and English grammar could be a problem, but she worked with me on it. She is a top-class professional, and I would highly recommend her. Even if you’re having a hard time finding a job, she can help you. The amazing work she did with me to build my resume emphasized a valuable experience.

I had a great experience working with Susan. Not only was I accepted in my first choice, but I enjoyed the entire application process.
In February 2020, I decided to apply to 3 of the top MPP programs (Oxford, LSE, and Cambridge). I was overwhelmed by the number of requirements for each school and confused about the entire process, so I started looking for help. I interviewed over 10 consultants and when I spoke with Susan, I knew I wanted to work with her. She is passionate about helping people achieve their goals, listens to them, and understands them. This was very important as she was able to help me reflect on my goals throughout my application. Even though I knew what I wanted, I didn’t know how to put that on paper, and she helped me to do it. She has a methodology in which I learned what the universities were looking for and how would that fit my purpose, increasing the chances of acceptance. We did a lot of work before we even started drafting the essays. This included creating a strategy for each of the applications and a timeline. While working on the essays, we had many iterations. All of Susan’s comments were very valuable to improve the content of my essays and to be able to include all the important things in a limited number of words. Although my programs didn’t require an interview, she recommended scheduling calls with relevant professors and alumni and helped me prepare for those calls. She also helped me select my recommenders based on what they needed to reflect on the recommendation letters. At the end of the process, she thoroughly reviewed each application before submitting them. I was accepted into two of the three programs I applied to. After the application process, she continued following up on the results and after I got accepted, she has been helping me a lot to prepare to start the program.
In addition to the amazing experience I had working with her and the perfect results, I really enjoyed sharing this process with her. She knows how to listen and motivate you and if she agrees to work with you it is because she truly believes in your dreams and does everything possible to help you achieve them.

#1 Investment I have made in my 30 years, resulting in #1 choice achieved for Graduate School with successful admission to Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Optimization: Susan helped me uncover and project my application narrative to reach my absolute potential. This was CRUCIAL for the numerous essays required for each school.

Peace of Mind: Working with Susan, I had minimal stress during the application thanks to the incredible results she enabled me to achieve day by day, week by week. From the beginning, her thorough process and dedication, coupled with my own hard work gave me the peace of mind to know that I was going to achieve success in graduate school admissions. This peace of mind is priceless.

Personal Approach: Susan tailored her proven framework to suit my schedule and needs. Again, this brings incredible value and quality to the experience.

I’m truly fortunate to have discovered Susan’s professional work from my friend Jack (see his review below). This was truly a life-fulfilling investment.

Having Susan by my side proved valuable throughout my application process. She helped me overcome an absolutely terrible GPA (<2.7) to gain admittance at my dream M7 school.

When I initially reached out to several MBA consultants, Susan was one of the very few who was willing to work with me despite my glaring academic weakness. During our first conversation, she took the time to closely evaluate my profile and was honest about both my strengths and weaknesses. From the start, I already had a feeling I would be comfortable working with Susan. She gave me very thoughtful advice even before I officially signed up for her service.

Once I signed up, Susan made me go through a very comprehensive self-reflection process. I learned so much about myself – my personal journey, motivations, achievements. This set the foundation for crafting extremely deep and personal stories that would later pique the interest of 3 top MBA programs.

Susan constantly challenged me throughout the essay drafting process. I would usually write what I would assume were very compelling initial drafts, but Susan would leave comments such as “Why does this matter?” or “Explain what you mean” on certain sections. I would sometimes get frustrated, but I knew why she would do it – these are the same questions adcoms would ask while reading my work, so I have to make sure my essays are as clear as possible for them to understand. The final versions were all clearly stronger and more compelling than the initial versions, and I attribute that to Susan’s guidance.

Susan also helped me practice my interviews by making sure I’d be ready with responses that were true to myself and at the same time, speak to the school’s culture. I felt I gave a strong interview with my top school, and again, this is because of multiple practice sessions with Susan.

Overall, I had an amazing experience with Susan. I couldn’t have done it without her support.

Coming from a non-business background, I was looking for a consultant to help me with all aspects of my MBA applications. I spoke with four companies before choosing Sia Admissions. Susan’s personalized approach sold me.

On our first call, Susan promised to be there every step of the way, and she meant it! From the initial stages of getting to know me and crafting my school list in the early summer to celebrating my acceptance in December, she was always on my side.

As a consultant, Susan is very meticulous. She goes through several drafts of all of your documents until they are perfect. She will constantly push you to do your best work and make sure you are telling your unique story. For example, we did eight drafts of my resume alone. I definitely got frustrated at times with how much she pushed me (re-writing the same paragraph over and over is not fun!), but I knew she was just doing it to make my applications as strong as possible. For interviews, she offers multiple mock practice sessions for each school to ensure you are fully prepared. Her all-inclusive package is truly all-inclusive.

Long story short, I am very glad I worked with Susan. An MBA consultant is an enormous investment, but with Susan’s help, I gained acceptance to my top-choice program with a partial scholarship.

Helping applicants showcase their strengths and tell their story is Susan’s genuine passion. If you are looking for both a coach and cheerleader on this crazy journey, I highly recommend her!

I’ve contacted Susan very last minute to help me prepare for my admission MBA interview at Imperial College London.
Susan is very flexible, approachable, authentic, professional and dedicated.
We started off very quickly and she headlined key points and made my story speak out.
I would highly recommend Susan.

My experience with Susan has been very positive. I was amazed by her insight into my personality and motivations because she connected experiences in my past that I didn’t fully appreciate. This shows her investment with the candidates and the depth with which she understands them, which is quite commendable. Her detail-oriented approach helped me bring out my personality in my writing and convey it right to the school. MBA application is a lot
about figuring out our best story and for that, it’s very important to build a strong relationship with the consultant with whom we work. Since Susan is extremely easy to talk to, I was able to build that relationship easily. If you’re looking for a person who is invested in you and your story and with whom you can build a positive relationship then she truly fulfills that criteria.

I highly recommend Susan from Sia Admissions. She helped me overcome mediocre academic stats to get into my #1 school. It has been a fantastic experience.

As a result: I have received offers of admission to Wharton, Stern, Darden, McCombs.

I could not imagine going through this process without Susan’s help.

I decided to work with her because I knew I was taking a significant risk in changing careers. I wanted to maximize my opportunity and limit my risk of failure.

I interviewed a couple of other larger MBA consulting companies and found that they were competent, but they had more on an assembly line approach. I would go from station to station (each with a different person) depending on what part of the process I was conducting.

I wanted someone that I could connect with and would understand my situation. I am transitioning careers and didn’t know what I wanted to do after business school. I didn’t have a clear narrative of who I was and why I would be an asset to a business school.

I went with Susan because I got the impression she was going to be with me through the whole process and help me develop who I would be after leaving the military.

Susan did just that and then some. She has been available every step of the way.

School Selection: We spoke for hours on the phone. She got to know me and what my goals were. She recommended a variety of schools: reach, target, and safety schools. With these schools, she gave the reasons why, why not, and how it would fit my personality.

Application Development: She spent time helping me put together a narrative on how I would contribute to the school, what I wanted to do short term, and what my long-term goals were. As I would write the essays and resumes, she would take the time to help me get it right. It was important to me to make sure that I was representing myself honestly while communicating in a manner that would connect with the admissions committee. I think every document I submitted was the result of 8 or more drafts. She took the time to make sure I was submitting the best application possible.

Interview Prep: Every time I would get selected to interview, she would send me a series of interview questions that I could expect for each interview. We would then do a call where she would explain to me what was unique about that school’s interview process and how I should prepare. Afterward, we would do an unlimited number of mock interviews. For each actual interview, we spent several hours on skype running through mock interviews.

Decision: She has been available through this whole process, always giving me advice on the advantages and disadvantages of each school and things to consider before making my final decision. Additionally, she is helping me apply for other scholarships and preparing myself to enter business school this fall.

I chose to have her help me with all my applications. It was expensive, but it made sense to me because I didn’t have any other resources that I trusted, guiding me through this process. My career change is one of the most significant risks I’ve taken. As a result, I saw any avoidable mistake as unacceptable, so I wanted someone to help me ensure I was doing each little thing right.