When I contacted Square One, I didn’t think I had what it takes to get into business school. But admissions firms offer free consults so I spoke to some to confirm my suspicion. All of them did, expect Kathryn. My call with her was different. Kathryn asked me questions other firms didn’t. For example, she was the only admissions advisor to ask me WHY my GPA as what it was, and then ask more questions as I probably didn’t give a very clear answer at first because I was embarrassed and shy. My GPA was terrible, a 2.48/4.00. I also left college after two years with a sub 1.00 GPA and had just graduated in May 2021 at age 34. Here too, she asked my WHY my path was what it was. She didn’t just tell me that my GPA and path were problems. Other firms did. They did not talk to me. They talked at me. Kathryn talked to me for close to 2 hours, not just the prescribed 30. She told me that she believed in me and would help me believe in myself.

What I gained from working with Kathryn – how I think about my past and my future, how I can make the most of business school, is invaluable.

She built a schedule for us to follow so I’d never worry about time. She understood that I am busy leading two companies. We did everything as a team. I didn’t know she’d help me as much as she did with all the application components.

In our first week, she spent 10 hours on calls with me so she could build my first draft resume, which was a huge help as I had never built a resume – I’d worked at my family company and then done entrepreneurial things, so there was no need. We then made it stronger as a team, and I was stunned by it by the time we were done. I actually began to believe in myself, just as she said I would.

The attention Kathryn brought to helping me build a strong resume she also brought to helping me build strong essays. I kept trying to sell and brand myself, and so I wrote a lot of bad essays. Some of her edits of my work were more like rewrites except that they somehow retained my voice. Kathryn steered me toward sharing things I couldn’t believe business schools would want to know about me. She connected with my heart. Just like with my resume, as I completed essays I began to feel more optimistic.

Kathryn brought the same attention to my career path work, which we did with Horatio who was my career lead. The work I did with him became even stronger once Kathryn helped me mold my career path into a goals essay. Horatiu was great though. He was patient as I had no idea how specific I needed to be, I thought I could just say that I want to keep growing my business. He asked me a lot of questions to ensure I knew what to research in order to build a strong career vision. Kathryn pushed my further to build it into a real business plan.

Also, with the LORs, we built packages for my recommenders which was important because neither of mine had ever written one, so getting a lot of support was critical. Kathryn was instrumental.

I secured interviews at Columbia, Wharton, Harvard, and Yale, 4 of the 5 schools I applied to! By this time, she knew me, that I could struggle in interviews. She went above and beyond to help me prepare. We did 6 mock interviews for Harvard and full preparation for all the other schools. I saw how much she cared about me and my success. When I got into Yale I was amazed. With Kathryn’s help I almost got into 4 schools and did get into one of the best in the world. I can’t wait to start!

To anyone who wants a guide through the application process, someone you can trust will always be honest and focused on helping you grow and succeed, and will go above and beyond for you, look no further than Kathryn.

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I am fortunate that I came across SOP in my business school journey. After being rejected by multiple consultants (and fairly so) because of my below-average standardised test scores, speaking to Kathryn in our first free consultation session was a breath of fresh air. My advisor Paula, career coach Wendy, and partnerships manager Cristina, continued the momentum that Kathryn had built.

I have the utmost respect for Wendy: she brings in pertinent industry knowledge, rationality, and feasibility of creating and achieving career goals. She is honest and extremely committed to her clients. She, along with Paula, worked with me on 14+ versions of the career narrative document, enabling me to not only draft coherent goals for business school application but also to have a solid foundation for my professional journey ahead.

Paula, my advisor, was a true partner throughout this emotional and challenging period of my life. She shared high-quality deliverables within tight timelines and was always on top of all aspects of my application. She went way beyond her scope and believed in me when I did not believe in myself. She dealt with my shortcomings such as having self-doubt, second guessing applying to business school etc with grace and encouraged me to be positive. She took the effort to get to know me well and was able to bring me back on track when I broke under pressure. Paula made me feel very comfortable, as if I am working with a friend, who always had my best interest in mind. Her kindness is infectious and the compassion that she brings into her work is heartwarming.

Cristina, my partnerships manager, stepped in proactively to support my application.

Perhaps most crucially, Kathryn’s unwavering commitment towards my business school journey coupled with her two decades of experience in this field played a crucial role in me coming out of this process a little bit stronger as an individual.

I am grateful to the SOP team for helping me secure admits to Fuqua and McDonough.

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I had been applying to B-schools since 2020 and got more than a dozen rejections.

I decided to give myself a last chance in the 2022 application cycle. However in the early 2022, I lost my wife unexpectedly which pushed me into a deep depression. I thought with the passing away of the biggest support of my life, my dreams had also died. I gave up on everything including my MBA dreams.

A friend of mine who had worked with Square One suggested I speak to Kathryn, a request I denied multiple times. But on being pushed frequently by my friend, finally I decided to speak to her. Sure that after doing a free session my friend would stop pestering me and I could continue to stay in my deep depression.

I still remember those 50 minutes with Kathryn. , I never felt like I was speaking to a MBA consultant, but rather a mentor who was equally interested in me fulfilling my MBA dreams. She also cared about me as a person. She not only motivated me but pushed me to give my best. She was always there for me as I had tough moments where I doubted myself and felt depressed. Day or night, she was there, getting on calls with me or emailing me. She even helped me build some of my work directly. I never would have expected that.
Additionally, she reviewed ALL the materials I built with my advisors, some essays multiple times. This was not meant to be included in my package.

Writing my applications in the toughest phase of my life brought out the best in me and also created a positive distraction which helped me cure my mental health. Kathryn and her team understood that I’d have some bad days. They were always understanding.

Kathryn allowed me to choose the best advisor from SOP's several awesome advisors. I decided to work with Rahul Kalita. This guy is amazing; he pushed me hard to ensure I did my best. My career narrative expert was Horatiu who just in one single call helped me begin to build strong MBA goals, which out me at ease. Lastly, Cristina ( a very charming lady) was my admin support who helped me stay on schedule. So with this team I moved forward and secured an admit to my dream school. Not only that; I got a handsome scholarship! with a handsome scholarship

It seems like a dream to me but Kathryn and her team became the messiah of my MBA journey. I Cannot thank them enough!

So if you are applying to a b-school just do a free session with Kathryn and trust that everything will follow in line. I did not know there was a team like this out there.

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Thanks to Kathryn, Annie, Horatiu, and the rest of the SquareOnePrep team, I breezed through the application process for business school. Their all-inclusive approach to helping me construct my career story helped me concentrate on what was important to me and enabled me to show my best self to business school admissions committees.

What is the rationale behind SOP?

I spoke with a few MBA consultants from various companies. As far as I'm concerned, I don't want to work with someone who either overestimated or underestimated my abilities. My first conversation with Kathryn from SOP was positive, but she also pointed me what I needed to improve upon based on the results of my application. Her words of wisdom were a great boost to my self-esteem and practical in nature.

The four key components of their services are Resume, LOR, Career Narrative and Essays.

Resume: Many hours of phone calls with Annie, my academic adviser, were spent developing my résumé, and she pointed out many aspects of my academic and professional achievements that I had overlooked. In the end, the resume that was created using SOP was quite thorough and compelling in its content.

LOR: Even though I had previously applied to a master's programme and submitted a professional letter of recommendation, this LOR prepared with SOP for MBA was very striking and had a number of personal & professional tales. The SOP presented my supervisor with a wealth of information to consider when making their recommendation.

Carrier Narrative: The nicest part about SOP is that they take 3-4 separate sessions to set short-term and long-term objectives. This encouraged individuals to look at various career objectives, companies, and the impact they had on society, and eventually a clear path post MBA short and long term goal was established.

Essays: Each of my meetings with my adviser was helpful and supplied me with a wealth of useful information, which helped me write more effective essays.

Overall, I'm glad I selected SOP for MBA consulting, and I know it would have been exceedingly tough for me to be in the place I am now if it hadn't been for their help. Thank you SOP, and thank you Kathryn!

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I chose Kathryn from Square One Prep for a premium comprehensive package. She is a great admission consultant who really understands how to communicate and distill stories for you to help you succeed. I would not hesitate to recommend Kathryn to you if you are serious about your applications! One thing to hightlight about Kathryn is that her help to you does not end at admission. In fact, the relationship extends beyond the admission offer letter! She also helps guide you all the way until you start school, sometimes even over a lengthy period of time to help you best communicate with the school. I highly recommend Kathryn!

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The SOP Team (Kathryn, Anna and the career-narrative expert) did a fantastic job in helping with my applications. I got into multiple schools and my top choice T15 school. Kathryn is an extremely dedicated, honest, empathetic and a resourceful person who has decades of experience in helping students reach their potential. I realised, it makes a huge difference to work with advisors who love their job and are truly working to help you put your best foot forward.

Kathryn is one of the best advisors - especially with her knowledge on B-Schools and what ticks in an application. You cannot go wrong working with Kathryn. Check out the other testimonials on how amazing Kathryn and her team is on advisory work, crafting the application, the thorough and structured process, the quick turn-arounds, the career-narrative process and the top-class service overall. While this is exactly what all of us, as applicants, need, I also want to highlight how SOP genuinely supported me and in the process, changed my perspective of the whole application ordeal.

I still vividly remember making the choice to reach out to SOP with exactly 4.5 weeks to go for school deadlines. As is the amazing process at SOP, after my conversation with Kathryn, I spoke to 3 advisors to choose one that I would work with for the next few weeks. The process enabled me to work with Anna, a truly amazing human being, a fellow international applicant who was in my footsteps a few years ago. She has since become a great friend for life. The next 4-5 weeks of crafting applications to 5 schools went through like the best breeze there could be, because mentally I never felt it was just ‘my’ B-school application. Anna spent countless hours – mornings and nights, and at times while she was on treks or in flights – helping me throughout the journey. I can write many pages about Anna’s work but the two things that stood out were how she equipped me with the tools and created agency, and how she was empathetic and had a strong grasp of my values. Many times, Anna would mention a couple of points below an essay prompt alluding to things she believed I could mention about my career/ life/ extracurriculars - have you ever seen an advisor like this?!

With SOP, I had an entire team to help me brainstorm, vet my drafts, my ideas, ask deeper questions in each essay draft and bring out the best side of me in my applications. Truly, to me, the application never felt like work. I’ve heard many applicants say that crafting the applications was a tougher task for them than taking up the standardized tests, but for me (with SOP by my side) it was the total opposite. I had taken the standardized tests multiple times, but after working on my applications with SOP and having conversed with Kathryn and Anna, every single day, I realised my perspective on the application and my test journey had changed - I had immense confidence in what I had to offer. I felt mentally stronger and calmer. I retook the test after submitting my application, and fared way better than the previous few times. A huge relief! I asked for strategies on sharing updated scores and waitlist updates with schools - each time Kathryn and Anna were always by my side, helping me more than I could imagine. I am truly grateful to the SOP team for their work and their presence in my life. I could not have asked for better advisors. I have a lot of respect for the amazing work Kathryn does, the company she has built and the team she has hired - Having seen first hand her commitment to her work, I’m almost certain she never sleeps :)

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When I started my MBA application journey I was a mess. I questioned my strength as an applicant and created a list of schools I’d apply to based on what I considered “safe”. This list didn’t include the schools I dreamed of attending. Then I took the free consultation with Square One Prep (SOP).

On that pivotal phone call, Kathryn convinced me to slow down. While I fixated on my weaknesses (GPA, Test Scores, etc), Kathryn instead took stock of my entire background and identified strengths I’d overlooked. With her encouragement we agreed to team up, but only if I agreed not to settle for anything less than my dream list of schools. Kathryn didn’t allow me to sell myself short.

I’d like to specifically recognize the Career Narrative that SOP helps applicants develop. When I was first instructed by Kathryn to commit time towards researching my dream job, company, sector, and calling I was confused. None of my MBA applications asked explicitly for detailed Career Narratives- this was an “extra” assignment. Was this the best use of my time?

I couldn’t have been more mistaken. The Career Narrative SOP helped me develop has paid countless dividends. Not only did it fuel my essays, but the knowledge I gained researching my Career Narrative also armed me for interviews, and further it has helped me secure a Pre-MBA internship. This “extra” assignment has given me a confident vision of what my future can be.

I implore anyone like me, who might be stuck thinking about weaknesses, to take the SOP consultation. See what it’s like to have someone take a genuine interest in your story holistically and encourage you to push further. Craft your own Career Narrative and step into your future with a thoughtful plan. I hope others sign up with SOP, create their own list of dream schools, and get accepted to each one as I have.

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Rahul, Kathryn and also Anna in particular are exceptional professionals who know what they are doing, and I couldn't recommend them enough.

I applied to only a single school (the most selective one in its field). Although I had prepared the entire application myself, I decided to ask SOP for help in reviewing my essays and my narrative. Honestly, I was expecting them to be impressed – they were not. Kathryn in particular told me that my favourite essay was making the adcom's decision easy (as in that they would reject me with no hesitation).

With the deadline being ~10 days away, I opted for the hourly service. We made my narrative easier to understand and worked on some of the essays. Occasionally I disagreed with some of their comments, but overall we arrived at a result that I was very happy with, which clearly improved my admission chances. Everyone was also very available throughout the process.

The end result was that I got into my dream school with a full ride.

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Working with Square One Prep made the difference in submitting my best applications. My search for my MBA school started over a year ago with minimal background knowledge of what was involved during the application process when I first called Kathryn for a free consultation. At this point, I was unsure exactly what I wanted to do, but I figured at least SOP could point me in the right direction. Kathryn did just that and continued to follow up with me throughout the following months to check how I progressed. This started a great relationship, and I could already feel how much she wanted to help me succeed.

I struggled through multiple GMAT attempts and continued to focus solely on the GMAT to achieve the score I felt was possible. I thought I could not reach my goals without a high GMAT. This began to set me back, and I ended up missing a whole year of round applications. After debating whether or not to pay for a consultant, I decided to reach back out to Kathryn to let her know I needed help and wanted to team up with SOP.

This was by far the best decision of my application process. Instantly, Kathryn and her team had me progressing on my applications and developing a plan of exactly how I wanted my career path to advance with an MBA and what schools I should be interested in. They never made me feel like my dreams were not possible with a lower-end GMAT score. If it wasn’t for their complete knowledge on what it takes to get into the top MBA programs and resources to use, I could say that I may still be focused on my GMAT score and missing another year of applications.

The multiple levels of review with the SOP team were personalized, and the continuous collaboration led my final applications to perfection. I was amazed by the work I was submitting. They got me to really think introspectively, to discover my true career narrative. Although the process of applications can be overwhelming at times, I felt like I was on top of my applications with the outlined schedule and multiple steps along the way. There is absolutely no way I would have pulled off all that I did without SOP’s team. Working with SOP is totally worth it, and I would do it again 100 times out of 100. I already miss working with all who were involved in my applications.

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I opted for an hourly service with Square One Prep - and I am very glad that I reached out to them at an early stage during my applications.
Kathryn went above and beyond in our first "introductory" call as well and gave me so many tips that other consultants would probably not have. She listened to my stories and gave me advices on schools I should target. The call went on for more than an hour - and I felt comfortable sharing my personal stories with Kathryn. On our first call itself, I was sure I wanted to work with her. I went ahead for the hourly service.

Kathryn provided diligent and candid feedback on my previous work - my essays and resume. Her feedback was crisp and actionable. The greatest benefit I got was Kathryn completely quashed my main essay - and rightly so. It got me thinking in the right direction- and now I am telling a completely different story in my next drafts. In fact, some of the stories I had thought were not super useful are the ones which actually highlighted my strengths. Such introspection has turned my application 360 degrees - the different "components" are still there but arranged very well and telling a cohesive story.

Kathryn was very knowledgeable when it came to resumes too. She clearly pointed out my shortcomings- the places where I was "spoonfeeding" too much and the places where there were mysterious blanks.

All in all I would highly recommend Kathryn! If you are looking for someone to get you into your dream school, I would not think twice before choosing Kathryn.

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