Kartik: Energy -> Tuck

if you ask the right questions, there is often a much more meaningful reason and core belief that is guiding your decision making. Karthik was a pro at doing this and it massively improved the quality of the essays we worked on together.

Working with Karthik and August Academy on my B-School applications was an excellent experience. Together, we worked on 5 applications out of which I scored an admit from Tuck and a waitlist from UCLA even in an extremely hard application cycle. 

From the get-go I appreciated Karthik’s honest and open communication style. In our first conversation, he helped me think through the range of schools that were realistic targets given my profile and GMAT score. Yet, he let me know that he was open to changing our strategy if I wanted to be more ambitious. And I did. Karthik was also open to letting me position my story the way I wanted to – he is a firm believer in authenticity and would often nudge me in the right direction when he felt that I wasn’t being true to my goals and ambitious. We often brainstormed a plan B w.r.t story positioning but our priority would always be to run with what felt right.

Another thing with Karthik is that you can always know what to expect. He uses Asana as a project management tool with his clients and I found this to be extremely helpful in staying on top of all the various to-do’s that an applicant needs to address. He was also prompt in his review of my essays, resume, and other documents – you could pretty much expect an in depth review within 48 hrs. This helped me manage my internal application deadlines with ease. Having said that, Karthik was always open to working on a tighter deadline if the matter was urgent and needed his review. 

One thing I particularly liked about his process was his ability to ask the right questions during our brainstorming process. Often, we do not dig deep enough when trying to answer essay questions in MBA applications. We have an ongoing narrative in our head which we rely heavily on. But if you ask the right questions, there is often a much more meaningful reason and core belief that is guiding your decision making. Karthik was a pro at doing this and it massively improved the quality of the essays we worked on together. 

Finally, something that really helped take my application to the next level was just the sheer number of reviews each of my essays went through. Karthik and I would often go up to as many as 5 drafts of the same essay before we froze it. Knowing that I had the option of doing multiple iterations of the essay allowed me to take more risks in the writing and craft better essays. 

I will forever be grateful for Karthik’s guidance throughout the process. Will 100% recommend using his services if you’re looking for a good mentor to guide you through the B-school application process.