August Academy's MBA Admissions Blog

Siddhartha: Finance/Asset Management -> NYU Stern

Karthik’s style of working is probably similar to other international consultants. Unlike the Indian admission consultants, he doesn’t write your essay, rather, he provides a direction. The language essentially would still be of the applicant. This is ethically and morally the right thing to do. For those who get essays written by others, a caveat for you guys – schools do check for language consistency and if it sounds like you may not have written the essays, they could reject your candidature even after getting an admit.

To all those still contemplating on the benefit of hiring a consultant, please hire one, even if you think you know what you are doing. For me, it was not until I wasted a cycle of admissions, did I realise I wasn’t doing enough. I then decided to hire August Academy to help with my admissions and it was the best decision ever. Especially given my background (Indian), I felt the need for an admission consultant even more – writing essays in a way eloquent enough and at the same time in a well-directed manner is a skill not many know.

I initially started off on my own and struggled to get any calls. I did get a call from a Canadian school, but largely due to my GMAT score and yet which dint convert. I did not realise the importance of essay writing at that point. I was then referred to August Academy by a GMAT club acquaintance. I contacted Karthik, who did a profile review and gave me some nice pointers on what works in my profile. I was a 31 year old at that time which is towards the higher end of the age range that US schools admit. However, we brainstormed to understand my profile at granular level. This later helped me in writing essays.

The entire process for large part takes place over “Asana” where Karthik creates tasks and I had to complete them within a deadline. Usually, he takes about 2 or 3 days to review the work, but for me he did give some leeway as I struggled with a few quick deadlines with schools. We had to submit the application for Stern within 10 days of submitting the app for Columbia. This was a herculean task and yet we could do it because we had it all planned out in “Asana”.

Karthik’s style of working is probably similar to other international consultants. Unlike the Indian admission consultants, he doesn’t write your essay, rather, he provides a direction. The language essentially would still be of the applicant. This is ethically and morally the right thing to do. For those who get essays written by others, a caveat for you guys – schools do check for language consistency and if it sounds like you may not have written the essays, they could reject your candidature even after getting an admit.

Where Karthik excels is his ability to pick the right story for the essay. I think I could navigate through some really difficult essays mainly because of his guidance. In the end it all bore fruit. I worked with him for 4 schools and I received interview calls for 3 of them. I got admit from two of them. He may come off as slightly on the expensive side, but be assured that the services you get would be of very high quality. 5 stars to him!

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