To hire or not to hire – that’s the question.

But before answering that question, you have to be clear on what an MBA admissions consultant can or can not actually do for you.

An admissions consultant can’t guarantee you admission to any business school.

Be wary of any admissions consultant that offers you a guarantee ticket into b-school.

Even with twenty years of work experience in the industry having served on the admissions board at Harvard Business School and Carnegie Mellon University, I always tell our clients:

no one can guarantee an admissions offer, but we can help them put their best foot forward.

And frankly, that’s what an admissions consultant’s job is: helping you to stand out amidst your competition.

To help you decide on how to hire an MBA admissions consultant, we’ve created a comprehensive guide that provides a system you can use to decide:

– whether hiring an MBA admissions consultant is right for you and

– which MBA admissions consulting firm would be the best choice for you.

In this blog post, the first part of our guide, you’ll learn about four ways MBA applicants can benefit by hiring an MBA admissions consultant.

So, what can an MBA admissions consultant do for you?

MBA Admissions Knowledge and Insight

An admissions consultant should be knowledgeable about the admission process, understand what the adcom wants and help you to avoid making application mistakes.

Be skeptical of consultants that promise to write your application for you.

Chances are that the application they assemble for you will come across as fake and will lead the adcom to reject you.

Dedication

Admissions consultants, who are genuinely passionate about what they do, will always go the extra mile to help you succeed and their positive support for you can be empowering.

They should be able to also help you to hone your story and present it to the adcom in the most positive and powerful way.

Organization

Another value of admissions consultants is that they can help you to be better organized and to tackle the application in the most streamlined way possible.

This helps applicants to avoid wasting time by focusing on the critical aspects of the application process.

Good consultants also help your keep pace throughout the entire process, ensuring that your meet your application deadlines without allowing work and other obligations to derail your MBA application plans.

Such support can often help you to better handle the stress that is involved with applying to business school.

Honesty and Objective Feedback

Your consultant’s job is to remain objective throughout the process.

To listen to you, understand your goals and help you execute your application.

He/she should provide you with honest feedback about your  admission goals and how you come across through each aspect of the application.

Your consultant should never sugar-coat the truth.

A good admissions consultant tells their clients the truth even when they are reluctant to hear it.

Next Steps

Knowledge and insight about the MBA admissions process, dedication, organization and honest and objective feedback.

These are the benefits you should expect to gain from working with an MBA admissions consultant.

On the other hand, a guaranteed ticket to your target business school is something you can’t expect from anyone.

Now that you know more about the benefits of working with an MBA admissions consultant, it’s time to consider the next logical question – do you need an MBA admissions consultant?