At Menlo Coaching, we view free consultation calls as a chance to figure out whether we’re the right fit for you.
For your very first call, bear in mind that we will not be able to answer very specific questions surrounding your MBA application, but we will come to understand what you’re looking for and how our service will work for you. In your next call with us, your prospective admissions consultant will be happy to answer any specific questions you might have about your application strategy.
Here are some of the questions we’re likely to ask you in your initial consultation call with the Sales Team.
The first question we ask will be very straightforward. We just want to get to know you beyond the application form you’ve sent and get a read on your personality. This is not a job interview, however! Don’t feel as though you need to have an elevator pitch ready for your consultation call.
One of the most important things we want to learn about you is how we can help. We understand that our service isn’t right for everyone, and our goal is not to convince you that our service is the only one of any value on the market. Depending on your working style, your personality, how much time you can afford to spend on your MBA application, and how much you’re willing to commit to putting forward your best application, we can determine whether we can give you what you’re looking for.
Menlo Coaching’s comprehensive service is quite exhaustive—we can help you from the minute you start researching your target programs to the point where you’ve accepted your offer, and this encompasses resume and essay writing, interview preparation, building your recommender relationships and preparing them to write your letters of recommendation, and negotiating your offers. If you’re really only looking for someone who will write your essays for you, then our service will not be a great fit.
Beyond determining what you’d like to achieve with your coach, it’s good for us to know if you’d appreciate a coach with a particular working style above a coach with a particular background, for example.
At this point, we want to get an idea of your background and your goals—and whether your goals are realistic. Most MBA applicants would love to go to Harvard Business School or Stanford GSB. Unfortunately, these programs are incredibly competitive, and while we value ambition and take it as an indicator of how willing you are to work hard on your application, the difference between being admitted and being denied can often come down to chance.
Our most successful clients are open to the advice we offer in terms of their profile and the schools they target—though we won’t try to talk you out of applying to your dream school if you understand the risks and the amount of work involved in submitting a competitive application.
Some clients, particularly those coming from non-traditional industries, come to these consultation calls with a looming fear about a particular aspect of their application. Some people worry that their undergraduate GPA is too low. Others are concerned that their background in another industry will be a blocker in their application.
This question helps us pick up on any elements of your profile that we may have missed and put your mind at ease about how we will address any weaknesses.
For top 10 and top 20 MBA programs, high GMAT scores are the norm, so we want to determine where you stand with the GMAT.
Have you taken tests already? What was your score? If your score is low, what is your strategy going forward: are you going to retake or switch to the GRE? How have you been preparing? Are you working with a tutor?
These questions will help us determine whether you’ve given yourself enough of a runway to get a good GMAT score before your application deadlines.
We want to give you the opportunity to ask us about the specifics of our service. Different people are more interested in different aspects of the process, so it’s always helpful to know what matters most to you.
Now is your opportunity to ask about the application timeline, how we pair our clients with their coaches, how we can help you tell your story, whether we believe you’ve got a good chance at your target program.
It is important to remember, however, that in your first call with Menlo Coaching, you will not speak with an admissions consultant. Instead, we will explain the service and determine whether we’d be a good fit for you. After this initial call, we will connect you with the coach we believe would be the best match and schedule a call for you to get to know them.
Note: We will never ask you to sign up to our service before you meet your coach—and you should be wary of any company that attempts to get you to sign up before you’ve met your admissions consultant!
If you’re interested in moving forward, we will let you know which coach we would like to match you with. We can give you an idea of their background, their expertise, and their working style. Of course, if you’d rather work with a different coach, we’ll be happy to give you an idea of the other members of the team and how they could help you win admission to your target program.
The last question we will ask you is about your budget. How much are you willing to spend on an admissions consultant?
If you’re not sure of your budget just yet, don’t worry. A lot of people come to this consultation call in the early stages of their research, and they want to get an idea of the landscape before they commit to a specific budget. We’ll lay out the cost of our service, what that entails, and if you decide that our price is too high, we can refer you to some other great MBA admissions consultants we trust.
Although our sales team is very knowledgeable about the MBA application process, they are not coaches. Make sure you come to this meeting with the right mindset: you’re here to learn about the service and whether it will work for you. If you’re interested in moving forward after this call—and we believe you’d be a great fit for us—you will have an opportunity to ask any application-specific questions in your next meeting with your prospective coach.
