Rebecca earned an MBA at Kellogg, and has a wide range of business experience, from project management at a Fortune 500, to non-profit leadership and entrepreneurship. She recently served as Chief Marketing Officer for a business incubator and its related tech ventures. In addition, she has extensive experience with writing and editing, and received a B.A. in Journalism and English Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Learn more about Rebecca and her approach to MBA admissions consulting.
Because Rebecca is a journalist by training, reporting other people’s stories—in a way that grabs the reader’s attention—is second nature to her.
This process begins in the personal kickoff call, in which you can expect to spend several hours telling Rebecca your personal story, with her listening patiently and compassionately, prompting you with little questions along the way, and taking a lot of notes in her notebook. We don’t use templates and worksheets for this because they tend to “flatten” a candidate’s personal story as they try to fit it into neat categories. We want to hear the raw, unfiltered story from you in your own words.
“Rebecca took a genuine interest in hearing my personal story – asking about and listening to my story from childhood to present – and left no stone unturned. She is incredibly approachable and easily got to the core of what makes me, me. This made me feel absolutely confident that I was ‘authentically me’ in my essays.”
The second part of the process is translating the story into an effective narrative in your application materials. When it comes to writing clearly, there’s no substitute for revising the story again and again.
“Rebecca is a talented writer and REALLY pushed me with my essays. She did several iterations for content – pushing me to add narratives and examples – and then several iterations for word count, syntax, grammar, etc. I learned so much in the process that I’ve taken with me and applied since. On the more important essays, we did 10-20 iterations, and this made me feel fully confident in the end result.”
Before coming to Menlo Coaching, Rebecca served as an executive at the Dental Assisting National Board, a non-profit that creates national and state-level certifications for dental assistants, thereby helping them to be recognized for their expertise, win better working conditions, and achieve higher job mobility.
Having spent 8 years of her own career in that role, but also previous stints at companies including GE, Rebecca can help you to define a career path that is not only a step up on the corporate ladder, but something that has a positive social impact on others, and is meaningful to you, regardless of whether that goal is in the non-profit or the commercial sector.
“I, personally, was someone who spent a lot of time doing things because I thought that’s what other people wanted me to do and this was the first time that I actually did something entirely for me, and I could not have done that without Rebecca.”
In a sea of applicants who say they want to be management consultants because they haven’t thought through what they really value, this introspection can make all of the difference.
Although most of Rebecca’s clients pursue full-time MBA programs, Rebecca is well-placed to advise you on whether a different format might help you to reach your goals without leaving your job.
Rebecca is not only a graduate from Kellogg’s part-time MBA program herself, she has also advised applicants to programs including the Wharton EMBA, Columbia EMBA, UCLA FEMBA, Haas EWMBA, and other part-time programs.
“With Rebecca’s help, I was able to get admitted to 3/3 of the MBA programs that I applied to, including my stretch school. Additionally, I received scholarship money, which is rare for part-time and executive programs.”
Eduardo Placer 
