With the increasing demand for analytics talent across all the industries, MS Business Analytics and related programs are enjoying tremendous popularity. According to GMAC, 71% of employers plan to hire recent business school graduates for data analytics roles in 2018, including 52% holding Masters degrees in Data Analytics or Business Analytics. This has also led to increased competition for the top MS Business Analytics programs in the US.
Last year, Satya had initially approached me (after reading a few of my answers on Quora) to help him with university shortlisting as he was very keen to not apply for more than 3 – 4 universities. Later, he also opted for SoP/Essay Review & Editing services.
Satya had applied to the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), and Purdue University. He had acceptances from UT Austin & Purdue; got shortlisted by Georgia Tech. By the time Georgia Tech was about to announce their decision, Satya had to make the payment at UT Austin, which was anyway Satya’s dream school. So, later, it was a no-brainer in terms of decision making. In this post, I would like to share his admission consulting experience.
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Admission Consultants Do NOT Possess a Magic Wand
Before we go into details about the feedback on the admission consulting process, I would like to share that Satya had a very strong profile. He had a Bachelors degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani (Hyderabad Campus) with good grades. He had also done a 6-month internship in marketing analytics during his Bachelors.
After B.Tech., he had worked with MNCs like eBay (client organization during his 2nd job) and Tesco (1st job after B.Tech.) as a Data Analyst. He had quite a few key achievements during his employment with Tesco and eBay.
His work experience gave me a solid exposure to Python, MySQL, Matlab, Tableau, Teradata, Hadoop, Hive, etc. Additionally, he had also completed a couple of online courses on Python, one course on Machine Learning, and one on Business English for Networking. So, apart from hard skills, he also focussed on his soft skills, and particularly networking skills – one of the most critical soft skills that folks ignore quite often.
He had scored 326 in GRE (170 in Quants) as well. Finally, he had also submitted all his applications in December 2018 (for Fall 2019 admission round). Read Fall 2020 Deadlines for MS in USA.
So, don’t assume that admission consultants provide any kind of magic to transform the applications. So, how exactly I helped Satya or how does admission consulting services can help someone? Read till the end!
MS Admission Consulting Services Review & Feedback
By Satya Naren
1. What made you contact me in the first place?
Satya:
I was reading various answers in Quora regarding how to apply for universities and came across your answer. I liked your answer and hence opened your profile. I found out that you provide help for students with their application processes and then immediately sent you an email asking about your services.
2. How was the overall experience of MS Admission Consulting?
Satya:Â For me, the overall experience was great. You took the time to clearly understand me and my requirements and gave me suitable recommendations. You make sure to take note of every single point I said and carefully considered them in your recommendations.
3. What’s your feedback on the personalized university shortlisting?
Satya: After you sent me an email with the list of suitable universities, I did research about them and shortlisted a few among them. Then based on further discussions with you and other applicants, I was able to bring down the list to 3 universities.
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4. Your feedback on the SoP Services?
Satya:Â After I wrote the initial essays, the feedback you provided helped me fine-tune them well. Though the changes you mentioned were small, they did change the overall outlook of my essays quite a bit.
Read How to Write an Effective SoP for MS and What do Admission Officers Look For in an SoP.
5. Obviously, I was there to support you with your admission journey. But, I didn’t write your essays, SoP or CV. Did you find the process useful?
Satya:Â Yes, I preferred the fact that I got to write my own drafts of the essay. It helped me add my own personal touch to the essays. The edits you provided at the end were helpful to bring my essays to the correct shape.
6. My (or Stoodnt’s)Â consulting fee is not among the most expensive ones in the market, but not too cheap as well. Did you find it reasonable?
Satya:Â To be honest, I didn’t do too much research regarding the fees. I found your answers on Quora to be good and hence decided to work with you.
7. According to you, what’s the advantage of working with independent admission consultants (like me) over traditional study abroad agencies?Â
Satya:Â Given the various costs involved along the process starting from the exam fees to college applications, people get skeptical about investing money for working with a consultant. But what they don’t realize is that this small investment might play a big role in you getting into your target university. I believe that in the process of college admissions, we should take all the help we can get.
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8. Any advice that you would like to share with the future applicants; especially the folks who might be confused whether to work with an admission consultant?
Satya:Â The prospect of going for my Masters is a very costly process, hence people might think twice about hiring an admission consultant as they’ll want to save some money. But I feel that this is an investment which helps us choose the perfect university for us. This is an investment which pays us a lot in the future.
Since the application process is the most important factor, I would suggest that we should get all the possible help we can get. Hence, I would recommend taking the help of an admission consultant.
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