Business School Admissions Consulting Services

Ben

Ben is a long-time Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions executive who recently left his Vice President position to pursue an entrepreneurial venture. Prior to his time at Kaplan, Ben served as Assistant Director of Admissions at Harvard Business School and reviewed thousands of applications during that period. A frequent speaker on admissions, Ben has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows including Today and has led admissions seminars for Kaplan and Fortune 500 companies nationwide. As a consultant, Ben has helped hundreds of students get admitted to the schools of their choice.

Check out Ben's Business School Admissions blog.

Janet

Janet has worked for Kaplan for over 20 years both tutoring and advising business and other graduate school applicants. During that time she has also held senior marketing positions in both large and entrepreneurial organizations including General Foods (now Kraft), Nestle, AFS, Zing (a cable start-up) and McKinsey. Additionally, she has worked as a member of Stern's Admissions Committee.

Janet's experiences have been invaluable to her clients as their job is to market themselves to the schools. Evidence of this is that her candidates are regularly accepted to many leading programs including those of Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Tuck, Columbia, Stern, Darden, Michigan, Chicago, Kellogg, Fuqua, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, UNC, INSEAD and LBS. Clients have also been accepted to leading executive MBA programs including those of Wharton, Columbia and Stern.

Janet received her MBA from Harvard Business School. As a member of the board of the HBS Women's Association of metropolitan New York she maintains close ties to the school. In addition, Janet holds a BS in Psychology from Case Western Reserve, and an MSW from University of Michigan.

Larry — 2006 Business Consultant of the Year

Larry is a Senior Business Admissions Consultant with Kaplan, now in his twelfth year in the role. In April of 2006, he was chosen as Kaplan's first Business School Admissions Consultant of the Year.

Over his career, Larry has held positions at leading consulting firms, multinationals, and start-ups. He is well-equipped to advise how to successfully interview for graduate business school having formerly conducted interviews with MBA applicants to his alma mater as a member of Wharton's MBA Admissions Alumni team. Larry has consulted with approximately 1,000 applicants on their MBA admissions efforts, advising on school selection, writing strong essays, interviewing, and strategy. He has helped many gain acceptance to the top ten U.S. MBA and eMBA programs and to over seventy similar programs worldwide. He has also conducted Boston area seminars on MBA admissions.

Joaquin — 2006 Business Consultant of the Year

As Senior Admissions Consultant with Kaplan, Joaquin enjoys working with candidates of all backgrounds and with all types of educational/career goals. He takes great pleasure in seeing his candidates gain admission to their programs of choice and has expertise with most competitive full-time, part-time, executive and joint degree programs in North America and abroad.

Joaquin served on the Admissions Committee for the MBA program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. During this time, Joaquin read over 2,000 applications and participated in the admissions decisions for over 7,500 candidates. Previously, Joaquin spent five years in the New York City public school system where he served as a high school teacher and college counselor.

Joaquin speaks fluent Spanish, spent two years living in Poland post-MBA, and is comfortable working with foreign applicants and those desiring international careers. Joaquin serves as an adjunct faculty member at several universities.

Tani — 2008 Business Consultant of the Year

Prior to joining Kaplan as an admissions consultant and teacher (GMAT prep courses, among others), Tani held increasingly demanding positions in Product Management, Advertising and Consulting for over 30 years, including 15 years in Fortune 500 companies.

Her extensive marketing experience serves MBA applicants well as the application process ultimately builds on three key marketing concepts—who is your target audience, what are their wants and needs and how do you position yourself to meet those needs? The intellectual process behind these questions is the same whether you're marketing consumer goods or yourself. Tani works with her students to find the factors that make their applications sparkle -- that make them stand out from other qualified applicants.

Evan

Evan earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business with a dual major in strategic management and entrepreneurship. During the past six years, he has helped clients secure admissions to some of the nation's top business schools including Wharton, Michigan , Kellogg, Chicago, Tuck, Columbia, Indiana, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA and Stanford, including executive MBA programs at Wharton, Columbia, and Chicago. Evan has previously provided public seminars on business school admissions strategies and taught GMAT classes in the Midwest. His previous work experience includes five years of management consulting for Fortune 500 clients in a variety of industries, including utilities, manufacturing, financial/credit card services, distribution/transportation, and government/defense. Evan also has two years of industry experience with a world-leading direct marketing organization.

While at Wharton, Evan's Field Application Project was selected Best in School out of 144 other projects. He received his Master of Arts in Teaching Integrated Mathematics from Kent State University where he graduated as co-valedictorian of his class. Evan holds an undergraduate degree in business from Miami University where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and Valedictorian of the School of Business with minors in International Business and Decision Sciences.

Pam — 2007 Business Consultant of the Year

As former Dean of Admissions for University of Rochester 's William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, Pam interviewed thousands of applicants for business schools worldwide and read even more applications. While serving in this role, Pam also sat on the board of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management and was active in the Graduate Management Admissions Council. These positions offered a unique opportunity to work with other Directors of Admissions, providing her with additional insight into business school admissions.

In addition to her admissions consulting work with Kaplan, Pam currently works at the Warner Graduate School of Education at the University of Rochester as Director of Admissions and Marketing.

Tony

Tony has been an admissions consultant since 1997, helping numerous clients gain admission to top business and law programs especially Yale, Harvard, Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia, and Cornell, Stanford, MIT, NYU, Northwestern, USC, UCLA, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and international programs such as INSEAD and MSB.

Tony's main goal is to ensure that each client's essays are unique, distinctive, interesting, and compelling, so that the essays actually get read. Tony has been known for helping students make their prose more concise and free of overly general or redundant "fat. Additionally, he has assisted clients with brainstorming to discover interesting anecdotes and examples that highlight their strong qualities and helping students develop these anecdotes into vivid prose and improve each essay's phrasing, especially to make it more grammatical, idiomatic, and academic.

He works very well under tight deadlines (although such circumstances are neither ideal nor recommended) and with students who have qualms or reservations about their English usage or writing skills.

Tony graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in linguistics (summa cum laude, distinction in the major). In 2000, Tony received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Southern California.

Amy

Amy has worked in competitive admissions for close to fifteen years, most notably serving as Associate Director of Admission at the Yale School of Management. In her years there, she worked one-on-one with applicants from across the country and abroad, interviewing and counseling prospective applicants on career assessment, school fit, and various aspects of the admissions process. Amy served on the Dean's Senior Staff for strategic planning, the Yale Admissions Council, and on the Diversity Committee and the Career Development Action Committee. She read and evaluated literally thousands of applications, participating as a voting member of the MBA admissions committee.

In addition to serving as a Kaplan consultant, Amy has also led regional workshops on mastering the MBA admissions process.

Priscilla

Prior to joining Kaplan, Priscilla worked for nine years as the Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions and Program Administration at the University of Rochester's William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration. During this time, she reviewed approximately 30,000 business school applications, recruiting and interviewing MBA candidates domestically and internationally. Priscilla was also a member of the Graduate Management Admissions Council and a member of the board of directors for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management.

Priscilla had previously served as the Director of Admissions for the Graduate School of Management at Boston College for three years. She began her career at Stanford University, in the Stanford Law School Office of Admissions & Financial Aid.

Paxton

Paxton is a veteran Kaplan admissions consultant who specializes in MBA and social science (Masters and PhD) applicants. He has particularly rich experience with applicants to top-twenty schools and his clients have been accepted to top programs around the country.

Paxton earned his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA where he was an International Management Fellow and specialized in international marketing and strategy. He has also completed two years of coursework towards a PhD in politics and sociology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Paxton earned his BA with honors from Wake Forest University.

Jennifer

During nearly a decade of teaching test prep courses and providing MBA admissions consulting help at Kaplan, Jennifer has successfully helped MBA applicants from around the world get into top business schools. Jennifer knows the application process inside out, including the do's and don'ts that applicants need to know in order to create a successful application.

A long-time Kaplan veteran, Jennifer was most recently the GMAT Associate Brand Manager for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions for several years while also teaching GMAT classes. Previously, Jennifer spent several years in London advising MBA applicants applying to schools like Columbia, Wharton, LBS, INSEAD, IMD, Warwick, IESE, and others. She has led dozens of MBA admissions seminars and provides insight and advice not only to Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, but also to organizations such as Top MBA, Vault, BusinessWeek, and MSN.

While at Cambridge, Jennifer founded and led the Judge Business School Ambassadors program to help the Admissions office recruit, assess, and welcome new applicants.

Jesse — 2007 National Consultant of the Year

As Senior Admissions Consultant and Trainer for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, Jesse's primary focus is on business and law school admissions but he is also highly experienced in providing strategic advice on applications to a wide range of graduate schools including public policy, international affairs and social science programs. Since 1998, Jesse has helped more than 1,000 students with their business, law, and graduate school applications. Additionally, he has screened and trained nearly every consultant in Kaplan's Graduate Admissions Consulting Program since its inception. He also serves as facilitator for professional development sessions for the consulting team and frequently conducts seminars and moderates panels on MBA and JD admissions throughout the New York metropolitan area. In addition to his work at Kaplan, Jesse is Founder and CEO of The National Résumé Center, Inc. He also has a decade of teaching experience, having served as a faculty member at institutions such as Haverford College and Barnard College, and he has presented his research at a variety of universities, including Yale, Wesleyan, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard.

Rochelle

Rochelle brings 30 years of MBA admissions, marketing and managing Executive MBA/MS, joint degree programs, and extensive student affairs experience to her clients. She has worked with hundreds of domestic and international business school applicants, helping them navigate their way through the admissions process and gain a better understanding of the differences among programs and schools.

Most of Rochelle's professional life has been spent at Columbia University, where she began her career and to which she returned after holding administrative positions at several other educational institutions. Rochelle spent eight years as a dean and director of student affairs/services at Columbia's Business School. Rochelle was also the director of executive programs at Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business (the country's largest b-school), where she recruited candidates for its reinvigorated EMBA program and marketed a new one year executive finance program, exceeding target goals in the first year. For a short time, Rochelle managed Pace University's EMBA program, and has served as director of administration and special projects at Brooklyn Law School . When Rochelle returned to Columbia in 2000, she joined the staff of The American Assembly, one of the country's oldest non-partisan U.S. public policy organizations, which focuses on domestic and international issues. (One of its major projects was The Future of the Accounting Profession.)

Rochelle retired from Columbia in 2007. In addition to working with her Kaplan clients, she is a lead volunteer for Heifer International, a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to ending world hunger and poverty in sustainable ways.

Judi

Prior to joining Kaplan as an admissions consultant nine years ago, Judi had over twenty years of experience in graduate student admissions as a counselor, administrator, and graduate student admissions director for the Kogod School of Business at American University in Washington, D.C.

For more than twelve years Judi was the Director of Graduate Admissions and Financial Aid. She interviewed and counseled hundreds of prospective candidates each year. She also reviewed all applications and oversaw the Admissions Committee to ensure graduate admission standards and quality control while managing all graduate school financial aid, marketing and recruiting activities. Under her direction, the school annually exceeded enrollment targets by 25 to 40%.

Judi was American University's representative to the Graduate Management Admissions Council, where she facilitated educational workshops and participated on panels that provided information to prospective graduate business students attending national GMAC forums. She was also the lead representative at all international and national MBA forums. Previously, Judi served as Director of Graduate Programs and Placement and Graduate Student Counselor where she advised over 1,200 students annually on academic and career goals. Throughout her career at American University, Judi received citations in recognition of her value to the School of Business and to the university.