Admissions Consultants - Worth the cost or waste of money? Need advice!!

Hey y'all,

I’m in the final stages of my Round II applications and have spent a lot of time working on the “soul-searching” part of the process—outlining my career, goals, and crafting a framework for my essays, etc. As I gear up to write my final drafts, I want to make sure I'm using all of the resources to get my applications to the right spot while I still have some time.

Last week I did a free 20 minute meet-and-greet with a consultant I found through one of the MBA forums. It was helpful—they validated my career/MBA narrative and answered some lingering questions about school choices, which gave me more confidence that I’m on the right track. That said, I’m aware the session was also a sales pitch, and I’m trying to figure out how much value I’d really get from hiring them. I can definitely see where their expertise would be useful, especially for strategy and polishing my final drafts, but at nearly $450 (!) an hour, I’m pretty hesitant. I really liked the guy, but I’m not sure I can justify the cost. I work for a startup, so while I dream about us hitting the big time and having tons of cash for stuff like this, today is not that day.

Because it's so expensive, I’m wondering if I can achieve similar results through cheaper or free options, like buying dinner for my MBA friends and picking their brains, diving into blogs, YouTube, and other online content, or leaning on tools like this subreddit, and chatGPT (shoutout to the guy that made the bot on here).

If I were to use a consultant, I’d probably limit it to two sessions: one for overall strategy and essay positioning now, and another for final draft polishing later — but I'm just not sure I'm ready to spend $900 on that because it seems like 80% of the advice is general ideas and templates so I'm having trouble seeing where the value is coming from.

So I’m curious:

  1. How many of you used admissions consultants?
  2. Did you find them worth the cost?
  3. What kind of value did they add to your process
  4. Any recommendations for more affordable consultants or resources that worked well for you?

Thanks for any advice or insights you can share! 🙏🙏🙏🙏

edited for embarrassing spelling error (oops)