In a blind study of 1,636 Poets&Quants reviews scored by AI in October 2026, 77% of MBA Protocol’s reviews described a personal relationship with the coach, against 11% to 36% at five other firms. Every MBA admissions firm has five-star reviews. That makes star ratings close to useless for choosing between them, so we asked a different question of the reviews themselves: when clients describe their consultant, do they describe a person who knew them, believed in them and stood by them, or a service that was delivered well?
Both are legitimate things to buy. They’re different products, and the reviews tell you which one a firm tends to deliver. Here’s what we found, how we found it, and what it doesn’t show.
What did the study find?
Share of each firm’s sampled Poets&Quants reviews (about 300 each chosen at random) that describe a personal relationship with the coach. Source: MBA Protocol’s blind scoring of 1,636 Poets&Quants reviews, collected October 2026.
| Firm | Poets&Quants reviews scored | Describe a personal relationship | Likely range | Same, matched for review length | Relationship that outlasted the application |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MBA Protocol | 318 | 77% | 74% to 81% | 78% | 29% |
| mbaMission | 300 | 36% | 28% to 43% | 48% | 5% |
| Menlo Coaching | 294 | 34% | 18% to 49% | 38% | 8% |
| Fortuna Admissions | 300 | 28% | 21% to 37% | 40% | 3% |
| Stacy Blackman Consulting | 300 | 19% | 14% to 26% | 37% | 1% |
| Personal MBA Coach | 124 | 11% | 4% to 15% | 25% | 2% |
How should you read the numbers?
The black line on each bar is the likely range. It shows where a firm’s true rate probably sits (a 95% interval) if you could score every one of its reviews rather than the ones we randomly sampled. A short line means the number is solid; a long one means it could reasonably be some way higher or lower.
We built the ranges by resampling coaches, not individual reviews. That shows how much a firm’s number depends on which coaches happen to have the most reviews. If one prolific coach is very different from the rest, the range gets wide.
- MBA Protocol, 74% to 81%: narrow, because the rate is high across many coaches, so no single coach drives it.
- Menlo, 18% to 49%: wide, because a handful of coaches write most of Menlo’s reviews and they differ a lot. Two run near 57%; others are much lower. Menlo’s real rate depends heavily on which coach you count.
- The other firms fall in between.
Why it matters: no other firm’s range comes close to ours. Even the top of Menlo’s range, 49%, sits well below the bottom of ours, 74%. That’s what lets us say the gap is real rather than luck of the sample.
The last column is the strictest test: the client describes something that lasted past admissions, such as a change they still carry into their career or life, a coach who stood by them through a hard time outside the application, or a relationship that still matters to them. Nearly three in ten of our reviews say that. At the other five firms it’s one in twelve or fewer.
All reviews were published on Poets&Quants and collected in October 2026. Where a firm had more than 300, we drew 300 at random. One of our reviews described only an online course and a book, with no coaching, so we left it out.
How did we score the reviews?
We picked Poets&Quants because every firm’s reviews sit on the same platform, under the same submission rules and verification, so the comparison starts level.
Before scoring anything, we wrote down the rules and froze them. Each review gets a score from 0 to 3:
- 0: the review describes deliverables or results only.
- 1: it praises the consultant’s expertise, responsiveness or professionalism, or uses general warm words like “supportive” or “great to work with”.
- 2: the reviewer describes being known or cared for as a person: understood beyond the resume, believed in when they doubted themselves, someone they leaned on, a friend or mentor in their own words.
- 3: all of that, plus something that outlasted the application: a change the client still carries, support through a hard personal time outside the application, or a relationship they still value. Confidence felt during the application doesn’t count on its own, and neither does “we kept in touch”.
Admits, scholarships, length and enthusiasm never move the score. “Took the time to get to know me” counts as a 1 when the reviewer means it led to better essays, and as a 2 only when they describe what being known meant to them.
Then we removed every firm name, coach name, program name and link, shuffled the reviews of all six firms together, and had each one scored twice, independently, by AI scorers working from the written rules alone. The two passes agreed exactly on 91% of reviews. Where they split between a 1 and a 2 (71 reviews across all six firms), a third blind pass broke the tie. A person on our team also scored a random sample blind; on whether a review described a relationship or not, she agreed with the scorers 83% of the time, and where she differed she was stricter, including on some of MBA Protocol’s reviews.
The rules were tightened after that human check showed the first version was too generous in two places: “got to know me” language, and confidence felt during the application being counted as lasting change. Confidence meaning “I didn’t have to worry about finding the answers on Reddit” vs. “confidence in my own voice and path forward.” Every review from every firm was rescored under the tighter rules. The numbers above are the tighter version. Under the first version, every firm scored higher, MBA Protocol included, and MBA Protocol was still far ahead.
How did we check the comparison was fair?
Review length. Longer reviews have more room to describe a relationship, and ours are longer: the median MBA Protocol review runs 283 words, against 243 at Menlo, 193 at mbaMission, 156 at Stacy Blackman, 144 at Fortuna and 91 at Personal MBA Coach. No reviews were dropped to correct for this. We sorted every firm’s reviews into four length bands (under 80 words, 80 to 160, 160 to 300, and over 300) and compared the bands directly; MBA Protocol leads in every one.
Then we reweighted each firm’s band rates to MBA Protocol’s mix of lengths, which answers the question “what would this firm’s rate be if its reviews were as long as ours?” Bands with fewer than 10 of a firm’s reviews were left out of that firm’s figure. That’s the “matched for review length” column. The gap narrows for every firm, most for mbaMission.
One famous coach. About a third of our Poets&Quants reviews are of Angela Guido, our founder. Her reviews come in at 76%, a little below the rest of the team, so the result clearly doesn’t rest on her. The pattern holds across the team.
Credit where it’s due. Every firm has standouts, and if you’re choosing one of these firms, the coach you get matters more than the logo. These coaches ran well above the rest of their firm:
| Coach | Firm | Reviews | Coach’s rate | Rest of the firm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jenifer Raver | Fortuna Admissions | 19 | 68% | 26% |
| Katharine Lewis | mbaMission | 17 | 65% | 33% |
| Jessica Shklar | mbaMission | 13 | 62% | 33% |
| Pascal Michels | Menlo Coaching | 50 | 58% | 29% |
| Meg | Stacy Blackman Consulting | 33 | 42% | 18% |
Coaches with a dozen or more reviews scored. “Rest of the firm” is that firm’s sample with the standout coaches’ reviews taken out.
If you’re talking to one of these firms, ask for the coach by name and read that coach’s reviews.
What doesn’t this study show?
- It doesn’t measure the quality of anyone’s advice or anyone’s admissions results. A firm can deliver strong strategy and editing without its clients writing about the relationship.
- Reviews are self-selected. Firms ask different clients in different ways, and the happiest clients write the most. This compares what clients chose to write, not every client’s experience.
- AI scorers apply written rules consistently, but they are not people. That’s why we also scored a sample by hand.
- These are October 2026 numbers. Reviews keep arriving, so we might rerun this next year.
How can you run the test yourself?
You don’t need our study to do this. Pick any firm you’re considering, ours included, and read ten of its reviews in full. Count how many describe a person and how many describe a service. Then decide which one you’re shopping for.
If it’s the first, our reviews page has 584 client stories mapped by where they started and where they ended up, so you can read what happened to people in your spot. And our success rates come with the method behind them, because a number without a definition isn’t evidence.
For side-by-side comparisons, see MBA Protocol vs. mbaMission, Stacy Blackman, Fortuna, Menlo and Personal MBA Coach.
Keep reading
- The Complete MBA Admissions Support Guide: every option, every price point
- Is an MBA admissions consultant worth it?
- mbaMission vs. MBA Protocol
- Stacy Blackman vs. MBA Protocol
- Fortuna Admissions vs. MBA Protocol
- Menlo Coaching vs. MBA Protocol
- Personal MBA Coach vs. MBA Protocol
- I built MBA Protocol around relationships. Then I checked whether it worked.
- MBA Guided Quest: what working with MBA Protocol includes
Frequently asked questions
Which MBA admissions firm’s reviews describe the closest coach relationships?
In this study, MBA Protocol’s: 77% of its 318 Poets&Quants reviews described a personal relationship with the coach, against 36% at mbaMission, 34% at Menlo Coaching, 28% at Fortuna Admissions, 19% at Stacy Blackman Consulting, and 11% at Personal MBA Coach.
How were the reviews scored?
Each review was scored from 0 to 3 against written rules fixed before scoring, with every firm, coach and program name removed and the six firms’ reviews shuffled together. Each review was scored twice, independently; a third blind pass broke ties, and a person on our team scored a random sample blind.
Does review length explain the gap?
Only part of it. Matched for review length, MBA Protocol’s rate is 78% against 25% to 48% at the other five firms, and MBA Protocol leads in every length band. Though review length is not an inconsequential datapoint in itself, we ignored it for this study.
Does this study measure admissions results?
No. It measures what clients chose to write about their coach, not the quality of anyone’s advice or anyone’s admit rate.
Information about the other firms named here is drawn from their public Poets&Quants reviews as of October 2026. MBA Protocol is not affiliated with any of them.