Daniel J. Brookings

Daniel J. Brookings is a leader in the field of MBA admissions consulting. He is the co-author of The MBA Application Roadmap: The Essential Guide to Getting into a Top Business School.

He has developed numerous resources for business education at the MBA and executive education levels. He has helped well over 120 MBA aspirants from around the world achieve their dream of attending top tier business programs since 2003.

In addition to his role as an admissions consultant, Daniel has worked as a strategy consultant and a marketing/business development executive. He has been a frequent contributor to leading business publications and websites.

As a published novelist and a playwright, Daniel has reinforced the important of creative writing techniques to the MBA applicants he has mentored.

Daniel is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and Harvard College.

Selected Testimonials

Read the positive experiences of just some of the Daniel’s recent clients:

Accepted to Ross and Fuqua (with $15K Merit Scholarship)

All the advice I received from Daniel while preparing my application was invaluable. If I had to pick one single piece of advice, it would be to personalize my essays to the point that no single sentence in it could have been written by any other person. His creative writing approaches revolutionized my application.

Accepted to MIT/Sloan

The best advice I got from Daniel was to really focus in on a very specific story about myself. He told me, “When the adcomm sees ‘Kevin Smith’, they need to say that Kevin is all about X, Y and Z.” I learned I had to sharply focus my overall story throughout the application. Very clearly, here are three things that I am and if they remember nothing else, they need to remember those three things. As a reapplicant, I definitely had to focus my story. There’s no way my message would have been as spot on and tight without Daniel’s approaches.

Accepted to Cornell

The best advice I ever got about essays was from Daniel: “Tell a story … show it … don’t just say it.” You have to give real examples. Don’t just say what you did, tell them how you did it. Instead of claiming “I’m a motivated person,” show lots of examples where you did this thing and that thing when you really didn’t have to.

Successful Reapplicant

Being a re-applicant, I thought I already knew what to talk about in my essays. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Before I even started to draft my first essays, we spent hours (probably MANY more than you do with most other consultants) talking about the story of my life. Daniel actually helped me realize what really mattered to me, what my career goals are and what topics to especially focus on in the application. That said, do not expect him to hold your hand and do the work for you. I am sure that what distinguishes an ok application from a great one is this self-inspection and finding the best stories that really showcase your strengths (and explain your areas for improvement) so be prepared to invest time in that with Daniel

I also appreciated that there was not a limit on the number of drafts we exchanged before the final version was approved. Over time, this gets better but I guess I exchanged my first goals essay with him maybe 10 times. Also, Daniel prefers to use Skype a lot to consult new essay topics or gain clarity around current content. His responsiveness was also usually very fast, sometimes even a couple drafts in an evening.

The complete package includes work on the resume, a Skype mock interview and suggestions on how to approach recommendation letters. I found all these fairly helpful.

The downsides of working with Daniel were few. Sometimes (but rarely) an essay version would “fall through the cracks”, which might have been due to me working on 5 school package. Also, Daniel might seem a bit stern and demanding at times; but after all, you do not pay a consultant to have your ego polished.

I would strongly recommend Daniel to people who prefer a closer relationship with their consultant and are willing to devote the time to a relatively long self-discovery.

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