Best MBA Consultants in India: Reddit Reviews

In the field of global business school applications, MBA admissions consultants are becoming more important than ever. Some predicted that GenAI tools would make MBA consultants redundant, but the exact opposite happened. Admission officers can easily identify MBA applications written using ChatGPT as they lack the personality and nuance business schools look for.

You will find even those with “perfect” profiles (IIT grad, 745 GMAT, 9 pointer GPA, employed at McKinsey, Google or Goldman Sachs) working with MBA application consultants to improve their chances.

The serious contenders to the elite schools that accept GMAT and GRE scores know that they are not just competing with other rockstar applicants from India, but also from across the world.

When most of your rivals have equally strong profiles, it’s no longer just about your stats, it’s about impact.

MBA admissions consulting is big business, with the top consultants in India charging upwards of 1L per school. And competition for clients is stiff. Paid promotion can get leads, but lacks credibility.

Which is why you see hordes of consultants flocking to social media platforms to gain visibility and build credibility. Client reviews play a crucial role in helping applicants discover the top recommended MBA consultants in India and select one from the list. But you also need to be aware of the dark and ethical questionable practices prevalent out there.

Indian MBA consultants on Reddit

There are two ways in which MBA admission consultants from India use these forums.

One way to gain credibility is to participate in the discussions on Reddit, answer questions on Quora or post insightful content on LinkedIn to show their understanding of the admissions game. At MBA Crystal Ball, that’s been our primary approach. There are some former-admission-officers-turned-consultants who host AMAs (Ask Me Anything) to provide a sneak peek into how business schools evaluate applications.

The other way is to get former clients to share reviews of MBA consultants and test pre companies on sub-reddits (or simply ‘subs’) like r/MBA, r/IndianMBA, r/GMAT. This is the part that can get murky.

Manipulative practices on Reddit by MBA application consultants

The best and the worst part of Reddit, Quora and other such platforms is the anonymity it offers. On the plus side, it allows users to be fearless in sharing their views and opinions on even the most taboo topic. The flip side is that a large number of posts and comments are just an eyewash.

If you were hoping to see honest reviews of admission consultants, you may be in for a rude awakening when you learn about how some admission consultants manipulate the platform to fool applicants into thinking they’re the best. After spending some time on the relevant subs, you’ll see that Indian consultants indulge in such malpractices more than the international ones. Sad!

1. Fake reviews

This is by far the most common approach…because it’s easy. You’ll see a large number of glowing reviews for a handful of companies or individual consultants, often posted by their own team (or hired social media agencies) using fake throwaway accounts.

2. Fake upvotes and downvotes

Upvotes on Reddit posts and comments give them higher visibility. Spammers use them to manipulate the algorithm. They use bots to upvote their posts and fake reviews, and downvote real client reviews that expose what working with their team was reall like.

With all the sophistication social platforms have achieved, they haven’t been able completely control the menace.

3. Negative reviews on competitors

If the earlier two weren’t bad enough, there’s also the sinister practice of posting bad reviews for rivals. We have been at the receiving end of this, when a rival (we actually know who it is!) created a throwaway account and posted two stinking (and amateurishly written) reviews on MBA Crystal Ball in quick succession. The account has been dormant since then.

What can you do about it?

On Reddit reviews, look out for signs and patterns that may indicate that something may be off.

Some MBA consultant names popping up too frequently.
Reviews that appear to be too perfect and too rosy.
Unusual number of upvotes or downvotes in a short time frame.
New accounts with little to no history. Some of these may be authentic.
Similar language and writing style showing up for a consultant but under different accounts.
Expand the collapsed comments to discover real reviews that may have been downvoted.

Don’t rely only on Reddit, Quora, GMAT Club and other sites that allow anonymous posting. Unfortunately, even AI answers rely on these fake, planted reviews to provide recommendations.

One option is to diversifying your sources. But that doesn’t guarantee anything either.

There’s only one to to be sure that the review isn’t made up.

See if you can find the REAL applicant behind the review.

To make that part easy, we include the identity of the client along with their story on (almost) all the reviews of MBA Crystal Ball hosted on our blog.

MBA Crystal Ball on Reddit

MBA Crystal Ball has been in the MBA admissions consulting business in India since 2010 and helped hundreds of Indian applicants get into the elite (M7, T10, T25) schools around the world with scholarships. Other than the word-of-mouth referrals, we have relied primarily on our blog and a handful of external platforms (LinkedIn, Youtube) for exposure.

We had ignored Reddit for many years, assuming it wasn’t as popular among MBA applicants from India. But looks like we were wrong. So we created an account (shared below) a couple of years back to have a presence there. We use it mostly for visibility and not for lead generation. We do this by participating in interesting discussions.

We skip profile evaluation requests there, since we prefer a more structured proces. Read more about our free and honest MBA profile review.

If you discovered us on Reddit and were wondering why we don’t have a plethora of client reviews there, here’s the answer. We’ve saved them for our own blog where it has more credibility. Many clients highlight the honest, transparent and ethical approach followed by consultants from MBA Crystal Ball.

Going with our earlier advice to find out whether there are REAL people behind the reviews, here’s a snapshot with REAL candidates talking about their journeys: MBA Crystal Ball Reviews. Each testimonial has a link that takes you to the full story, complete with personal details.

Check out our posts and responses here: MBA Crystal Ball on Reddit

For queries or personalized help, reach out for a discussion: info@mbacrystalball.com

Good luck with your MBA application journey!