I am applying to Harvard and Stanford and other schools and am surely his well-wisher. I guess, the reason so many people write good things about him is that because he really adds value. I myself am a consultant in Europe.
Like many others, I find his comments very direct and am happy bec. no one else can tell me the truth about my essays except for him.
So, for me his value added comes from:
1. he sees things in your essays you just don’t see. He is very professional in his insights. He really put my complicated story together for Stanford in a very powerful and insightful way.
2. demanding: he pushes you to work on your essay until it looks perfect – with lots of details, fitting in a story, sounding big but not arrogant.
3. He is very sympathetic and cares about your application. Someone said that it must be that someone else writes his answers as Sandy writes a lot on this board and would not have time for both. It can’t be so – whenever I call him he recalls at once my last essay’s version
Sometimes I got irritated when he cut one of my achievements from my essay. But after thinking for a while I still came to the conclusion that he was right. He is indeed brilliant in that he sees things much deeper/global/critical.
Sign me a very happy customer.