Our Evolution :: 1994 to Present
2009		ApplicationAdvantage.com launches first in a series of admissions strategy books. ApplicationAdvantage.com launches second in the series of strategy books. ApplicationAdvantage.com launches third in the series of strategy books.
2008		ApplicationAdvantage.com launches its rebranded web presence. ExecutiveBranders.com is unveiled as the career management counterpart to ApplicationAdvantage.com
2007		ApplicationAdvantage.com is repositioned as the admissions consulting arm of WGH. ExecutiveBranders.com is launched as the career site for clients who are seeking Mr. Hutchinson's exclusive personal branding services. World Group Holdings becomes the Education and Career advisory parent company to the admissions consulting as well as personal and career branding arms.
2007		ApplicationAdvantage.com launches expansion project, putting a multi-year plan into effect for new services.
2006		ApplicationAdvantage.com becomes a European and Asian partner of the World MBA Tour.
2005		ApplicationAdvantage.com in Europe becomes a European partner of the World MBA Tour.
2004		ApplicationAdvantage begins receiving personal branding requests in addition to university admissions advice requests.
2003		ApplicationAdvantage.com establishes a European presence.
2002		ApplicationAdvantage.com establishes a US presence.
2001		Walter Hutchinson is retained by Japanese executives and MBA hopefuls. He internationalizes admissions advice and structure it specifically for the Japanese market. Walter Hutchinson establishes ApplicationAdvantage.com in his Japanese apartment.
1999		Walter Hutchinson wins Japanese Government Monbusho Scholarship to research mature equity markets and emerging fixed income markets.
1998		Walter Hutchinson receives sponsorship from the University of Tokyo for international finance and law.
1997		Walter Hutchinson begins providing job-positioning advice to banking contacts and undergraduate seniors.
1996		Walter Hutchinson begins receiving ad hoc requests from investment banking colleagues and network contacts for advice on MBA and college admissions, based on former admissions work at Columbia University and Milton Academy.
1994		Walter Hutchinson departs Columbia University with BA and Masters degrees.

An Early Start

During the early 1990s while I was on Wall Street, I noticed when admissions began to pop up sporadically in the United States as a business service model. However, there was no organized industry except for a handful of resources that were known by word-of-mouth. With the explosive growth of the internet, it became apparent to me that it could open a new path for delivering business-caliber admissions services to the types of people who kept approaching me in response to word spreading about my specialized knowledge.

To this day, I am not sure who among my Columbia classmates and fellow alumni (many were familiar with my passion for admissions) sparked this trend in my direction, because I initially did not encourage it. Nonetheless, I recognized that the increasing numbers of people showing up to my office at Merrill Lynch or calling me at home, represented an unrealized opportunity.

I had been a student of career-positioning dynamics, even several years earlier while attending Milton Academy - a Global Top-20 private school. Traditionally known as a "feeder" or on-ramp to Ivy League universities, Milton was, unbeknownst to me at the time, the perfect place to start developing my career leadership and advisory insight. But at the time, the only thing which guided my actions was my passion for helping people. I also saw admissions as a unique way to channel my global background and multicultural awareness. The Milton admissions team saw the value too, as they often called on me when applicants came to visit the school. I was so inspired by the experience, that I even developed an assessment tool based on patterns I began to notice among both international and local applicants - my own initiative.

I knew I was onto something of serious profile decision-making value when the Director of Admissions called me into his office and requested that I normalize my assessment tool for inclusion into their deliberations about every visiting candidate they asked me to meet.

That tool was the forerunner to my current Global Uniqueness Assessment for Review and Development (GUARD ™) personal branding survey which is directly connected to the 300-plus MBA and Graduate admittances that I have helped clients, colleagues and friends to win over the years.

So you can understand why as a freshman at Columbia, one of my first decisions was to seek a part-time admission volunteer position with one of the university's professional schools. Ultimately, I ended up working for 3 by the time I graduated, as well as for the alumni and career development offices.

Global Growth - From New York to Tokyo
Taking my emerging consultancy to a new level, I created ApplicationAdvantage.com in direct response to ad hoc requests for admissions advice that had followed me from Columbia to Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York, and surprisingly, all the way to Tokyo thousands of miles away. In Japan, the requests began to noticeably increase due to growing awareness among my Japanese friends about my global admissions experience and the unique value that my personal perspective added to it. 

I originally used that expertise and perspective to give me an edge in winning one of the most coveted international scholarships offered by the Japanese Government. I also channeled my insider knowledge to secure an offer of admission and full support from the University of Tokyo, Japan's equivalent of Harvard in terms of the competitiveness of admission. My purpose was to be in the best possible strategic position to access all the top financial authorities in government and business, so that I could execute my project: to adapt my recent US invesTMent banking expertise as a framework for product innovation uniquely suited to Japanese commercial asset classes and consumer preferences.

Ironically, my move to Japan had the most-dramatic impact not on my securities background,  but on my perspective on what really drives me - the same insights I routinely help MBA and Graduate clients to discover and magnify in themselves. Recalling that I set up my very first business when I was 11 years old, my time in Japan, moving in an international, incredibly stimulating environment, set my imagination free. Now, Japan does have local structural issues which historically impeded foreign initiative. However, those impediments worked to my advantage, because I have always been at my creative best when facing a challenge.

My creativity always finds a way, so I never stand in its way. A chance meeting with a new Japanese friend of my wife connected me with her husband who happened to be a top executive applying for business school. I was not looking for a client and had not even thought of ApplicationAdvantage.com yet, but I nonetheless felt compelled to give him feedback and even alert him to a number of problems I saw in his draft documents. By the end of that week, he and his wife insisted I become his advisor. By the end of the season, he got into a top school that most other consultancies told him would be impossible. He and his wife then urged me to immediately deploy my expertise on a broader level because Japan had nothing like it.

That was my "aha" moment, realizing that my future was in melding my entrepreneurial, multicultural, and admissions drives into a business model, just before admissions consulting began explosive growth as a cottage industry.


An Original Then, An Original Now

From the beginning, I focused on creating quality, original services that would help even the most-challenging applicants based on my unique insider knowledge and experience, rather than following the much-easier, replicated business model used by companies that jumped into the consulting business overnight.

For instance, I recently directed a comprehensive project to bring a new admissions advising standard and platform into the market. This 3-year project, originally conceived by me in 2002, is now poised to provide value for applicants and the industry as a whole, by drawing a clear distinction between admissions practices that give applicants an innovative edge, and those that do not.

I was there before most of the newcomers, so my focus was always going to be more strategy-minded as I knew the admissions process in greater detail than anyone I met. Today, the company that I started in 2001, has maintained its roots and values, motivated by the desire to see other people succeed, rather than only making a profit. This is one reason why WGH, ApplicationAdvantage.com and sister companies have remained independent, and thus, are not placed in conflicts of interest, moral lapses or services declines that plague a number of firms that are in this field.

We took the higher road and my clients have rewarded me personally with a degree of trust which cannot simply be replicated or copied - an achievement of which I are most proud. WGH group companies, through our university admissions and career branding arms, are in a unique position for growth based on the high value we bring to individuals and companies seeking stable, innovative advisory solutions that are enduring, effective and responsive to their changing requirements.

Translation: our clients get accepted to the world's most competitive education and career opportunities...and  we give them ample reason to keep coming back.

Admissions Leadership

Walter is a Columbia University graduate who has 20-plus years accumulated experience with admissions to top-ranked schools, as well as to some of the world’s most competitive conferences, scholarships and fellowships. His cross-border admissions background includes periodic residence on 3 continents and visits to more than 35 countries. Furthermore, he has repeatedly helped applicants around the world gain admission to top schools including Harvard, London Business School, Stanford, INSEAD, and of course Columbia.

Walter holds both bachelors and masters degrees from Columbia University.

Cross-Cultural Leadership

Walter is a global specialist with a long track record of helping not only native English-speakers but also non-Westerners and non-native English speaking professionals transition to American, European and Asian MBA, Graduate and College programs. As a former delegate and selection committee member of international conferences in Asia, North America and Europe, Walter has also assisted professionals at the United Nations, the Japan Development Bank and various NGOs in gaining admission to world-class graduate schools.

Sector Impact

Walter has assisted professionals as well as executive team members of finance, consumer products companies, manufacturing groups and national associations to brand themselves for advancement or industry transition. Employees of Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, as well as those from small and medium-sized enterprises around the world, have benefited from his counsel.

Industry Diversity

Walter's experience includes international law firms, accounting groups, manufacturing, marketing, global investment banks and governmental agencies.

While on Wall Street, he advised colleagues as well as peers and counterparts at neighboring finance and accounting firms on MBA and Graduate admissions strategy - capitalizing on prior experience working for Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. They were, at the time, part of companies including American Express, Merrill Lynch, Travelers (Now Citigroup), Ernst & Young and Goldman Sachs.

In Asia, early clients came from companies including Toyota, Nissan, Nomura Securities, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, Docomo and the Japan Development Bank.

He also advised legal professionals on Graduate admissions strategy at firms such as White & Case (Asia and Europe), Skadden Arps, Meagher & Flom (New York - US) and Mori, Hamada and Matsumoto (Tokyo), Japan's oldest and most renowned law firm.

 

Most Other Admissions Consultancies No single advisor possessing as broad a range of admissions consulting experience. Most likely, up to three junior or senior consultants have to be assigned in order to offer a similar scope of expertise.	1. The ApplicationAdvantage Difference: Working One-on-One, Directly with Walter Hutchinson, which in practical terms means ready access to an exhaustive range of strategic advice, resources and the benefit of very personalized support. Moreover, you deal directly with  the holder of a personal track record for single-handedly getting several hundred people into top schools around the world over the past two decades.
Local operation with a primarily local focus	2. Global Footprints/Global Presence: Vast experience in Europe, Asia and North America. At "home" constantly moving between the 3 regions, helping to guarantee that ApplicationAdvantage has no equal in terms of its trademark strength in channeling crucial advice to our clients worldwide, keeping them all ahead of the curve.
American or Non-American Consultants with primarily US-based experience.	3. Global Advising & Multi-Cultural Perspective-Driven Strategies: Based on many years of experience living and working with Globally-Branded companies in the US, Europe and Asia. A major multi-cultural advantage which enables us to uncover strategies that sharpen and boost your profile in ways that less-experienced consultants typically do not.
Developed countries as the primary focus	4. More than 40 Nationalities on Our Admissions Profiling Radar: Applicants representing Under-developed, Developed and Developing nations all gain a tremendous edge from our global experience and approaches.
Favoring clients who are native English-Speakers	5. Clout for Non-native English Speakers of Many Countries: Extensive experience with native AND non-native English-Speakers from Asia to Europe and points in between.
Consultant(s) having a couple years of direct admissions office experience	6. Multi-Dimensional, Enduring Admissions Experience : 8 years of direct admissions office experience and a further 14 years of ad hoc advice to candidates from all over the world. Our strategies have been helping clients succeed before there was such a thing as an admissions consulting industry.
Sometimes claiming admissions experience based on: 1) an academic degree, 2) editorial background, 3) former admissions work, or 4) limited first-hand experience or experience "by association" (that is, not having graduated from a top school at all or worked at one).	7. A Distinguished 360 Degree Ivy-League Background: ApplicationAdvantage's founder graduated with both a bachelors and masters degree from an Ivy League university AND accumulated years of admissions experience working with local and international applicants at multinational companies while still in school.
Often limited experience with scholarships and fellowships	8. Advising On AND Winning Global Funding Opportunities: Aside from direct advisory experience, ApplicationAdvantage's founder has been either a finalist or winner of the Rotary Foundation Scholarship, the Rhodes Scholarship and the Japanese Government Monbusho Scholarship, to name a few. ApplicationAdvantage therefore has an unusually deep first-hand experience with high-level and ground-level strategies, raising your chances for winning coveted graduate funding opportunities.
Admissions experience at 1 school	9. Competitive Profiling for Selection at Multiple Educational Programs: Experience at 3 divisions of Ivy League universities and elite feeder schools for the most competitive colleges.
Consultancy is often predisposed toward the types of profiles they expect to see from applicants who have "grown up" with the American or related experience.	10. Advantage for Applicants having International Backgrounds; not just  those from one country: Reinventing or transforming an applicant's profile based on factors that make the profile stronger, whether or not it includes Western experience.
Approach based on helping an applicant package the profile they have already established, and using this approach to help grow client lists as much as possible.	11. A Business Model that Serves the Applicant First, whether Improving a Pre-Existing Profile or Creating a Powerful New One: Maintaining control over quality by working with only a select number of clients for premium consulting packages and our exclusive programme.
Easier to work with clients whose value and chances for admission can be determined based on templates.	12. Marketing You on Your Terms: Vast expertise in helping clients from every walk of life to express their personal values and accumulated experience to admissions committees, as a unique blend of highly desirable elements that complement a top program.
Consulting process is usually linear, based on a pre-determined process for delivering service to the client	13. Getting You the Results You Want, By Going Where You Need To Go: Our process is flexible and multi-drectional, allowing for the important "eureka" moments that can define a resume, essay or interview or entire application. Moreover, when we discover ways to strengthen your strategy, we will test and implement ideas whether at the start or near the end of our service cycle.
Narrower and more-rigid timelines for service	14. Support and Progress Always Guided by Your Priorities: Flexibility depending on the package selected. We are typically available to assist you even after the service term has technically ended. We alway feel morally invested as much in your continued success as you do in our expertise.
Editorial writing experience	15. Seven Dimensions of Our Global Strategic Advantage: 1) Editiorial writing COMBINED WITH strategic experience stemming from 2) past engagement with Global Fortune 100 corporations. Intuitive and practical understanding of 3) workflow, 4) political and 5) promotional dynamics within both 6) large companies and 7) SMEs.
Limited industry experience	16. Strategic Value based on Six Umbrella Industries and Regions: Multiple industries encompassed by finance, consulting, marketing, manufacturing, law and government spanning the US, Asia and Europe.
The "let us get their experience to be more American" approach	17. An Empowering System that Works for You Everytime: Through years of experience learning, teaching, researching and building linkages with future leaders, we have mastered and pioneered techniques and tools that position you as a "person of great interest" for admissions committees of the world's most-competitive programs, not just programs from one country or programs dominated by one demographic group.
Usually only working with clients who have a certain set of numbers or experiences.	18. Nurturing a Diversity of Strengths in a Diverse Range of Client Profiles: We use our experience to help EVERY client demonstrate how they would contribute depth to their target program. We do not employ cut-offs, because EVERY client has something to offer. Profile positioning and definition come first with us, rather than some arbitrary collection of numbers that neither lead to automatic acceptance nor rejection.
Passing clients on to other people.	19. You are always working with An Expert who Exemplifies the ApplicationAdvantage Difference: Absolutely no delegation of your file to anyone else. When you sign up to work with our founder, for example, that is exactly who you will be interacting with exclusively. The scope will vary depending on the service level you select. You always know who you are working with, and that person, by mutual consent, is your advisor.
Serving a business model and investor plan designed to cram as many people in as possible, in order to meet projected targets and realize the highest profit possible.	20. A Model for Excellence that Has No Moral Conflicts: We are a privately-held group controlled 100% by Walter Hutchinson, thereby guaranteeing that our standards are NEVER compromised. Because we are privately-held, we can and do set limits on the number of commitments we undertake. As our mantra goes, "No Shortcuts. "No Compromises".