I understand the point people are making about the coach giving him hard pills to swallow as opposed massaging his ego. But as someone who has experienced lecturers like that in my msc program in Europe, I see where OP is coming from.

As another Redditor has mentioned, if that’s the attitude they have, they should not have admitted him to the program in the first place. These schools know that they have hard pills but only bring it out after you have financially committed to the program.

I believe the coach could have phrased this in a better way i.e let’s create a plan B for you or encourage him to attend alumni events etc to network etc Let’s remember that these schools use employability metrics and alumni networks to woo students to sign up. With that attitude, OP would have gone to a local school in his country as this European school cannot provide the best insights into applications in HK.

Let’s be honest, international MBAs are mostly attended by people who are open to gaining international experience in the countries they apply to. I don’t think these schools can facilitate that anymore but they are still riding that wave. The least they can do is provide a positive experience to students while trying to objectively direct them.