I am an Indian applicant coming from a highly competitive pool. Hoping to apply in Round 1 for the Fall, 2018 enrollment, I reached to about 20+ top admission consulting firms from all over the world. Of all the consultants I spoke with, my interaction with Regina from Admissionado was certainly the best. Even though I had a good GMAT (760), I liked the fact how she was interested in my story and my aspirations contrary to many of the other consultants who were mainly interested in numbers. Our conversation was very personal, and I felt that she believed in my story. It was extremely important for me to work with someone who is positive about making things happen than with someone who’d tell me to aim lower and focuses more on data points/GMAT.

I signed up for the Deluxe package as I knew nothing about the whole MBA admission process. Thankfully, Regina was patient with me, educating me on the entire process step by step. It started with me filling out a long questionnaire, which pretty much captured every important aspect of my life. After which, I had a discovery/strategy session with her wherein we discussed what my goals are, how do these goals relate to my prior experience, why do I want an MBA and what schools would be a good fit for me. That call really helped me in finalizing the schools I could apply to and to begin researching on them. To top that, Regina was super responsive in putting up an application timeline to make sure that we meet individual college’s deadline comfortably.

Once I had some clarity on the pointers we discussed, I put up the first draft of my essays. Now that I look back, I will admit that the first draft of my essays was horrible. After reviewing the first draft, Regina dissected every single line of my essay, questioning my plans and asking clarifying questions. I was amazed to see the level of thought she had put in those essays. Given that I never wanted someone else to tweak my choice of words, I appreciated how she put her questions in comments instead of making any direct edits. We went back and forth for about 6-7 drafts, but every time, she motivated me by saying that we are getting closer and that we will do this as many times as it takes to get it polished nicely. I got multiple interview calls after I submitted my Round 1 applications. I was sort of nervous about those as the last time I sat for an interview was around 4 years ago when I got recruited in the firm I currently work with. To help me overcome that stress, Regina scheduled mock Skype interviews with me, making sure that I get that interview experience and be aware of how I come across.

My interviews went great, and I converted my top choice with scholarship – The Wharton School. I could have never done this without all the help and support I got from Regina and her super awesome team. Throughout the entire process, I found her like a friend with whom I could discuss all my silly questions. I can confidently say that she now knows me as much as most of my close friends and family. Overall, a five-star service!

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I met Admissionado by chance. I had a chat with a cousin's friend from HBS and he told me that he was one of the consultants. At the time, I had hired a consultant from Brazil, but I wasn't having any support at all.
After struggling to decide whether I would try another consultancy, Claudia fixed me up with Ben. We had a long talk, and Ben helped me out with a plan.

All my achievements that I had throughout my life and the path that I chose made sense. Even though at the time, my decisions seemed just as a reactions to each opportunity that appeared.

Honestly, my first drafts were garbage, and the essays were coming back all red with many comments. After a lot of effort (I believe Ben had a even worse time than me because of my unfocused writing skills), the final product was great with the exact word count.

I had a great experience with Admissionado. Even after each rigorous review, they always motivates and get the best of you.

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At first I had my reservations in hiring a US service since I am here in Brazil so all the interactions would be using Skype, E-mail, etc.

Are they going to be responsive? Are they going to understand my background? If I am not happy, will they listen my complains and act accordingly so I could met the b-school deadlines? Will we work as a team or in a scheme "shut up and listen" because they are the expert here?

Well, after the first interactions with the whole team of admissionado and the call with my future consultant, I got convinced that they truly wanted to help me. They cared to listen my background, my desires about the right bschool and culture fit, so they could create a tailor made plan to put me in my dream school. Considering my background is not so often found among the applicants as well as my personal desires were a little peculiar, they succeed in understand me as a whole person to take it into account while building the "application plan" for me.

They knowledge about the application process (essays, LORs, resume, interviews) is fenomenal, they provided me lots of e-books with essays that worked, great LORs, how to do an great interview, mock interviews, etc. Besides that, I also received a huge help in how to manage my time during this process in order to meet the deadlines. This was key because it enabled us to work back and forth until reach the strongest application possible before the deadline.

Everytime I needed a quick help they answered me online, they were very very responsive. This made me confident that they were doing the best they could. And in the end, we did! I got accepted into my dream school.

I can't recommend more Mariane and Admissionado team. I am glad I picked them and thanks for everything guys!

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As a sponsored student, my company paid the consulting services and by that time I dont have any idea about MBA and Admissionado. Yaron and Kyn went to my country and spent 4 weeks there to teach the strategy to get best business school based on our GMAT. They helped me found the "Top 5" business school that between my GMAT score.
I enjoyed the process during brainstorming and one-one consultation from deciding which one is safe school and challenging school to writing the CV and essays.
Their greates strength was the strategic guideline from chosing the school, building CV, writing essays and interview practicing.
I definitely recommend admissionado and Yaron Dahan & Kyn.

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I decided to start my MBA application less than 2 months before R1 deadline. I was done with GMAT by then so putting together my applications and writing essays were my only worries. I knew I would get solid recommendation letters from work. Given my GMAT and GPA were on the safe side, I’m certain that the faith of my application would depend heavily on my actual application essays and interviews. With only less than 2 months before R1 deadlines, I was stressed out with essay ideas and approaches to make my applications stand out. After reading about the MBA admission process and being introduced to the idea of getting support from MBA consulting firms, I started talking to 3 consulting firms. Because I already knew which schools I would be applying to, I paid attention to how the consulting firms would help me develop and polish my essays/applications.
Admissionado was the first firm I talked to and immediately impressed me with their professionalism. All email exchanges were really seamless. I made up my mind and selected Admissionado.
Sally Radwan was my consultant and I can’t express my gratitude enough to Sally and the entire Admissionado team. I interacted directly with Sally via both phone and email but understood that there was a team behind the scene that supported me for both essay editing and application reviewing.
Don’t misunderstand the idea of MBA consulting, they’re there to help bring the best of you to your essay and show you how to present yourself in the best way possible in your application. They won’t write or encourage you to make up stories. You’ll still have to come up with your own ideas and be authentic!
Before starting writing my first draft, Sally asked me to complete a questionnaire asking me very specific questions about my achievement and personal stories. After that, we had our strategy call in which Sally clarified some of the stories in my answers to her questionnaire. Just a day after our call, she came back to me with what she thought would be my go-to stories to tell in my applications. With those recommendations, I started writing my first draft. I really enjoyed seeing the involvement of my essays from the first draft to the final version. With her understanding of my past experiences and stories, she was able to suggest adding details in my essays throughout several versions. Sally is very methodological and WILL push you to try harder if she thinks your essays are not good enough. She was very flexible with edit rounds and won’t start editing if she does not think the overall story or quality is there.
With the help and support from Sally and the Admissionado team, I got accepted both 2 programs I applied to. From the beginning to the end when I received my acceptance letters, Sally and the Admissionado team always emphasized that it was my achievement and I earned it. However, I personally believe my journey to my top-choice MBA program would be choppy and may not happen without Admissionado and specifically Sally.
The only cons I could think of is that it would be much helpful if Admissionado could provide the clients a suggested timeline (based on individual cases) and follow up to make sure the essay drafts are coming, etc. Maybe it was just me but I really need to visualize what the next steps are and their associated timeline.
Thank you so much for helping and supporting me throughout the process! I highly recommend Admissionado.

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Mark is a very nice person that boasts an incredible resume (Brown, Harvard, and Stanford GSB), so when I selected him as my consultant, I was very confident that I was in good hands, especially since he seemed VERY confident in me during the during the free consultant. He would throw out names like Stanford, Kellogg, and Wharton when suggesting schools I would be a fit for. I was not sure where to apply at first, but I knew I wanted to aim high and during the free consultation, Mark echoed my ambitions.

That changed after I signed with Admissionado. I gave my suggested school list (all M7s) to Mark and he immediately changed his tone, saying they were too risky. Despite this, I decided to go ahead and aim for my dream schools.

Mark is very good at writing an essay (poetic phrasing, good language, etc.), but he does miss the mark with content. For the majority of my essays, Mark had me focus on my career goals while de-emphasizing my personal story, which in hindsight, did not allow me to stand out from other people with a similar career background and aspirations. After submitting my essays and ultimately getting dinged without an interview, I had friends/colleagues who attended those schools review my essay (something I should have done before submitting). They all echoed the same thing - that my personal story was missing. They emphasized that my leadership and work history was reflected pretty well in my resume and that my career goals could have been stated in the 500 character box provided on the application, but my personal story, the one that truly sets me apart from my peers, the one related to my extracurricular activities, and the one I was dying to tell, was missing.

During the next round of applications, I wrote an essay with my personal story with feedback from my friends from the school (another M7) and ultimately received an acceptance.

Overall, Mark was very timely and made himself available for long phone conversations pretty much any time I needed him. Additionally, he is a very eloquent writer. The quality of my writing improved greatly with Mark's help and I couldn't have written my last essay as well as I did without his help with previous essays. However, I think he was short sighted when suggesting the content of the essays he helped with. I would recommend Mark and Admissionado only to help polish the essay, but not come up with the content from scratch. The process overall was a little stressful, especially with the dings I received after following his advice.

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I know that the whole process of writing essays, adequating your resume and etc. can be very stressful. However, with the help of the consultants of Admissionado, the process was as smooth as it can get.
After doing the GMAT, I had two months to finish my application, which can become very tight if you get distracted. However, the quick turnarounds with insightful tips and ideas from my consultant, I was able to finish it with some margin, with time to revise it.
But it was not only about velocity. The treatment received in Admissionado, the quality of the crew there and the genuine desire to help as much as possible those applying for an MBA were really important to me.
At the end, I was admitted well before the expected date (August 1st), thanks to the help of that company, which helped by to show my best characteristics in my essays.

I couldn't be more grateful to Admissionado. These guys rock!

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A family friend who works in the industry referred me to Admissionado, and overall I had an excellent experience and would highly recommend them for anyone going through the MBA admissions process.

Arguably the most important part of your MBA application is your story of an MBA combined with your existing experiences will help you achieve a career goal. This is essential to getting into the top schools, and Lee did a phenomenal job helping me craft and refine a narrative that worked with my professional background and career goals.

The most time-consuming process of the applications was definitely writing the essays, and Admissionado proved extremely helpful. They are very fast with their essay turnaround times (72 hours at most, though usually faster) and I felt that the edits significantly improved the quality of my essays.

I felt that the Deluxe package was well worth the extra cost. Your resume is often the first piece of your application that MBA admissions look at and I thought that Lee’s reviews of my resume were very helpful. In addition, I thought that being able to discuss essay/resume edits over the phone was really valuable.

The interview preparation was also great and something that I think every applicant needs. To succeed at interviews it is very important to practice, and the mock interview sessions over Skype made me feel prepared and comfortable for the actual interviews. Especially for the behavioral interview questions, Lee did a great job helping me decide which of my experiences to use for different types of questions.

I honestly could not imagine going through the application process without a consultant like Lee and the rest of the Admissionado team. They helped ease my concerns, and made me feel confident about my application and interviewing abilities. I ended up being accepted to 3 of the 5 schools that I applied to, all ranked in the top 10, and I can’t be more excited about starting my MBA this year.

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After making a last-minute decision to apply round 2 this year, I chose Admissionado to help me navigate through the application process. I was aware of how challenging it would be coming from a competitive demographic bucket and being a re-applicant.

From the beginning, the Admissionado team was different from the 7 other admissions consultants that I considered. John spent > 1 hour speaking with me during the “Free” consultation and showed a level of interest + enthusiasm for my story beyond any of the other firms. John/Claudia/Lauren were super quick to respond as I narrowed down my choice of admissions consultants and ultimately, Admissionado met all the criteria on my wish list (tons of experience/success sending applicants to H/S/W, advisors who actually went to those schools, an established process for navigating the application end-to-end, and creativity/a bit of quirkiness in their approach).

I ended up choosing a 3 school Deluxe Package (all services included) and it was the best decision I could have made.

Admissionado’s support helped me get through applications for 4 schools to meet all the R2 deadlines. My advisor, Rafael, played so many different roles throughout the process. Part coach, part counselor, part motivator, and part mock interviewer, Rafael helped me get through the highs/lows and all the late nights to get my applications in tip-top shape. I can confidently say that Rafael’s guidance and support structure was the pivotal driver behind my interview and eventual acceptance into Wharton (with scholarship!). The admissionado team knows exactly what they’re doing and I can’t recommend them enough.
Thanks so much Rafael, Claudia, Lauren, and John!

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I came to Admissionado after getting dinged without interviews at three schools (Wharton, Yale, and Columbia). I realized that there were major flaws in my profile and I needed help fixing them. My friend worked at Admissionado in their Beijing office as the director of undergraduate admissions consulting. He also applied to business schools the previous year with great success, ultimately landed at Boothe, and he recommended their services.

After an initial consultation and a ding analysis with Yaron, the consultant, we pointed out several shortcomings in my profile:

1. Lukewarm GMAT score of 710.
2. Lack of super employer and high salary. Non-traditional MBA background. With 6 years of work experience, I had worked at 3 different companies spanning education, sales, and HR.
3. Lukewarm undergraduate GPA of 3.45. Liberal Arts degree.

Yaron explained that I didn't have strong enough numbers to be a "numbers candidate" but had potential to be a good "story candidate." He suggested that I play the numbers game and apply to 8-10 schools. I was hestitant to take his advice because the service was very expensive and we would have only 8 weeks to apply to 8 schools. At the same time I also felt dejected from the round 1 rejections but I was committed to going to business school no matter what. I ultimately ran with his advice and applied to 8 schools, all with deluxe packages. And I did not regret it.

Here is what Yaron did well:

1. He overhauled my resume. My previous resume had too much jargon and did not have an extracurricular/community involvement section. He made sure that every bullet point followed an "action + impact" formula. I came to realize that the resume is super important as it is the first thing adcoms look at.

2. He did an extensive analysis of my work experience, extracurricular activities, and personal/family background to find the most interesting things about me and craft them into a compelling narrative.

3. He helped me prepare for my interviews.

4. He was on call whenever I needed him.

Overall, I think the thing to keep in mind when choosing an admissions consultant is that you are paying for an editor. The essays are important because it's one of the few things that you have control over. Although you think you know yourself well, an admissions consultant can tell your story better. Yaron and I went through four drafts of every essay and his edits came back within 24 hours. With every draft, my essays not only improved but I also learned more about myself. Working with Yaron gave me a process and a discipline to work within that I would not have had on my own. There was an ease of mind knowing that all I had to do was follow their process and everything else would work itself out. The MBA admissions process is like wedding planning. You are only going to do this once in your life. If you are unsure of yourself, it's best to get a consultant to walk you through the process.

Here are my results with Admissionado:

1. Cornell Johnson -- On Campus interview --> Admitted with scholarship.
2. Duke Fuqua -- On Campus interview --> Admitted
3. UCLA Anderson -- On Campus interview --> Admitted
4. NYU Stern -- Waitlisted without interview
5. Dartmouth Tuck -- Open interview, on campus --> Dinged
6. Northwestern Kellogg -- Open interview, off campus --> Dinged
7. UMich Ross -- On Campus interview --> Dinged
8. UVA Darden -- On Campus interview --> Dinged

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