Jessica Shklar | mbaMission

I’ve worked with Jessica Shklar on applying to five top business schools this year and I’m extremely happy with results of our work. I got interview invites from every school and got admitted to MIT Sloan (my top choice). I honestly don't think I could have achieved this on my own - Jessica went beyond the terms of her contract in every possible way.

Immediately after I sent my initial brainstorming document, I noticed how thorough she was in learning my story and personality. With every email and phone conversation, Jessica was capturing more and more about my background up to the point that she knew me better than even my closest friends. By knowing my story, Jessica was able to suggest how to approach every essay. She not only analyzed what the schools wanted me to write for a given essay (something that you can find on every major admission consulting company website anyway), but also recalled specific stories from my background to create a strong and well-balanced application. Describing my whole life in 500 words was not an easy task, but after our brainstorming sessions I was never stuck in front of an essay prompt trying to write the first sentence. After every round of editing I was seeing how clear, concise and strong my essays were becoming, motivating and pushing me to keep improving even further.

Jessica was extremely helpful even with things that were out of my direct control. While working with my recommenders, Jessica was very professional and polite, but at the same time ensured that the recommendations were on topic and on time.

Most importantly Jessica made me feel that I was never alone and helped me to get through this stressful and anxious process. With Jessica on my side, I always felt certain that my application would make me a strong candidate and that I would finish everything on time. She gave me confidence that I had a shot at the top schools and this motivated me to apply harder work and produce the strongest application I could.

Besides being extremely grateful for Jessica being a true supporter in this process, I'm really impressed with her talent, vision, industry knowledge, and work ethic. Jessica never tried to alter my story or make me look like someone who I’m not. Instead, almost immediately after we started our work together, she provided me with suggestions on how to structure and present my own story in a way that even impressed me. Later, during my interview at MIT, I was pleasantly surprised how well Jessica was able to predict the aspects of my story that would be appealing to the admission committee.

Just a year ago, as I was reading all of these great reviews for Jessica, still wondered if hiring a consultant was the right thing to do. “Were these success stories coming from applicants that had a sure shot of getting in anyway?” I thought. “Given my background, do I even fit the profile of a strong candidate and thus, is hiring a consultant a right decision for me?”
After working with Jessica closely on applying to my top five schools, getting positive results and being admitted to my number-one choice program at MIT Sloan, I can clearly say that working with Jessica was not only the right decision, it was absolutely the best decision during my application process.