Jessica Shklar - complete school package

Jessica was very patient and very knowledgeable about the application process and the programs. Throughout the process, she always made herself available and strictly adhered to the 24-hour response rule. She even provided an expedited feedback right before round I deadlines that helped me get the application in on time. I purchased a complete three-school consultation package with Jessica and added on two more – all in round one. Overall, I’m very happy with the result – I got into four top 15 schools with partial scholarships from two. I suggest putting down your deposit with Jessica as soon as you can because her time tends to get booked up really early in the process.
The biggest value add I got from Jessica was on the essay and the resume.
We did 7 rounds of resume editing and the final version was nothing like the first draft. I knew that I needed to make my resume more “results oriented” but honestly I didn’t know how. Jessica helped me in a way that she played the role of an admission officer, asking the right questions and kept pushing me if my answer wasn’t “results oriented” enough. She also helped me discovered a lot of bullet points that I didn’t think were important but from the eyes of an admission officer, they were.
We worked on a ton of essays – at least two for each school, 5-7 drafts for each essay. We started with a brainstorming call that collected all the stories that we were going to use for the essay then we put them together to make the initial draft – she made it fun, kind of putting together a puzzle. Jessica was really good at cutting down on words to without losing the original meaning of the sentence. This is super important because anyone who’s been through the process would tell you that word counts and space are you biggest enemies Pretty much every essay I gave her was 1.5 times of the word limit, and she cut them down to below limit in a concise way with ease. Moreover, Jessica knows how to tell a story in a very interesting and eye-catching way that attracts the readers, kind of like how a good journal reporter writes interesting stories. Again, not every admission consultant can do these things.
Mock interviews and the question lists that Jessica gave me were extremely helpful. I interviewed with 6 schools, and I’d say more than half of the questions were on the question lists. I also had a video essay which was nerve-wrecking but Jessica took extra time to help me prepare that so I was pretty ready by the time I got to it.
Last but not the least, through brainstorming sessions and interactions, Jessica really challenged me as an individual and got me to think about what I really want to do post-MBA and for the rest of my life, not simply for the purpose of the application. Through working with Jessica and from her candid feedback, I learned my strengths and weaknesses, my preferred working style and figured out where my passion lies. Luckily, I don’t have to go through the application process again but I’d do it again with Jessica because she made it fun and easy.