When I first started looking for a consultant I had many different phone chats with different consultants at different companies and most felt so cookie-cutter & scripted or scorched earth and interested in bending my story to fit what they thought would combat my overrepresented background of white male / private equity.

Immediately upon chatting with Melissa I knew she would be my pick. She genuinely take a deep interest in understanding your whole story and is great at helping you find a way to authentically tell it while also focusing on the aspects that will be most impactful to the adcoms.

Working with Melissa made what at baseline is a grueling process that much better. She kept me on my timeline, was always super encouraging and helped me tell a story in my essays that we both felt strong about. With that said, she also wasn't afraid to stand her ground and tell me when she thought I needed to change something, which was very helpful.

I would not have gotten into HBS and Wharton without her help!!

Read More

Melissa really takes time to get to know me and pushes me to think deeper throughout the process, starting from the brainstorming sessions to essay editing. Melissa is great at connecting dots of my stories in ways I have not thought of. She provides detailed comments on where to improve and always turns around revisions sooner than the required 48 hours policy.

She is extremely friendly, energetic and a real cheerleader - especially during the interview prep sessions. She is very encouraging and helped me a lot with building confidence in myself. Melissa made the application process much less stressful and I would not be able to get into my dream school (Kellogg) without her. Would 100% recommend her!

Read More

Melissa is an A++++ MBA Consultant! I had about 6 introductory calls with other consultants who I was unsure about but 10 minutes into my call with Melissa I knew I wanted to work with her! She was extremely helpful even in our 30-minute intro call about how I can most effectively bring my story to life.

I was an hourly client with Melissa and the brainstorming sessions were instrumental to my business school success. Melissa provided me with guidance on what stories I should share and when. Without her help, I 100% believe I would not have been able to produce essays that got me into four of the five programs I was admitted to Stanford GSB, MIT Sloan, Kellogg, and Wharton.

Melissa is extremely personable, friendly, and energetic!! She is professional and communicative while remaining supportive during an incredibly stressful process. I'll be attending Stanford GSB this Fall and I can't thank Melissa enough for her support! I 100% know I would not have been so successful without her support. Anyone would be lucky to work with her.

Read More

Unsure and overwhelmed over the application process, as well as not feeling confident in my story or candidacy strength - Melissa provided the ideal balance of support, advice, and push that I needed to be successful. I was admitted to all 3 of my R1 schools in what was a competitive application year.
She assessed my candidacy and encouraged me to try out the GRE (after getting a semi-below-average GMAT score), which I am convinced was the push I needed that put me over the edge at my target schools (getting just above an average GRE score).

She is a natural storyteller, taking the time to understand aspects of my background outside of just work and academics to help craft my story as a compelling candidate. With her experience as an MBA Admissions officer, she helped to identify strengths and personal anecdotes that I would not have recognized to be useful in my application. Her editing tips were invaluable, helping to cut essays down to meet nearly-impossible word limits, without changing my writing. She provides advice on tricky topics too - like the appropriate amount of detail to provide re. a job gap, etc. She always turned around edits very quickly! Which helped me to plan ahead and stick to a schedule. And lastly, she was very helpful for interview prep as well!

Overall she is great to work with - personable, friendly, casual - as well as quick and efficient in her delivery of advice in our working sessions. She also genuinely cares about her clients. She was able to handle my wavering emotions with a comforting strength and grace - providing encouragement and advice on how to handle bumps in the road. I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with Melissa and highly recommend her as a consultant. WELL worth the investment!

Read More

Working with mbaMission and Melissa was a great experience. It allowed me to succeed and move my application process along during COVID to achieve success which was getting into a top 15 program. Melissa's greatest strength was providing thoughtful and expert guidance and nuance to my MBA story, my resume, and my essays. It was not hand holding but it was pushing me to challenge myself, giving me confidence in my applications, and making my applications all the better.

Melissa is a true professional who is fun to work with. She is timely and friendly in all her communications both via email and the phone. I would completely recommend her and mbaMission for those seeking to add a level of polish to their applications.

Read More

Melissa was a great coach throughout the entire MBA application process! I did introductory calls with 4 different admissions consulting companies, but thought Melissa was far and away the best consultant I talked to. I'm so glad I chose to work with her. She is very friendly and has a really positive attitude, but will still help identify areas of weakness in the application and help you craft a great story that emphasizes your strengths in order to receive admission into your dream school. Her feedback was provided in a timely manner and she was always available to answer a quick email question as well.

I was an hourly client and in 5 hours she helped with a brainstorming session, a resume review, at least one or two revisions on the different essays and short answers for Haas and Anderson, and a mock interview where we covered both schools. While I had competitive statistics (GPA and GMAT), I had little to no extra-curriculars since starting my professional career 4 years ago and come from an over-represented applicant pool so Melissa's help with the applications was instrumental in my success. I was even able to leverage what Melissa and I had discussed to apply to Marshall on my own, although I do think the applications I submitted with her direct help were stronger. When it was all said and done, I was accepted to Anderson and Marshall and waitlisted at Hass, receiving roughly two-thirds and one-half merit-based scholarships with my acceptances. This outcome greatly surpassed my expectations and I could not have done it without Melissa.

I highly recommend working with Melissa if you are at all uncertain in the MBA application process, as I know my applications were many times better than they would have been had I gone at it alone.

Read More

I was overwhelmed coming into the business school admission process and I didn't think I'd have a chance based on my nontraditional professional background -- even after studying for the GMAT for over a year. Melissa eased my anxiety and was positive throughout the entire process. Her coaching, editing, and advice helped me go 6/6 in a very competitive R1 with T25 schools. Melissa takes the time to really get to know you and your story and then helps craft everything in a way that's easily understood by admissions committees. I think this skill, along with her experience as a Director of Admissions at a T25 school, is what sets her apart from the other many adcom out there. She's amazing!

Read More

I worked with Melissa for Round 1 of the 2021 intake cycle. Coming from an over-represented pool, with a median GMAT and big four Technology Consulting background, I knew I needed to stand out. But more so, I needed to remain confident in the strengths of my application.

Melissa was the pillar I relied on to stay positive and confident. Most importantly, she was "chill" and kept conversations easy and informal. This personality trait/demeanor was different from experiences some of my friends had with their consultants who were more focused on their personal admit results and coaxed my friends to shoot lower. On the other hand, Melissa encouraged me to take my shots at the reach schools while balancing with couple of safeties. Lastly, she was open to re-working and re-editing essays that we had long seen as final, until I was perfectly happy with the submitted product - as v12 and v9 of my two Kellogg essays can attest.

She often had to play the role of a coach and a cheerleader and helped quell the feelings of self-doubt that inevitably arise reading opinions on online forums.

It goes without saying that she was always punctual sending back edits and operated well within mbaMission's the 48 business hours turnaround policy (usually much sooner).

At the end of the day, it's the results that matter and I was admitted to all 3 schools I worked on with Melissa - Ross, Kellogg and Sloan (dream school) - with a sizable scholarship at Ross and a modest scholarship at Kellogg. Moreover, I used similar stories/language on other applications as well and was admitted to 2 out of 3 of those as well.

Read More

Melissa was the absolute best coach throughout the entire business school admissions process. Her thoughtfulness, empathy, and direction are unparalleled and I LOVED working with her.

She effortlessly developed an easy, effective working relationship, diving right in to the content of my application from minute one of our hourly working sessions. I appreciated the way that she reviewed and edited material with clarity and explanations of why she was suggesting specific changes. She excels at supporting in the holistic development of an application and providing incredible feedback on written material.

Melissa represents the best combination of coach, partner, and friend and I am so grateful to have had her guidance throughout my time apply to business school. I 100% recommend Melissa. Anyone would be lucky to work with her.

Read More

Hiring Melissa was easily the best decision I made during my MBA admissions cycle. She has one of the best backgrounds one could want in an admissions consultant - prev adcom director, MBA from an M7 and real-world industry experience. Pair that background up with superb communication skills, being authentic and unapologetically honest in every interaction, genuine caring for clients’ success, less than 24 hrs returns on drafts, and just being a really nice person to work with overall - what more could you ask? This deadly combination of traits makes Melissa the absolute no-brainer MBA-consultant choice.

I was late in the process and reached out to mbaMission only after R1 deadlines. I’m from an over-represented background, with avg GMAT (for my pool) and less than avg work exp. But right from my first call, Melissa was extremely positive about my candidature. I kept doubting my GMAT score multiple times, but while Melissa did suggest some options, she instilled confidence in me that since my score was at or above the avg scores for my target schools, I should focus more on my essays and overall profile strength. I took her advice and did not get a single rejection from the 6 schools I applied to in R2. I also got into both the M7’s I applied to and am headed to one of them this fall.

The way Melissa edits essays is just amazing. She didn’t spoon-feed or drastically change the story-content from her side, but rather used the knowledge she had about me from my profile and our brainstorming call, and transformed the essays into a strength for my overall profile. On multiple occasions, she not only nudged me to think harder about choosing a story, but also pushed me to dig deeper into the EQ aspects that one would have not thought about. She even helped me frame my answers succinctly to application form questions and work experience descriptions. When I got interview invites/decisions from all 6 schools, I informed Melissa even before I informed my closest family and friends - that was the level of trust and confidence I had in her. Even though I had 6 interviews lined up, Melissa went through specifically tailored interview prep for each school the week before, explaining what questions to expect, how to position myself for a particular curveball question, and what kind of aspects each school was looking at. This was tremendously helpful. And not to forget, Melissa was extremely flexible with so many reschedule requests - once in the middle of our interview prep call, my boss called for an impromptu meeting and Melissa was really nice to offer to reschedule the prep that we’d already begun that day! She is totally committed to ensuring your success and I do not regret one bit my decision to work with Melissa.

Within a period of 4-5 months, she went from being a complete stranger to being a close friend and advisor to talk to. Getting into my top choice school is a dream come true and I couldn’t have done this without help and guidance from Melissa. I wholeheartedly recommend Melissa as your admissions consultant. Trust me, you’ll thank me later!

Read More