Working with Fortuna was an absolute pleasure, especially working with Melissa. She really helped to get my application together and her communication was super efficient and effective .

Melissa really took the time to get to know me as an applicant and she was continuously available to support me. Her wise tips were a valuable resource during my application journey and she really gave me a good boost at each stage - from essays to interviews. I was ultimately admitted to my school of choice.

I would recommend Melissa to anyone. She is effective and also comfortable working against the clock operationally and across different time zones.

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The Fortuna team is very professional and helpful. Jennifer Raver knows everything you need to know about MBAs. In the one hour consulting session, she provided me with a lot of useful information even before I was committed to work with Fortuna.

I later worked with Melissa Jones. She was so encouraging that I found the whole application process not as daunting as it could be. Melissa was a good story teller. She was able to capture what I wanted to express in my essays and elevate them to the next level. She was also open-minded. She was willing to work with me in the creation of my essays with satisfying turnaround time. I'm happy to have her in my application journey.

Also, the Fortuna app, Podio is a great tool which enabled my smooth communication with my coach. Overall, perfect experience!

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Melissa was my primary coach at Fortuna Admissions. I had a great experience working with her and would definitely recommend to others looking for an admissions coach.

Melissa was very organized and I always felt like I was a priority even though I know she had many other clients. I appreciated how prompt and efficient she was in answering my emails and editing my applications. Overall it was a fairly stress-free experience- she helped me create a plan at the very beginning so we were prepared well ahead of deadlines which gave piece of mind.

In the end I was extremely happy with the results- I was accepted to schools in Europe, Canada and the US.

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I had a great time working with Melissa for the past few months as we navigated the business school application process. I was really worried at first because my GPA was much lower than the school averages, and I knew my GMAT score was not going to be high (I'm a horrible test taker). Melissa stayed calm the whole time and really helped me highlight my strengths in the essays and through the rest of the application. She stayed very calm and was extremely supportive. I appreciate her immense knowledge of the process, guidance and support, and clear communication.

Melissa's extremely knowledgable about the process and can help you fight for your best chance! I highly recommend her. I had a much lower GPA and test score, and got into my first top choice schools. I honestly don't think I would've been able to do this without her.

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Melissa helped me get into a top 10 MBA program. I highly recommended working with her. My MBA journey started a few years ago, when I had reached out to Fortuna to work on a few MBA applications. I was matched with Melissa, who provided invaluable advice around how schools review applications and how I should frame my story. At that time, I had decided to put my MBA ambitions on hold and continue working for a few more years.

When I decided to reapply to just one school, I reached back out to Melissa, who was incredibly responsive and worked around my schedule to ensure that we got the application submitted in what was a very, very short amount of time.

Melissa knows what schools are looking for and helped me craft a story that really allowed me to put my best foot forward. I thought my story and career to date were pretty cookie-cutter. Melissa really helped me find my distinctive factors and helped me refine my story, which allowed me to submit a great application.

As an added bonus, she’s super friendly and awesome to work with.

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Happy to say Melissa helped me get into my dream school - INSEAD! I was looking for admissions consultants to give me peace of mind throughout the typically stressful application process. Fortuna was a clear winner due to their INSEAD expertise and network. Melissa gave me confidence throughout and even went the extra mile in connecting me with alumni.

Fortuna is very structured in their counseling which worked great for me. The majority of our communication was over email or Podio software, with 3 calls. This worked for me due to my busy schedule, however if you are looking for someone to take several 1:1 calls then it may not be the best fit for you.

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Working with Melissa at Fortuna Admissions was such a great experience.

Being a reapplicant to INSEAD, I was very stressed out that it may not work the second time. However Melissa took the time out to review my old application in order to advise me on how I could improve.

She exceeded my expectations in helping me craft a story and probed me to add depth to my reapplication essay to show a more meaningful side of my life and motivations.

Melissa was always organized and responsive. Her turn-around time for providing feedback was exceeded my expectations (usually < 24 hours). I was successfully able to get an admission to INSEAD, thanks to Melissa.

Overall, she is an absolute joy to work with and I high recommend her!

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I worked with Melissa on applying to INSEAD, as I considered her (and Fortuna) to be the INSEAD experts during my MBA consultant search. With Melissa’s help, I got into INSEAD despite a relatively low GPA (3.27/4.0) and lower than average GMAT (700 vs 706 INSEAD average). Melissa was very positive and always made time to talk when I needed advice from start to finish. She had great resume edits and pushed me on self-reflection for essay topics. On the essays themselves, she gave honest and direct feedback while still sounding motivating and encouraging. Super responsive as well – I could consistently count on a response well within 24 hours. Melissa also looped in Caroline (former Director of Ad. at INSEAD) from Fortuna to offer additional perspective, which was great.

At the beginning, Melissa gave me a good strategic sense of which schools I should consider and where my application would be viewed favorably. I ended up applying to Wharton as well – Melissa looped in Judith (former Director at Wharton) from Fortuna this time, which was much appreciated. Although I didn’t get in, I feel good that I made the most of my application thanks to Melissa/ Fortuna.

Last thing I’ll add is that my initial consultant hiring process was very smooth, because Fortuna has someone (i.e. salesperson but not pushy) who does an initial screening (vs most “free consultations” that have you speak directly to the consultant who is so busy and less likely to follow-up with helpful info). I appreciated this part of the process b/c having a point of contact from sales helped me find the best-fit coach within Fortuna and then made the onboarding process itself quite smooth. Overall, would definitely recommend Fortuna, especially for INSEAD.

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I highly, highly recommend working with Melissa - I had an amazing experience working with her and couldn't have asked for more.

Melissa brings a fantastic attitude, invaluable insight and great prior experience. Throughout our time working together, she was always incredibly responsive, and happy to work around my schedule no matter how much of an imposition. She had a really great eye for detail, and an impressive way of helping me to open up about some very tough moments in my personal journey - but in a very sensitive, understanding and powerful way. 

Above all, she is also just an incredibly friendly and positive person, and an absolute joy to work with.

I couldn't recommend Melissa more, and I know you won't look back after taking her on!

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I had applied for MBA previously and was rejected. I am 32 so on the higher side for FT MBA, have already been in a leadership role at a big automotive firm for a few years and was transitioning into running my own startup fulltime. However, I just had this itch for wanting a FT MBA and decided a month or two before the deadlines last year that I wanted to give it a shot again. MBA has been a lifelong dream for me and I just had to pursue an MBA.
Before I go down the memory lane, thanks to Melissa and her hard work I have received admit at a top B school with scholarship in a year that has been incredibly difficult for applicants especially international applicants given the deferrals from previous year.
I had talked to Mandira at Fortuna a while ago and had gotten a good feeling about Fortuna (positive first impression). After reaching out to Mandira again, she asked me to work with Melissa and Judith (director).
Melissa was very friendly and was always available. She really understood what really mattered to me and what made my story different and unique. Every now and then she would bring up points to use from my story which I was overlooking or feeling weren’t important. She is so much more than just an admissions consultant. She is one of those few people you would want to stay connected with forever.
Melissa and Judith worked great as a tag team. They helped me formulate my strategy for applications, narrow down on schools, write essay and applications and prep for interviews, and all the other gazillion things that go along with the process.
Because I was so late in the game, I was often worried about finishing my applications by the deadline but Melissa always pleasantly surprised me by her wealth of knowledge and by pulling us out of tight spots. As I was behind on my school research Melissa helped narrow down the resources for me at the particular schools. Even though we were in a time crunch, Melissa never skimped on the quality of work. We wrote and re-wrote until the essays and answers felt perfect.
Another aspect that I would like to mention about Fortuna is that they work great as a team in how they distribute the tasks and manage the applications as a project management task.
I would highly recommend Melissa to anyone applying for MBA. She made the journey from beginning to end (an offer) really enjoyable.

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