I contacted Jen because I was experiencing a lot of uncertainty about my resume and admissions essays. Because I come from a non-traditional business background, I wanted to make sure I was working with someone who understood my position. Jen was incredibly helpful and very efficient. She is great at both line edits and general direction edits. She was glad to answer both vague and specific questions that I had. In addition to her technical expertise, I also found her to be genuinely positive. When I heard back about interviews, she was very supportive. I would not have been able to juggle all of the applications without her.

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I used Jen to apply to 2 MBA programs, 1 reach school and 1 target school, I purchased the total start to finish application product and worked with Jen for many months including additional essays and preps during the waitlist period. I was waitlisted at my reach and accepted to my target school. At the time of this posting there are only positive reviews of Jen...which is not surprising at all. My experience with Jen was amazing and I second all of the comments regarding deadlines, knowledge of the application process, encouragement, her general attitude while working together, worth the money, ect...I really have nothing negative to say about the experience. One aspect of my experience that I did not see mentioned was Jens ability to work with my learning disability. She was very understanding about my unique needs in absorbing feedback, clarifying goals and clearly articulating our plan. It certainly seemed like she adapted her approach to get the best out of me...not an easy task. It was also clear that she truly cared about the results of our work together. I could not have done this without her.

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Monica helped me gain admission to a very top MBA program with scholarship. This is of course what every applicant cares about the most, but getting admitted hardly explains what I've gained through the application process with Monica.

Monica was knowledgeable, embracing, and yet never afraid to ask critical questions. Not only did she understand my goals and aspirations, she also fully appreciated my non-traditional background.

Being an older applicant with a very nonlinear career path, I needed to present my journey clearly so that the admissions would see the reasons behind my choices. Monica's patience during the process of working through so many drafts of essays really paid off for me in the end. I didn't know how it was possible to show all the turning points in my life within word count, but somehow we made it happen. After the application process, I learned a great deal about myself. This is perhaps the even bigger gift from pursuing an MBA--I felt the personal transformation had already begun before the program started. And Monica was a great counselor in this stage of my life.

Monica was the first person I emailed when I found out I was admitted. I will always remember receiving her reassuring email on the morning of the interview and the incredible day that followed.

Working with Monica during the five-month application process changed my life in many ways. Monica became a dear friend who supported me in moments of indescribable joy and anxiety with her wisdom, honesty and grace.

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I had a lot of anxiety going into the MBA application process. My work experience is in a field where not a lot of people go to business school, so I was worried about how admissions committees would view me. With Rachel’s help, I was able to tell my story in a compelling way and effectively convey my leadership and teamwork skills in the applications.

Rachel was there every step along the way to provide helpful feedback, from our brainstorming calls to the many versions of my essays, my resume and all the short answers on the application forms. She helped me prepare outlines of my key accomplishments at work to guide my recommenders, who had never written MBA recommendations before. She was also hugely helpful in preparing for interviews, helping me tailor my responses to each school and giving me a much-needed confidence boost in the days leading up to each interview.

I can’t thank Rachel enough for all her help in the application process and helping me get into my dream school! I highly recommend her!

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With PhD in engineering and working as a researcher, it was tough for me to apply to B schools but even harder was to prepare an application that can justify my career path. When I attended one of Jessica Shklar’s session on admission process, I felt that I should definitely discuss my unique case with her. The best thing about Jessica was she never timed the 30 minute free consultation. She made me feel comfortable and at the same time posed questions that were very critical for the application process. She never pressurized me to sign up with her. Instead she asked me to work on ways to improve my application before even deciding to go with her.
I wanted to apply to only top 5 B-schools. My biggest challenge was that I had no clue how to connect dots from my professional and personal life. Everything looked very discrete and was not sure how to put them as a story in my essays. I think signing up for start to finish package was very useful. Once I reviewed my brainstorming document with Jessica, she knew exactly what examples we should focus on. The advantage of Start to finish package is if you are working on more than one application with a different essay prompt, your consultant already knows the key professional and personal parts of your life from the brainstorming document. Thus, it was easy for Jessica to suggest stories we should be including in essay 1 vs essay 2.
Jessica is very well organized. She not only keeps a track of her time but also ensures that her clients meet their deadlines. I got all my essays with edits from Jessica on or before the expected 2 day deadline. If it is a quick question, Jessica will definitely reply asap. I remember discussing some behavioral questions with her over email before one of the top school’s interview. Even though those were not quick questions, she understood my need and was very willing to respond quickly over emails. Even though it was a professional relation with Jessica, I felt a personal touch.
The other advantage of Start to Finish package is that we also get a chance to do mock interviews. Jessica’s expertise in interview preparation was very helpful. She advised that never practice your answers because you don’t want to memorize your answers. This is very true. The best advice she gave me was to read several behavioral questions and think about multiple scenarios so that I have enough examples from my past to tell during interview. It really worked for me because for one interview question I was asked to tell more than one scenario in which I showed a certain behavior. At that time I did’nt have to take that awkward pause because I already had thought about so many different situations from my professional and personal life. All thanks to Jessica for asking me do this rather than rehearsing my answers.
When I started thinking about signing up with a consultant, things were hazy. I wanted to do MBA from a top B-school but was not sure if I have done enough in my past to get admitted to the schools I want. Jessica helped me at every step of the application process and with her support I got admitted to three top B- schools. Thanks Jessica for making this happen.

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Rachel is an extremely engaging and really good at helping you find a good "spin" for your MBA stories. She will not only help you honing in on worth-while stories to tell–but how to create those attention grabbing phrases that really lure the reader in, and make for an MBA essay that will stand out to the adcom who reads through dozens of essays a day. She is also extremely clear and diligent in getting her comments and edits back to you in a timely manner. Honestly, there are a lot of good stories out there, and it really is just a matter of how you tell the story–Rachel is fantastic at this. After working with Rachel I am now going to a top 10 program with a scholarship.

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Jen worked towards tight deadlines to help me to submit outstanding applications to LBS and Imperial Business School. She took the time to understand my personal story and helped me to shape essays and a video that brought out the best in me. When I was invited for interviews, Jen provided me with comprehensive mock interviews and followed up with very detailed feedback.

I was offered a place on my dream course at LBS and I was also offered Imperial College Business School’s highest scholarship. Jen was a pleasure to work with and I can’t recommend her highly enough!

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In summary, Monica is incredible!

Back when I started looking for admission consultants to apply to HBS for Class of 2018, I spoke with over 8 different ‘top’ admission consulting firms based in the US. Given that no one can guarantee success in as-subjective-a-process-as-MBA-admissions, I was looking for the right fit, a trustworthy partner and most importantly, someone who felt confident about helping me achieve my goal.

I found all of that in Monica, during our free discussion (also came to know of how amazing her track record was). And much more once we started the process. Safe to say, working with Monica was one of the best decisions in the anxious period. She was a wall providing strength along the way, apart from paving a path to a solid application for HBS.

I also believe mbaMission has a very robust methodology to provide structure to the application process and some great reading/reference material to look at. The Complete Start to Finish Guide and individual School Guides are amazing and Monica makes additional webinars / guides to top it all.

I still remember how the first brainstorming discussion with Monica (starting point of the engagement) was so thorough and rigorous, I’m sure Monica knows me as well as anybody around me. She never shied away from going the extra mile by setting up follow-ups when she felt we were not able to complete the discussion in our original schedule. She had some excellent feedback every time she reviewed my essay versions and pushed me for ever more iterations. The final result being, I was quite happy with submitted essay.

Monica puts in a lot of effort to each aspect of the application – from the resume to the questions in application and looks for avenues to better the whole package. She’d remember such minute details from our conversations and probe me on them to build out some very integral portions of the application. And that’s the kind of person you need to guide you. Someone who can look through gaps and crevices to discover gems you wouldn’t have identified yourself.

A huge positive about Monica is that she’s candid and disarmingly friendly. One of the big issues many of my friends had with their consultants was that they couldn’t trust enough. With Monica, that will come naturally, as she clearly knows what she’s doing and will adapt herself to your personality.

Lastly, I’d like to add that unfortunately, I did not get an opportunity to interview with HBS in R1, but Monica readily offered to help with my interview prep for the R2 schools I applied to, even though I was working independently in that period. She was actually the one who helped me vet the schools I applied to in R2. At first, I bombed the mock interview with her so bad, but I was eventually accepted by Wharton, MIT Sloan and Kellogg schools. All credit to her for the interview prep! Thanks Monica for everything.

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Anyone that has embarked on the B-School admissions process knows it can affect you in MANY different ways. When I finally found Kate Richardson, I had just finished an unsuccessful and incredibly frustrating year of applications. B-school acceptance was still my goal but the prior season had made me feel completely debilitated and I had no idea how to jump back in the saddle of a horse that had just finished throwing me off.

One of the first things that made me realize I’d found the right consultant was that Kate’s first priority was providing services in a way that worked specifically for me. I’m someone that can fall into laziness and passivity VERY easily and needed a consultant primarily to check-in, keep me on track, help me set and keep deadlines, as well as brainstorm how to approach each step in the process from essays to communicating with admissions departments.

Kate helped me identify realistic goals for my target schools not only in terms of which schools to apply to, but also the specific order to complete the many tasks for each program to ensure I not only worked efficiently, but had the best quality for each submission – because you do lose energy after each step.

Hourly services worked best for me because we were able to set goals at the start and check-in periodically when needed. I reached out to Kate not only for essay edits and strategizing timelines, but also when my brain would explode as it does during this process and I just needed a sounding board/cheerleader to get back on track.

I was ultimately accepted to one of my top 3 programs with a scholarship for half of my tuition based on the essays and personal statements in my application. Even better than that, with Kate’s support and feedback I realized this program was an even BETTER fit for me than the other programs I had been considering prior to our working together. I would definitely recommend that any B-school applicant sign-up for services with Kate, whether it’s your first try or you’re coming back to tackle this beast again she will absolutely help you stay on track and reach your goals.

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I worked with Jessica on an hourly basis on my three applications for Round 1. Jessica is sharp, honest, and really passionate about her clients. The perfect combination for a bschool admissions consultant.

She was incredibly considerate of my time and always made sure we worked on things efficiently. For example, she was honest with me about which essays she thought needed another pass, and which she thought were fine as is. She was upbeat, and was sincerely committed to getting me in to my schools.

What I personally appreciated most about Jessica was her ability to talk openly and honestly with me about the parts of my application that gave me a lot of anxiety - the GMAT and my interviews. She logically weighed the pros and cons of retaking the test, and walked me though the admission committee's mindset during interviews.

I got interviews at all of my schools, and ultimately got to choose from two of them. I cannot thank Jessica enough for her help with my applications, and for helping me remain calm (or, as much as possible) during the process.

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