There is zero chance I would have made it through the application process without Melissa.

The primary internal debate I was having leading up to the application process was whether or not to seek professional assistance. Due to financial reasons, I thought.....maybe I could do it myself and save some money. I could NOT have been more wrong...

During my initial 30 minute free consultation very early on in the process, Melissa came prepared and ready to help. She gave me tangible next steps so that I could maximize my time between that first call and when we would begin writing essays months later. Her advice ranged from 'getting more involved in a volunteer organization I was already apart of to retaking the GRE to taking HBX CORe to improve my quantitative abilities'.

Hiring Melissa was the investment of a lifetime. It was my first large purchase, biggest financial sacrifice, and I am absolutely THRILLED with the outcome of our work together. And thrilled is a drastic understatement.

She gave me the confidence I needed to own and tell my story. Melissa provided truly the most candid / honest feedback I needed on every single word I put in my essays.

She mandated that I dig deeper, push myself harder, and brought out the absolute best in me - all while being an incredible mentor, friend, and support system.

In the end, I got into my #1 dream school: Darden. It was a stretch. We knew it was a stretch going in, but her unwavering confidence in me got me over the finish line. I learned that applying to business school takes a village, and I'm eternally grateful Melissa was part of my village.

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Kate was incredibly instrumental in easing the application process. From the our first conversation when we discussed target schools and brainstorming, she was the ultimate professional. She helped me bring out the best aspects of my profile in order to put my best foot forward when it came time to apply. She was the ultimate professional, keeping me on task as the application season progressed and always available for an email or chat whenever I felt bogged down. I felt Kate went above and beyond to make sure I was satisfied with my application prior to submission. I would highly recommend Kate to all future applicants!

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Krista Nannery helped me gain admission to a T10 MBA program by helping me truly understand my career goals; helping me write strong, impactful, and memorable essays; and helping me prepare effectively for behavioral interviews and group interview activities. Moreover, I feel like Krista really cares about helping me reach my career goals, and over the past 6 months, I feel like she has grown into a friend rather than a consultant.

If you read nothing further than this, please read this:
She will absolutely strengthen your candidacy for your MBA program of choice. I went from settling for a T35-T50 school with a median salary outcome of $100k to a school with a median salary outcome of $145k. Just considering this, my ROI IS OVER 300%. If you consider scholarships and intangibles like experiences and network, my ROI is significantly higher.

Before Krista: planning to apply to T35-T50 schools

After Krista: Applied to 7 schools
Admitted to 2 T10 (one with a small scholarship)
Admitted to 2 T15-T20 (both with half scholarships)
Dinged WITH interview from 1 M7 school
Waitlisted with interview from 2 T15

Here are some highlights on what Krista helped me with:

1. Brainstorm. She helped me brainstorm potential essay topics by thinking about my personal, undergraduate, and work experiences. This was SO important because ALL of us have valuable experiences to share with admissions committees, but we sometimes discount those memories. As an experienced admissions insider, Krista helped me understand my unique experiences and how I could showcase them on my applications.

2. School selection. After considering my career goals and family needs), she helped me select schools that would be a good fit for me. Again, there is SO MUCH MISINFORMATION and stereotypes on the internet about MBA programs, so I’m glad that I had someone as knowledgeable as Krista on which schools could help me achieve my goals. She helped me pick 7 schools to apply in Round 1 since I wanted to be finished by early 2020. Krista was REALISTIC with me about my chances at certain schools, something I really appreciate after this humbling process.

3. Essays. Krista’s help in this area likely helped me get a scholarship from a T10 school. Krista helped me plan and put together top-notch essays. I tend to ramble (can you tell?) and Krista helped me refine my essays to the most important topics. In some cases, she helped me restructure my essays to make a stronger, more impactful statement. To be clear, she did not write my essays, but she did make my essays 100% better. If you’re a regular person like me, I promise you, your essays will be so much better after working with Krista

4. Recommenders. Krista helped me manage my letters of recommendation very effectively. First of all, she gave strict timelines that I used in order to get my applications in on time. This was very important since one of my recommenders took FOREVER to get back to me. When one of my recommenders gave me bland feedback, Krista helped me put together conversation points that helped me speak with that recommender. He ended up writing a fantastic letter of recommendation that included specific examples. Krista really saved the day here.

5. Interview prep. This was HUGE. MBAmission provides free interview guides for top programs. These guides include actual questions and what to expect. Krista took this a step further and conducted mock interviews with me. This gave me a significant advantage over other applicants since I had an idea of the pressure that I would feel answering real interview questions. Krista asked actual behavioral questions that sometimes caught me off guard, but this helped me during the real interview. In one scenario, 100% of the questions during my T10 interview were asked either in our mock interview or in the Interview guide. HUGE ADVANTAGE!!!

6. Advice and Friendship. I feel like Krista really cared about me, my family, and my helping me reach my goals. At no point did I ever feel like we had a transactional relationship. During this entire process, I feel like Krista has grown into a family friend, someone that I can trust for real, honest career advice. I think we all need someone like that in our corner.

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Background - I am a Caucasian male working in Finance (wealth management) with a degree from a decent private school and a 710 GMAT score. Needless to say I come from a very over-represented group.

Like many people who ultimately chose to go with mbaMission, I chose the service for its excellent reviews and the abundant resources the service provides. I chose the 4-school package, and although I was nervous to spend that amount of money, I cannot stress how much it was worth it in the end. I chose to work with Melissa Blakeslee after doing the free 30 minute fit call, and I could not be happier with my experience with her. She is a former admissions director herself, so she knows exactly that the admissions teams look for. The essay writing process is daunting, and I know I would've second guessed myself or submitted a much weaker essay without Melissa's help. MbaMission guarantees responses within 48 hours, but most of the time Melissa would send me her reviews of my essays the next day. I always felt comfortable shooting her a quick email asking random questions, knowing she'd respond quickly.

The time spent working on the Brainstorming document and session was especially well-worth it. Melissa was able to pull details from it in order to help me think through how to write each of my essays, and I was amazed with how much she seemed to know about me in just a short period of time. She was patient, organized, and most importantly really cared about my success.

By the end of the process, I was accepted into a top 10 school with scholarship! I thought it would be difficult for someone with my background to get accepted into a top program, but I never even imagined I could get funding for it. The money spent up-front for the consulting service paid off multiple times over with my scholarship reward, and I know that I wouldn't have gotten it without Melissa's help.

I honestly can't recommend Melissa enough. Please do yourself a favor and work with her!

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Susan is a fantastic admissions consultant. I can't say enough about her contribution to my applications.

She spends a lot of time upfront clearly laying out her process so that working with her is efficient and methodical. We spent a lot of time brainstorming my story and how it will fit with my target programs. I did not have a safe school and she respected that decision - her goal is to make your application the best it can be for each school you choose. Within the framework of my story, she pushed me to adapt each application to the specific schools to increase the likelihood of success. The application has to be genuine and has to align if/when invited to interview, so she is careful not to draft actual text. She NEVER missed a 48hr turnaround deadline and frequently sent through comments earlier. During crunch periods when I needed things turned around more quickly she took the time to explain what my options were and her availability to accommodate. Her guidance is always clear, helpful, and specific when it needs to be. She must have turned my HBS essay 30+ times and the 4 others 15+.

Applied to 5 schools; Accepted to 4 (HBS, Wharton ($$), Tuck, Kellogg ($$$)), wait-listed at 1. White male in finance.

She is not stressful to work with. She can seem 'tough' at times, but in the best way possible: only because she knows if your application does not yet fully reflect your potential in the context of each school's values. She will insist that the essays can get better and will give you the guidance to help you get there.

Finally, she's on your side. She cares about your success and will be anxious with you when decision are released!

I highly recommend choosing Susan as your admission consultant.

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When first contemplating an admissions consultant, I was very hesitant as many others probably are due to the cost. I took the jump after my initial consultation with Krista and think it was the best decision in gaining admission to a program that will change my life and well worth the investment.

Krista worked with me in essentially every step of the process except GMAT prep. The three things that benefited me the most were school selection, crafting my story, and her personal interest in my success.

School Selection: Krista and I talked in depth about school selection. She introduced me to a wide selection of schools that she thought would be a good fit for me that I had not considered. Through our conversations, she opened my eyes to how school fit could effect my future career and experience at a school and ultimately helped shape the list of schools I applied to.

Crafting My Story: Coming from a non traditional background, I was at a point in my life to transition to a new career but wasn't exactly sure how I would make the transition. It's important to have your own broad vision but not knowing what you don't know makes it hard to paint a complete picture. Krista's experience really helped fill the gaps in my story and allowed me to better communicate the "where I've been, where I'm at, and where I want to go" story. She also helped to translate the essays we worked on together to fit prompts for other schools that I worked on myself.

Personal Interest: I think the most important part of my relationship with Krista was her personal interest in my success, her professionalism, and dedication to what she does. Krista is deeply passionate about what she does and it shows. She has always returned my documents with corrections early, sometimes same day depending on her workload. She is extremely responsive to email for quick questions and easy to schedule skype calls with to talk about progress throughout the application process.

Having Krista and the resources of mbaMission by your side through your application process is probably the best decision you can make. With Krista's help, I have acceptance letters from two top 10 programs with scholarships. It was truly a pleasure working with Krista this past year and cannot recommend her enough.

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At the moment I’m writing this, I’ve just finished and sent my applications for HBS and Wharton R2, it’s still some weeks before interview invitations and a couple of months before final decisions.
Even with that said, I cannot recommend Katy enough. Ever since the free consultation she went further and beyond than what I expected and even experienced with other consultants at their respective free consultations. She was very open with me about my initial GMAT score which was not good enough for the schools I wanted to apply, furthermore given the date where I achieved a “decent” GMAT she was also very clear to me that I wouldn’t be able to land a 1R application and that we should better work towards R2. This very honest and mindful advice was key for me and I’m sure that many other consultants could have tried to seize the opportunity to rush an application and free one more client spot for R2, but not Katy.
So we started working for R2. The very first day of work she sent me all of the material I would need for the whole application process, which proved to be much more challenging and burdensome than what I had anticipated, but Katy helped me to go, firmly, one step at a time, putting attention to all details. During the first sessions she helped me define which schools I had a better chance given my profile (so I changed from Stanford and Berkley to HBS and Wharton…). As I am a Latin-American applicant coming from a family business, the differences in these programs were not very clear to me, so her insights for this initial and crucial part of the process were invaluable. Furthermore, and specially for someone coming from my background she helped me identify how should I present myself to the AdComs, what stories should I bring into my essays, and very very importantly how to choose and coach my recommenders.
Before continuing, I have to address Katy’s amazing skill to help me trim my essays, reducing a lot of clutter and to make them very clear, concise and directed specifically for the programs I had chosen.
Regarding the recommenders, given my background, it was the part of the application that I had the least idea on how to approach. Katy helped me identify my best fits given the stories I shared with them and how the fitted the rest of my application. Furthermore, she was in contact with them and guided them through the daunting recommendation writing process. If you are a Latin-American applicant, coming from a family company or even a regional company, I cannot stress on how important is that someone guides your recommenders during this process, as the very concept of Letter of Recommendation expected by the AdComs is very very different to what is/was in my recommenders heads.
Finally I have to recognize and thank Katy enormously because she went trough the whole process with me being available practically all the time, even despite all the holidays that come just before R2: Labor day, Columbus, Veteran’s, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s… And I didn’t even had to use express services nor anything like that.
Even if I don’t get admitted to any program (I applied with Katy only to HBS and Wharton, because that’s as far as my budget could go, but I applied to 3 other programs on my own) she helped me to give my best shot possible at ALL my application processes, because I learned so much about me and how to go through the application processes in general. I am sure that working with Katy was the best decision I could make, she really pours herself completely to help you; your application matters to her as much as you, as simple as that.

tl;dr: Katy is an amazing consultant, your application matters to her as much as to you. Amazing support. As LatAm applicant from family business background, LoR support was key for me. Tip: book early w/her.

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Dan was so helpful from the very beginning to the end. During our first call, I was very unsure about the schools I wanted to apply to and whether or not they were the right options for me. He spent a lot of time researching the programs and understanding what I wanted to get out of an MBA to help me narrow down my choices. He also connected me with several students which also helped my decision making process.

During the application process, he spent a lot of time suggesting ideas and helping me rework my essays. There were times I didn't even know where to begin with my essay and he was able to give me suggestions on what to talk about. He was also extremely patient and he always responded to my questions / provided edits for my essay in a very timely manner, making this daunting process a lot easier.

The MBA process is very challenging. Going into the process, I knew that even crafting the perfect application might not guarantee admission into the school I want. But I didn't want to have any regrets and I knew I wanted to take advantage of all the resources that were available to develop a strong application, and with Dan's help I was able to do that.

Happy to say that I got into my top choice and I couldn't have done it with him!!

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Harshad’s help throughout the whole process was incredible and it was with his help that my application was as strong as it could be. Even though my age is younger than the average age of most MBA students, I was still interviewed by all the schools I applied to and got accepted into a top 10 school. I know I would not have been as successful without his help! His support is very strong and he is extremely good at breaking down and polishing your experiences to create a compelling message for admissions. As I have a technical job, it was through this that we clearly broke down my achievements so they could easily highlight my fortitudes for an MBA. Furthermore, as others have stated his feedback is concise, straight to the point, thorough and insightful. He will make sure your application components are the best they can be and succinctly express your achievements – extremely useful when you want to capture your story in word limited essays! Finally, he always provided feedback in a very timely manner allowing me to submit my applications without any rush. The whole process, from brainstorming for the essays to submitting the applications was definitely made easier by his help! I am extremely grateful for all his support and apart from being great at his job he is also a friendly fun person to work with, making the whole process a lot easier and enjoyable. I have absolutely no doubts about recommending Harshad and am extremely thankful for all his support!

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I worked with Heidi during 2018 Round 1 and 2 cycles and came away extremely disappointed with not only the result but also the process. Considering how much time and money I invested into the services, I was unhappy with the level of effort Heidi put into reviewing my materials especially after the first school was done, and also with the level of expertise in managing my expectations as a client. Both of these reasons led me to have to reapply this year and despite Heidi having the audacity to ask if I wanted to pay for more services, I of course declined and was fortunately able to gain acceptance on my own without using any of the materials that we worked on together. I now know that hiring Heidi and mbaMission was a big mistake and I would never recommend them to any future applicants.

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