When I was looking to work with an admissions consultant in the summer to put my best foot forward in the application process, a very good friend of mine, who’d gotten into B school, suggested I take John's and mbaMission's help. During my initial conversation, I found John to be refreshingly honest. I knew I was aggressive with my school selection, given my background. John, while mentioning some of the pitfalls with my strategy, told me "You've done half the job. Now, leave all the worrying about your odds of getting in to me!" After this, I was convinced to enlist John’s help with the ‘All-in’ package.
Because I was consulting on a project in John’s city, we decided to meet up at a local Starbucks to go over essay outlines for my top choice school. John’s storytelling skills shone through immediately. I could see that he had taken the time to go over my background and stories from the brainstorming document I’d sent to him earlier. I was very impressed with the way John provided structure and detail to my essays, all while introducing ‘hooks’ from my past to keep the reader engaged. At the end of the essay writing process, I was convinced I presented the best version of myself to the admissions committee.
John also helped refine my message and delivery during a 30 minute mock interview over the phone. When the day of the interview came, I was confident of facing any question my interviewer could potentially throw at me. I was eventually accepted into my top choice program. In hindsight, working with John proved to be a great decision. He truly cares about his client’s success. I’m confident, my investment in mbaMisson and John will prove to be a drop in the bucket over the long run.

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The MBA application process is grueling and I was incredibly lucky to have Melissa in my corner through it all. Vetting admissions consultancies is a long process and I walked away from my free consultation with Melissa knowing that she'd be an asset during my application process. She wasn't afraid to give me detailed and honest advice from the get go, and her experience as a director of admissions and a marketer showed.

I had a general idea of the professional and personal experiences that I'd draw from, but Melissa was able to key in on the most important aspects and tailor different stories that would work for the schools that I was applying to. Melissa was always positive and knew how to showcase my strengths in ways that that would appeal to the admissions committee. Beyond her help with my essays and stories, Melissa always kept me on schedule - she was quick with her responses and she always made it a priority to keep me on track for my round 1 applications. Even Hurricane Harvey couldn't slow her down.

The bottom line is this: it's a significant investment to hire an admissions consultant, but the returns can far outweigh the costs. MBA students are foregoing two years of income and spending ungodly amounts of money, so it's important that you maximize your chances of going to a top program. Melissa helped me with this and ultimately got me into the program of my choice. I couldn't have done it without her.

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When I took the decision to apply to a Harvard Kennedy School, a year before the application deadline, I contacted a friend of mine, alumni from this school, to get insights from him on the application process. Among the precious advice he gave me, was the fact that I should work with a consultant. American people use consultants despite the fact that they know the system and that they can get lot of information from people around them. So, to him, as a foreign student, working with a consultant was really helpful in his application process but above all, because this consultant was Jessica Shklar. He specifically explained to me that choosing to work with Jessica was also a main factor of success. I immediately requested a 30 minute call with her.
It took me 10 minutes to understand that she was the person I wanted to work with. I am very difficult client (and I told her since the beginning!) because I like to challenge people and make sure that they add value to my work when collaborating with them. I am also very motivated when I have an objective in mind and I can spend entire days and nights thinking about it… hence, bothering people about it and asking endless questions.
I started to work with Jessica around <6 months before the deadline. At that time I had not taken my GMAT test yet and was starting to study it. Working with her in advance was helpful because she provided me with an assessment of my profile and gave me advice on how to improve my weaknesses and strengthen my profile. I remember that she raised two concerns that we would work on to improve my application: quantitative abilities (because of some low grades in finance classes), unprecise professional project (I knew I wanted to have a social impact but I was unable to define a path). For each of them, she gave me guidelines and advice on how to improve the gaps for the coming months. Because I had this assessment well in advance, I was able to prepare an action plan. She looked at my resume and gave me ideas of organizations and positions I might be interested in in the future, given my previous experience and my areas of interest. She even managed to introduce me to people working in some of these organizations to get their feedback.
Thanks to a very loooooonnnng brainstorming document that she asked me to fill in, she got to know me very well. It took me many hours per day during more than a month to complete it. But It helped her a lot to understand my whole story and to provide meaningful and relevant advice during the brainstorming sessions we had.
She also gave me advice to prepare for the TOEFL and GMAT/GRE. I had taken the TOEFL once, a month before contacting Jessica and was 12 points below the required grade, 22 below the preferred one. I had also difficulties to obtain a decent GMAT score. I was scoring in the 500s! She encouraged me to keep going and told me about success stories she witnessed. That positive mind is also key to succeed. She always encourage me when I needed it. This helped me reach my target TOEFL score at the second trial. And she also helped me change my strategy from GMAT to GRE. I obtained a medium score at the latest but my performance was far above that mediocre GMAT score.
Then, we started to work on the essays. At the beginning, I applied to one school, my dream school but after discussions with Jessica, I realized that studying in a school which is not my dream school would be better than staying on my current job. I would not take risks. I decided to add two other schools to my package and we worked on the three of them together. What I like is that she provided me advice without never telling me “you should do this or this”. She will always advise me based on her experience but I will always have the last word. And whatever the solution I chose, she would always support me.
To strengthen my chances of admission, I decided to visit HKS. That time again, she provided me with advice so that I would take more benefit from this visit. She pointed out a few things she knew were important for me and ensured that I would not forget to seek information about them.
For each of the three schools, we designed different essays, with the same basis but she always ensured that we would tailor them to the schools’ specificities. She insisted every time during the reviews to make sure that we’d answer the right questions instead of telling what I wanted them to know (which is something we all tend to do).
She also reviewed my recommenders’ letters, ensuring that they’d be specifically tailored to my specific profile and that my recommenders do not write “one-fit-all” letters.
I appreciated many different things during our collaboration:
- What I like the most is the passion she has for people. Doing her job requires a lot of empathy and she always showed enthusiasm with my story. At some point, I felt like I was not working anymore with a service provider but someone who is really committed to help me succeed;
- How responsive she is: she would always react quickly to quick questions and even, in many instances, send back the essays before the contractual deadline or during her days off;
- She knows the schools: thanks to her long-time experience, she is aware of what the schools are waiting for. Hence you don’t lose time explaining to her the different specificities and requirements- the only thing I did not want was to pay a consultant and have to explain him/her things that are available online; with Jessica, you rather spend your time demonstrating how you are a good fit for the school because she has done her own research;
- She really cares about every part of the application: we worked on about 12 versions of my resume to make it fit the application requirement and strengthen the best parts of my profile and as many versions of the +15 essays I wrote;
- She knows how to set limits: she’ll always tell you when you are going too far and which things are important or not; in my case, I had a tendency to look at every little nitpicky detail of my application and she made me realize that some imperfections are also a sign of authenticity; in the same way, she will never write for you, ensuring that your essays are written in your own voice. But she would write a ton of comments for you to address;
- She wants you to show the best part of yourself but always with honesty. I had some many interesting things to include in the different parts of my application and discovered that some elements I thought to be “normal” where things that could be valued if I take the time to analyze them from different angles; she has the capacity to present your accomplishments in a way that highlights different skills;
- Additionally, she would always put herself in the perspective of an admission committee member and take a fresh look and distance on the application, which is something I appreciated; It sometimes revealed things both of us knew but that were not clear in the application.

Finally, I got admitted to the three schools I applied to, with a scholarship for one of them… and this, despite a medium GRE score and some low grades in Quant classes.
I chose to attend Harvard Kennedy School as it is my first choice.
I am sure this would never had happened without her input and I am very grateful for it. I would not hesitate to recommend her to my friends in the future. And I definitely recommend her to anyone who is interested in working with someone qualified, dynamic and able to provide meaningful and actionable advice.

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I am a non-traditional candidate by most measures (mid-30, minority, advanced degree, untraditional career goal and non-straight-line experience prior to application). I disclose this much information to underscore this point: your essay and interview prep will be greatly enhanced beyond your expectation once Jessica put her touch on them. She is straightforward, passionate, empathetic, experienced and effective. She guides you through all processes; you should follow her advice because she knows the difference between overpreparation and underpreparation and will definitely draw the line between the two to tailor your need/ability to deliver the results My experience working with her came after an extensive search for consultants. To illustrate my detour before I got to Jessica, I had this one consultant not respond to my email and my (desperate I supposed) willingness to work with her/him after s/he reviewed my resume I initially sent to her/him. I remember I said to myself: I must be a hot potato with a complicated life history that even the professionals are dropping me like one. Do yourself a favor and work with Jessica. -Stanford GSB admit

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I could go on and on about why I would recommend Jessica to a close friend or anyone seeking a great admissions consultant.

I could tell them about Jessica's rapid and methodical brainstorming techniques to help you get great stories out in essays, her speed at getting work returned back to you, her expert editing to get your essay down from a long winded and unpolished essay into a sleek and powerful piece, her passion and dedicated commitment to make you succeed, and her ability to actually make the process FUN.

But really the true reason I would recommend her boils down to one reason and one reason only. She gets the job done. I had a less than stellar GPA and a less than stellar GMAT/GRE and Jessica helped me get into two schools and waitlisted at a third. One being my #1 pick where I will be going this Fall. Enough said!

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Last year, I decided to apply for MBA programs in the US. However, as a French engineer, I didn’t know much about the application process. I had no friends or family with an MBA, so I was getting into complete unknown territory here. After reviewing all the requirements (GMAT, TOEFL, essays, extracurricular, recommendations, transcripts,…), I knew that I definitely needed help to succeed.

I found out about admission consultants on the Internet and scheduled free consultations with the biggest admissions consultant businesses. After few calls, I wasn’t very enthusiast as they only focused on my GMAT/TOEFL score (700/102) and my target schools. I finally scheduled a free consultation with Helen Summers from mbamission. It was completely different as she was genuinely interested in me and my story. I immediately knew I wanted to work with her. I chose to go with the 4-schools « Start to Finish » package. I ended up getting admission offers from 3 schools from the top 15, one with a scholarship.

Here’s few adjectives to describe the amazing experience of working with Helen :

- Demanding : The first few weeks, we brainstormed and discussed for hours about my background and my work experience to identify inspirational stories that could be used in my essays. I think this initial brainstorming was essential as it provided solid grounds for the my applications. She really pushed me to clarify my goals and deepen my story. (Why an MBA? Why now ? Why these schools ?) Helen didn’t want to settle for generic answers and I had to devote a lot of time to introspection in order to have a compelling story to tell.

- Responsive : Helen was very responsive in reading my drafts, adding comments, and sending them back always within 48 hours, sometimes on Sunday !! When I needed to schedule a call or ask specific questions, she always reached back very quickly. When we had to schedule mock interviews in January/February, she was available and always very punctual.

- Honest : All along, she offered me very honest and but constructive feedbacks. As a non-native English speaker, I definitely needed help to produce high quality essays and she didn’t miss to point out things that she didn’t like or understand (words, ideas, or a turns of phrase,…) I wrote between 5 to 8 drafts for each essay and I’m really proud of what we delivered. Helen also did a great job in preparing me for the interviews. The questions she asked me during mock interviews were spot on and the real interviews went very smoothly with no big surprise thanks to her.

- Kind and warm : Helen has been very supportive during the few months we worked together. I really enjoyed the time we spent on Skype during brainstorming sessions, essay reviews, or mock interviews. She is not only a great professional but also a very kind person that makes you feel supported in this long and stressful process.

In a nutshell, I definitely recommend Helen to anyone considering applying for an MBA, especially international applicants like me. I wouldn’t have done it without her !!

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I decided to apply to business school very "late in the game" mid-last summer, with no GMAT score and little direction on how to to structure myself as an applicant...but I knew I only wanted to go to a top school. Come in Jeremy Shinewald, who I have since dubbed "half friend, half my MBA consultant" after sticking with me over the past 8 months.

Considering I only finished my GMAT in December and applications were due January 3rd; Jeremy was part of the process through the ups and downs of not hitting the GMAT score we needed, to re-editing application essays (50+ times as the application story evolved) to finally being admitted to my top pick, Wharton.

Not only would I not have been able to apply this year as I was so originally "lost" in the process, I most certainly would not have been able to gain admission to a school like Wharton without Jeremy. He was dedicated and committed, talking me through the process always and was on call. He went above and beyond any consultants "job" - he took my application to heart and took my success personally.

Jeremy is the founder of MBAmission and manages a team of 20+ MBA consultants - the value of his access to this team (he brought in others on the team when needed) and his personal depth of knowledge is incalculable. I never felt like I was his second priority to his firm. In fact, I felt like I was his main priority throughout. I truly can't emphasize his responsiveness enough. It was clear that he cares very deeply for every client, as the founder of the firm and gets the micro right, letting the macro take care of itself.

When an MBA cost are high and the opportunity cost sometimes even higher, working with a company such as Jeremy's MBAmission is a no brainer in my book. Presenting yourself as the strongest applicant and bettering your chances to a top school is a long term investment I would make any day. I could not recommend Jeremy more.

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After being rejected from all the schools I applied to last year, I felt I needed some professional help to be successful and I’m happy I picked Harshad to guide me through this challenge. With his help I was able to secure 3 offers of admission from some of the top-10 schools with substantial scholarship $$$.
He was incredibly helpful since the first 30 minutes consultation when I immediately appreciated his “we’ll make it happen” attitude. He was capable to identify the weaknesses from my previous applications and provided great insights to help me reflect on my achievements, redefine my career goals and strengthen my personal brand. The opportunity to work with a person who could deeply understand me on a personal level was fundamental to my success: he was truly there to fight this battle with me.
Harshad’s encouraging consultation style helped me to grow confidence in my work, kept me motivated throughout the application and boosted my morale when I was feeling discouraged (and trust me, there will be moments of discouragement!) At the same time I appreciated his frankness in pointing out my errors and his guidance in resolving my weaknesses. He always provided clear and compelling explanations in support of his recommendations so that I could understand the thought process and develop my own critical judgement.
Overall his ability to reshape my profile and develop a customized strategy joined with a great competence as storyteller made him the ideal consultant to work with. I wish I had him on my side on the first application round to avoid the unnecessary pain of failure.

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Applying to business school is a daunting task. It’s both difficult and unnatural to compile everything about you into a neat, comprehensive package and then present it to admission committees who will be making a decision that directly impacts your career trajectory. John did an amazing job breaking down the process into manageable pieces, which both calmed my nerves, and gave me direction throughout the process. What I found most helpful when working with John was his ability to adapt as the application process unfolded. I worked with John for almost a full year, and in that year a lot of things changed in my personal and professional lives, which altered my approach to finding the right business school for me. However, John was able to adjust our process along the way, culminating in my acceptance into my dream school. I can confidently say that I would not have been able to get into my top choices without John, and for that, I’ll be forever thankful. I can’t thank John enough!

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I worked with Katy on my Round 2 applications starting in October 2017. At the time, I was weighing a couple of other options, but ultimately decided to go with Katy because of the rapport we immediately established during our 30-minute kick off call and I have been thrilled with that decision ever since!

Katy was incredibly helpful and methodical at every step in the process, and I can say without a doubt that I would not have been able to get into my top schools without her guidance. I was nervous at the beginning because I felt that I didn't have a good grasp of what the top programs were looking for and was somewhat concerned by my GMAT score (V44/Q45).

Katy gave me confidence throughout the process and helped me to refine my story so that I was able to effectively message my candidacy to a variety of programs. She quickly answered every question I had, and her feedback to my drafts was always thoughtful and productive. One thing that really made our partnership effective was how she often provided her feedback in the form a reaction rather than line-editing. That allowed me to retain my voice while at the same time sharpening the points I wanted to convey.

While several other reviewers focus on how valuable her feedback was on their essays--which are undoubtedly important--I found that she was incredibly helpful in interview prep and also served as a sounding board for one of my recommenders who was unfamiliar with the process. These attributes, in addition to her being a very kind and generous person, made Katy absolutely wonderful to work with.

Long story short: If you are considering working with Katy, you should do so. I consider her a friend and will always be grateful for her assistance in this intense process!

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