I can't tell my business school application story without talking about Jessica Shklar from mbaMission. By helping me find my voice, Jessica gave me the tools I needed to articulately convey my 3-dimensional self to the Stanford admissions committee and secure admission.

Three days before I submitted a round 1 application, I had a crisis. My GMAT score, which I'd expected to be top notch fell below the Stanford average. I had to make a decision - apply round 1 or take it again and apply round 2. Deciding to give this my very best shot, I decided against submitting the round 1 application. My mentor suggested that in addition to working on retaking the GMAT, I reach out to Jessica to have her look at my essays. I am so glad that I did!

Jessica didn't 'spruce up' my essays for me. She compelled me to stop writing things I think the admissions team want to hear and instead focus on honestly telling my story in a colorful way that allowed a 360-degree view of my real self to shine through - embracing my personality, highlighting my core strengths, and being honest about my areas for development. Jessica is an enabler and a mentor. She provided me with tangible frameworks for honest self reflection and invaluable writing techniques to honestly tell my story. By focusing on harnessing my voice instead of superimposing that of another's, like most consultants do, Jessica guided me to produce the best application that I could. I was so impressed by how committed Jessica was - she always responded on time! Never a second late. In fact, her promptness, passion, and professionalism challenged me to give my application everything that I had. After I submitted my application, Jessica remained a refreshing source of counsel and support.

As soon as I got the interview notification, she was there for me providing me with concrete ways to structure my responses so that I don't just ramble or give in to nerves. This helped me feel confident during my interview - I could relax and be myself because I knew I was well prepared. Prospective students always ask me whether or not they should use a consultant. I always say the same thing - if Jessica can take you on board then YES YES YES!

Nothing compares to having a coach who will push you to be honest, focused, and articulate.

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Helen was great in helping me with the application process. She helped me target schools in my GMAT range and provided me with assistance in writing my application essays. Helen gave me constructive criticism and helped me learn how to enhance my resume to its fullest ability as well as how to construct and interesting and informative essay. She was very quick to respond to my inquiries and was very easy to contact and work with. The turnover time in between drafts and her critique was at the most 3 business days;she was very very efficient, yet gave me an very detailed criticisms. I would highly recommend her as a consultant .

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I was initially skeptical of working with a high-priced consultant, but MBAMission had me wowed after the one hour complementary consultation.

The consultant asked me to articulate the reasons for my “top choice” schools at the time, and then proceeded to rip them apart. After learning about what I wanted out of my experience, my background, and my scores/work experience, she was able to draft up a list of 5 schools – a couple “reach”, a couple “target”, and a “safety” program – all within the top ~15 US MBA programs. I was wowed at how quickly she was able to see through my bs reasoning and methodically select a target list for me. After doing extensive research on her suggestions, I ended up applying to 4 of the 5 programs she suggested, and using MBA Mission to help me with my application.

The consultant I initially spoke to matched me up with a senior consultant at MBA Mission with a similar work experience background to mine – Helen Summers. Helen is fantastic!! I literally cannot say enough positive things about her. Here are a few:

- Helen is a straight shooter. When she sees bs/poor logic in your essays, interview responses, etc, etc she isn’t afraid to tell you.

- Helen pushes you to think deeper. Very rarely is your first essay/short answer idea the best one. It takes iterations to find the best story to tell and the best angle to take. Helen consistently pushed you to go deeper instead of taking the superficial/overdone/unconvincing but easy to write route. The essays I ended up crafting with Helen’s guidance are some of my most poignant writing, where my personality really shines through.

- Helen doesn’t write the essays for you. You put in the hard work. She is simply a very honest sounding board and editor. This is especially important since business schools want to hear your voice, not the voice of a consultant.

- She is a perfectionist. Some of my essays were on draft 11 or more before they were considered done. She looks at word count, grammar, syntax, flow, content, how gripping the story is, etc, etc.

- Helen is great at resume assistance. I thought I was already a fairly strong resume writer, but she really helped me articulate my accomplishments in a role, rather than my responsibilities. She also helped me do it in a way that made my accomplishments clear to a reader that would not necessarily know about my industry.

- Helen does her research on the schools. She knows the trend in interview questions for a specific school/ round. This makes interview prep twice as effective.

- Helen is super-responsive. About 70% of the time, she responded to me well before the official turn-around period. Of course as application deadlines approach she’ll have more work, so budget your time accordingly.

- Finally, Helen was super invested in my success. She genuinely wanted to see me succeed. The application process is super successful and it was fantastic to her guidance and support throughout.

I opted for the all-inclusive package. It’s expensive, but for me it was well worth it. Here are a few reasons why:

- You get unlimited essay editing. I cannot tell you how beneficial this is. I would write a draft and get comments back, rewrite, and then get more comments back. Had I only been able to submit for editing once or twice, my essays would not be nearly as tightly-written.

- Having a consultant forces you to keep momentum. I am a huge procrastinator, but having manageable chunks (ie. edit v7 of my essay, edit v2 of my resume, etc) helped me not get overwhelmed and keep going.

- The package includes help with and edits of all the fields in the application. This is a huge area for minefields as you have very few characters to articulate your biggest challenge in a role, etc. Definitely take advantage of this part of the package.

- The package includes resume help, mock-interviews, and all sorts of other super-helpful guidance.

All in all, I had a very positive experience with MBAMission and Helen Summers and would recommend both highly. One final thought – if you are having a hard time justifying the price, remember that after all is said and done, b-school will cost you roughly $200k. It is a huge investment. Spending a little extra to make sure you have the strongest application possible and upping your chances of getting into your preferred programs is well worth it.

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After hearing about this company at an MBA open house I was immediatly interested in hiring them to help me apply to school.

I have a different background than most MBA applicants. My work, life, and education experiences are completely different. They helped me compose the strongest application possible to each school- highlight my strenghts, show them off properly and show how big of an asset I could be to the schools I was applying to. When I had a major change in my life that affected the schools that I was applying to and the programs that I was applying for my advisor was flexible, understanding and willing to give me as much of her time as possible to ensure that my applications were great, got out on time and would be to a standard that was worthy of the schools that I was applying to.

Without the help of my advisor I would have been lost and would not gotten in to my prefered MBA program. The school packages are even better, they allow me to work through the entire application with my advisor, I even consulted with her on some of the short answer questions. The fact that she was there to help me answer the questions, the essays, which school to apply to and expecially Interview prep made it all the better. She was able to answer any questions I had about B-Schools and even some of the school I was thinking about. I recommend their services to anybody that I talk to.

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Jessica Shklar and mbaMission was a tremendous help to me in getting into my top B-schools. I applied in the R3 to HBS last year and got dinged. I decided that I needed to "up my game" this time around if I was to be successful.

I did preliminary interviews with 3 different organizations before settling on Jessica and mbaMission. What made the different in selecting them was the personal outreach that the principle at the organization, Jeremy, made to me. I was very happy with my decision. Jessica has great insight into the admissions process, gets drafts back quickly, and has great suggestions on how to improve essays. When I had trouble getting beyond superficial material, she really helped me dig deeper to draw out the details of my stories. She has terrific insight into the interview process and is really able to help you prep for the different questions that schools ask. She also would keep on me when I wasn't getting drafts to her quickly enough.

In the end, I got into all of the schools I applied to – HBS, Wharton, Sloan, and Kellogg. I would highly recommend using Jessica to anyone considering a consultant.

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Hey everyone – I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences with mbaMission because I had such a wonderful experience that everyone should hear it before they make the decision to hire a consultant.

When I was exploring business school, I wasn’t sold that I needed to hire a consultant. After I had a free consultation with Monica at mbaMission (as well as a number of the other top admissions consulting firms) it became clear to me that even though I was capable of handling the admissions process on my own, there is a tremendous amount of value in the service and that mbaMission was the best-in-class in the business.

From the other reviews below you can get a very good understanding of what’s included in the package (as well as through the mbaMission website) but I’ll highlight a few of the more important benefits:

- Deep understanding as to how to think like an admissions consultant

- Avoid any simple mistakes that may make you less attractive to the admissions boards

- How to properly showcase your story – we’re all very interesting people and have a lot to share, and it’s important to cohesively craft your set of essays to highlight who you are

I had purchased the comprehensive package and I got my money’s worth. I used over 50 hours of consulting time working through every part of my application including the essays, the application itself, the resume, and interview preparation and Monica was always upbeat, professional, extremely helpful, and very knowledgeable throughout the entire process. She was happy to continue to work with me until I was 100% satisfied with how I packaged my application and my work product showed it. Looking back, it would have been worth 2x the cost for the services that I received throughout.

In the end, with the help of Monica, I got the payoff that I had worked so hard for – I was accepted to HBS in the fall! If you want to maximize your chances of getting into your dream school, you’d be foolish if you decided to do anywhere else except hire Monica and mbaMission.

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I used Jessica at MBA Mission.

My Story:

I applied R1 to one Top 5 school just to test the water and see where I was at. I did not get invited to interview but a good friend did. She advised me to use a consultant and gave Jessica an extremely
strong recommendation.

The main reason I was reluctant was the cost element. After my experience, I would equally pass on the recommendation to any potential candidates as I found Jessica's help tremendously beneficial.
Absolutely worth every penny.

I would recommend a consultant even more to those who, like myself, have less traditional
mba candidate background: European
male late 20s from legal background with some banking experience and a couple of post graduate degrees already.


So how did Jessica assist me:

First, after a thorough review of my story, she set realistic expectations from outset. i.e. it would be very difficult to get top 5 schools and maybe to look down the list.  This surprised me as even though I was a different I thought I had a great story so her
advice here made me understand the magnitude of the task and focused me even further.  I realized I would need to carefully select schools so after alot consideration, (I had already visited them before when i was on work trip to US and I also highly recommend this in order to get a feel of them), I focussed on two schools (both top 5) with strong finance faculties.

Then we did the brainstorming session which was extremely detailed and was the longest one our phone conversations. It's completely comprehensive and it is important that you prepare for it beforehand - you don't want to have to think about all the stories on the spot although Jessica will encourage and cajole ones out of you - some that i had even
forgot!  We picked the main questions I was going to answer and which stories would suit best. Then I started writing, and writing, and writing. I
can not emphasise enough how much time it takes.
While Jessica reviews and edits each version, it is up to you to do all the writing. I must say I thought maybe that it would be less work on my part - after all, i was paying for service - but service is not
an essay writing one. you have to do this yourself but Jessica's changes and suggestions to my essays were significant. She really assisted me in getting my story tight. Both applications were excellent although one suited my story a little better. I wasnt surprised then that this was the school which I got invited to
interview with. Again mba mission help you here and I felt I was fully prepared for this.  

My interview was quite tough but I got admitted to Top 5 school so am a very happy mba mission user.

Another area that I would like to highlight was the dramatic improvement in resume. While the content largely remains the same, the format is a dramatic improvement. It is incredible the improvement and
a number of people who have seen it have commented on it.

Finally, my last comment would be that if you are to use a consultant to start as early as possible. Jessica is extremely thorough and there will be so many drafts that it is much better to get it started early.
That is the only thing i would have done differently.

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Working with Jessica Shklar of MBAMission is the only reason I am headed off to the bschool of my dreams this fall. From the moment I first signed on with Jessica she was nothing but focused, dedicated and enthusiastic. Jessica was instrumental in determining what schools were appropriate for me to target, leveraging both personal and professional experiences to create unique and differentiated essay story lines, editing my resume/application and keeping me on pace to complete a number of applications. Without Jessica’s help I would have had a great deal of trouble overcoming my abnormally low GMAT score. I am far from “the perfect bschool applicant” but under Jessica’s tutelage I was able to write a well balanced and well rounded application…and as I already mentioned get into the top 10 school of my dreams!

Jessica’s intellectual ability and dedication to her clients is only matched by her knowledge of the MBA process and individual business school programs. If you are serious about giving yourself the best possible chance to be accepted, get serious and hire Jessica Shklar + MBAMission.

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I started working with mbaMission after I had a free 30 minute consultation in their NYC offices where we discussed my career goals, resume, target schools, etc. I recommend doing this (especially since its free) to get a bearings of where you are at in the MBA application process.

After the consultation I signed up and worked with one of their admissions consultants, Dan Richards, on my Columbia Business School application. Dan was extremely helpful throughout the entire application process, from start to finish.

For me, the biggest benefit was for the essays - the brainstorming and ideas discussions were very beneficial in terms of conveying the core themes of my application and how I wanted to portray myself to the admissions committee. Dan was very easy to get in touch with and responded with essay comments well earlier than the agreed upon time frames.

Overall, it was great to have someone with a lot of experience with putting together successful top-tier business school applications. His help was invaluable and I highly recommend their services to anyone looking to put together an excellent b-school application.

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I worked with Angela Guido on the end-to-end package for three top-5 schools. Though I came from a typical b-school-feeder background (consulting) and had good numbers (3.7 GPA / 740 GMAT), with Stanford as my dream school I felt I needed help on telling a compelling story to separate me from the pack. My result was that I received interviews at all 3 schools, was accepted to 2/3, and will be attending Stanford in the fall.

I spoke to multiple firms to choose a consultant and felt an immediate connection when I spoke to Angela. A few thoughts on why I found her so helpful:

- I had a number of things I wanted to write about in my essays and for my overall "narrative". Instead of just spitting out a story that sounded good, Angela really took the time to listen to my disparate stories and help me weave together a compelling narrative around what was most meaningful to me, not just what would be interesting to adcoms
- Instead of just writing FOR me, Angela pushed me to communicate what I was trying to say in more straightforward and meaningful language. She really helped to cultivate my own skills in communication and self-expression, and turning those into meaningful essays
- There were many times where we had short timelines to work on, but throughout the process Angela was always punctual and reliable in terms of when she would get things back to me. This helped me to keep my work on track and lessened my already-high stress level!
- Having someone who is so knowledgeable about the b-school admissions process as a coach was absolutely invaluable just in itself. Angela helped me think through what the most impactful stories to tell for each school were and was always there to reassure me that we were on-track and making good progress.

Through my work with Angela, I not only accomplished my goal of getting into my dream business school, but I developed a keener sense of myself and how to present myself in my communications, which is a skill that will serve me well throughout my career. I highly recommend working with MBAMission and Angela!

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