Hourly Services Reviews

My consultant was Heidi Garner. She guided me through the process of choosing business schools. I aimed to apply to 20 top schools in a short period. After extensive discussions, we carefully selected six fitting options and prepared the necessary materials. Heidi was accurate and concise in helping me highlight key differentiators in both my essays and resume. Although crafting the first draft took time, it was worth it. My second Kellogg essay was so impactful that made myself cry!
It was a very hard job for me and Heidi to create a unique and impactful story since I used GMAT waivers. Thus, the story should have been very perfect to be shortlisted for an interview and we successfully made it!
I prepared my applications for Kellogg, Sloan, Darden, Ross, Johnson, and Questrom, securing interviews for 4/6. Heidi remained humble and approachable throughout the whole process, patiently answering all my questions. After receiving the interviews, she generously provided a free one-hour mock interview and gave me detailed feedback on how to answer the questions, prepare the logistics, and dress. All helped me secure a seat in my dream school!
In the end, I got admissions to Kellogg, Ross, and Questrom—and a waitlist for Johnson. Truly the best moment of my academic journey!
I truly enjoyed my experience working with mbaMission and Heidi and recommend their service.

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I worked with Julie-Anne for the MBA program and was admitted to both Columbia and Wharton.

I come from a tech background and decided quite last minute (<1 month left) to apply to the MBA program. Given the tight schedule, I needed to work with someone who had prior experience getting clients into top schools, understood my needs and was able to provide quick feedback on areas of improvement.

Julie-Anne was very effective with her time with excellent reviews. Julie-Anne has worked on getting many students in different programs so she knew what are good areas to be highlighted in essays and characteristics of different schools. With essay reviews, she is really good at pushing you to think through what differentiates you and how you can highlight yourself.

Julie-Anne is also excellent at resume reviews. Throughout my career, I've had multiple people across work, friends and mentors take a look at my resume and Julie-Anne is exceptional at ensuring the key highlights across work, personal and education are communicated and making sure there are no wasted sections.

Overall, I had a phenomenal experience with Julie-Anne and would work with her again in a heartbeat. She is extremely dedicated to her clients, effective with her time and most importantly, provides catered reviews to highlight you as an accomplished individual amongst others in competitive school programs.

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mbaMission offers a variety of service package. I chose the hourly service which allowed me to use the time flexibly and wisely. I applied to Stanford MSx program and got admitted. I picked Debbie after I read others' review and her own video which largely aligns with what I want from a consultant: have experience with Stanford GSB admission and a Stanford GSB alumni is a bonus, easy to communicate, give specific comments (rather than high-level conceptual comments) which where very easy to take action on. Debbie also gave a lot useful tips and strategic comments which allowed me to be more focus on the most important things. She was also very professional and strictly followed the turnaround time. The entire process is very efficient and effective. I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend Debbie to anyone who wants someone to understand you and help you build your story and make it a compelling application.

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I started my process at mbaMission with a 30-minute free consultation with the next available consultant, and was intrigued enough that I decided I would definitely be using the service to guide me through my MBA applications.

Once I got the score I wanted on the GMAT (710), I read through all the consultant bios and quickly knew Kim would be the right person for me. I ultimately chose her because I was a D1 college athlete (so was Kim!) and my professional background is in advertising/marketing, which is where Kim spent most of her career prior to doing MBA admissions and consulting work. I decided to do the hourly services rather than the school package when working with Kim, which turned out to be perfect for my needs.

Kim is extremely empathetic, kind, and positive. Her warm personality made the stress and tediousness of MBA applications and interview prep easier to handle. When working with Kim, I almost felt like I was working with a mentor trying to help me succeed, rather than someone I had hired. I decided to apply to 1 reach school (HBS), 3 target schools (Ross, Fuqua, and Darden) and 2 safeties (Kenan-Flagler and McDonough). I had pretty much decided on these by the time I started working with Kim, but I wish I had asked for her input on other schools to apply to or widening my net beyond 6 schools. She was honest with me about what would be a stretch vs doable vs very doable, which I appreciated!

Kim mainly helped me with brainstorming/editing my essays, certain short-answer application questions, recommender prep, interview guidance, and negotiating for additional scholarship money once I got admitted. She is an excellent editor and I felt she made a big impact for me on that part of the process. We would sometimes go over teh edits in Zoom calls (per my request) or just via email/track changes on Microsoft Word. mbaMission provides lots of resources throughout the process that Kim made sure to provide me with - such as interview guides specific to each school - but Kim also went above and beyond by sharing her own school-specifc interview guides based on feedback she had gotten from her own clients over the years. These made the interview process 10x more manageable.

I ended up getting rejected from HBS without an interview, and I think that was mainly due to factors outside of Kim’s advice or control, such my lack of work experience and my recommender choice (due to particular circumstances I wasn’t able to get a current or former manager to do my recommendation). I got interviews, offers of admission and scholarships from all 5 other schools. The lowest amount of scholarship I got was 50% of tuition, and I even got a full-ride scholarship to one of the schools I applied to. I attribute a lot of this success to Kim’s help. Kim also helped me negotiate even more scholarship money at one of my target schools, which I ultimately chose.

Overall, Kim was a fantastic partner, and I would choose her again if I was going through the process all over again. I genuinely hope I stay in touch with her professionally!

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I had the privilege of working with Nisha on two applications, and was admitted to both programs with funding support. Initially, I thought I had a fairly good sense of the programs I was interested in and what I wanted out of them. My plan was to review the available guides and apply on my own. Given the high cost of MBA programs (both financial and commitment!), I decided working with a consultant would be a small investment to ensure I was targeting the best fit programs and putting forth my best application. I am so glad I did and found Nisha! She was very approachable, responsive, and offered great questions and feedback throughout the whole process. She was also a wonderful thought partner on several key decisions - offering considerations that I had not thought of so I could be sure I was making the best possible decision in short turnaround times. Besides the applications, I am confident the insights, self-discoveries, and articulation skills I gained from working with Nisha will help me in school and beyond as well! I will wholeheartedly work with Nisha again if I had the chance.

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As a non-traditional applicant, applying to business school was a bit intimidating. When I first met with Harshad, I could tell right away that I wanted to work with him. He is skilled at and passionate about crafting a story that is not only compelling to admissions committees but also speaks to your unique strengths. On top of that, he is very quick to respond to emails and often provides detailed and thoughtful feedback on the same day. With his guidance, I went from being lost and confused to getting into fantastic schools!

If you are applying to business school, do yourself a favor: work with Harshad!

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Thanks to Kim, I was truly able to put my best foot forward in the MBA admissions process. With all the unknowns and mixed information out there about the application process and MBA programs in general, it was so helpful to have a seasoned expert to go to for questions on everything from GMAT vs. GRE scores to school culture and essays. Kim is thoughtful, highly organized, supportive, and encouraging. I even shot Kim a few mid-existential-crisis emails during the process, to which she quickly responded with reassuring guidance. She felt like a real teammate in this process!

While I consider myself a strong communicator, responding to broad application prompts with tight word limits presented a real challenge. Kim helped me to bring out the strongest examples in each of my essays, and tailor my experience and aspirations towards the elements of each program that interested me, producing genuine and enticing applications for each school. As a result of Kim's support, I was accepted to all the top programs I applied to, receiving scholarships at 3 of 4.

If you are hesitant to engage a consultant given the price tag, I highly recommend signing up for a free 30-min consultation, just as I did. During those 30 minutes, I could tell Kim truly wanted to give me the most value, speeding through my many questions, and even following up with a thorough email of recommendations and guidance. I felt no pressure to move forward, and did so only because I was shown how much value she would add to my admissions process - I was 100% correct!! I am incredibly grateful to have had Kim's support during my MBA admissions process, and cannot recommend her more!

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Kate came highly recommended to me by several friends who had overwhelmingly positive experiences with her helping them gain admission to top / M7 schools. After being admitted to my top choice schools, I can safely say the experiences of my friends were not a fluke.

It's obvious that Kate cares about the success of her clients on a personal level. Aside from providing thorough feedback of my resume and essays, she kept me in the loop about information and happenings relevant to my choice schools. She administered a mock HBS interview which I ultimately found to be highly representative of the actual interview. I come from a relatively niche career background, but she performed thorough research to give specific, focused questions and feedback.

Well past the application reviews and interviews, she remained in constant contact to provide thorough answers to my questions and updates. Ultimately, I gained admission to my top choice / M7 schools - despite my GPA starting with a "2".

I strongly endorse Kate to anybody pursuing admittance to the MBA program of their choice.

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I approached Debbie in October 2023 for interview training. Unlike some consultants who prefer to read a script of the “walk me through your resume” answer, after reading my application materials, Debbie asked me to do a mock-up right away. The first mock-up certainly felt stressful, but I found myself making progress very quickly after the first session. After 3 sessions with Debbie, I believed I was fully prepared for the interviews.

What I truly appreciate about Debbie’s work is her detailed feedback - I have done multiple mock-ups with current students but often their feedback are way too general. Debbie’s feedback, on the other hand, ranges from the structure of my answer to my facial expressions. She truly pays attention to my performance and gives useful advice that are also beneficial for my job interviews in the future.

More importantly, whenever Debbie pointed out a problem, she almost always suggested her solution. I also had worked with a freelancer to prepare for my essays and resume before I found Debbie. My freelancer consultant charged me a lot less compared with Debbie. However, I would spend a lot more hours with her than with Debbie. In a word, I understand that Debbie, at her level, charges more than many other consultants, but it is absolutely worth it. Debbie’s feedback and suggestions are always very sharp, constructive and on-point.

For example, I struggled to put my story together as someone with an engineering degree and an art degree, and Debbie suggested that I position myself as someone who prefers to use both sides of her brain - right hand side and left hand side, meaning quantitative and qualitative. And a weakness (lack of cohesiveness) suddenly became a unique strength of mine. There are a couple of other similar examples, and I benefit so much from Debbie’s solutions.

I was eventually admitted to Ross with 20k scholarships. In addition, I was admitted to Tepper and Johnson with half scholarships, and Darden and UNC with full scholarships.

In the zoom call where I received the great news from Ross, the AdComs specifically mentioned that the interviewer (a Ross alum) gave high praises on my interview performance. Obviously I performed well because Ross was my second last interview, but I also could never have done it without Debbie’s professional instructions and continuous support.

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As an international applicant, the MBA application process felt daunting and confusing to me. After a 30 minute free consultation, I was matched with Debbie, whom I felt had a similar background to me (grew up in Singapore, worked at J.P. Morgan). Additionally, Debbie had graduated from Stanford, which was my dream school.

I remember feeling very assured after our first call, when Debbie helped me navigate critical decisions, such as which schools to prioritize in my applications.

One of the areas where Debbie truly excelled was in refining my essays. Writing compelling and authentic essays was a challenge for me, but Debbie's insightful feedback and guidance transformed my essays. She encouraged me to be vulnerable, and it enabled my voice to come through in my writing.

Additionally, Debbie did not overlook any aspect of the application, including the (many) short-answer questions in the application form. Her feedback is timely and always actionable.

Thanks to Debbie's guidance, I received acceptance letters from Stanford, Berkeley, Wharton and MIT, and secured over $50,000 in fellowship awards.

If you're considering MBA admission consulting services, I highly recommend mbaMission. You won't regret it!

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