Mark is a very nice person that boasts an incredible resume (Brown, Harvard, and Stanford GSB), so when I selected him as my consultant, I was very confident that I was in good hands, especially since he seemed VERY confident in me during the during the free consultant. He would throw out names like Stanford, Kellogg, and Wharton when suggesting schools I would be a fit for. I was not sure where to apply at first, but I knew I wanted to aim high and during the free consultation, Mark echoed my ambitions.

That changed after I signed with Admissionado. I gave my suggested school list (all M7s) to Mark and he immediately changed his tone, saying they were too risky. Despite this, I decided to go ahead and aim for my dream schools.

Mark is very good at writing an essay (poetic phrasing, good language, etc.), but he does miss the mark with content. For the majority of my essays, Mark had me focus on my career goals while de-emphasizing my personal story, which in hindsight, did not allow me to stand out from other people with a similar career background and aspirations. After submitting my essays and ultimately getting dinged without an interview, I had friends/colleagues who attended those schools review my essay (something I should have done before submitting). They all echoed the same thing - that my personal story was missing. They emphasized that my leadership and work history was reflected pretty well in my resume and that my career goals could have been stated in the 500 character box provided on the application, but my personal story, the one that truly sets me apart from my peers, the one related to my extracurricular activities, and the one I was dying to tell, was missing.

During the next round of applications, I wrote an essay with my personal story with feedback from my friends from the school (another M7) and ultimately received an acceptance.

Overall, Mark was very timely and made himself available for long phone conversations pretty much any time I needed him. Additionally, he is a very eloquent writer. The quality of my writing improved greatly with Mark's help and I couldn't have written my last essay as well as I did without his help with previous essays. However, I think he was short sighted when suggesting the content of the essays he helped with. I would recommend Mark and Admissionado only to help polish the essay, but not come up with the content from scratch. The process overall was a little stressful, especially with the dings I received after following his advice.

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Last year, I applied to only one school - M7 BSchool. I did not use any consultant then and managed to get an interview with school. However, I could not find a place in the program. After reading forums and talking to some MBA friends, I realized some mistakes in my application but even so, I was decently happy with my performance, considering I had no guidance except Paul Bodine's book.

This year, I took Admissionado's two bootcamp classes ($199 each or so) just before R1. After the two classes, I thought that I would apply to 1 school (ranked 8th-13th) myself and 4 schools (M7 schools) through Admissionado. And I jumped after they offered a 15% discount on the JrD package.

Over the next 2.5 months I worked with the consultant who an ex-M7 MBA. He was a really nice guy overall and very approachable.

At the end, I got into the school that I applied to myself and to none of the ones I applied through Admissionado. I reapplied to the M7 school I applied the year before, this time through Admissionado. Like last year, I got an interview call and (again) could not find a place in the program. I realize I might have deficiencies, so I'll try to restrict the review to the actual services provided and not just the outcome of my applications.

Positives
+ Biggest positive: That I could bounce off a story to someone without having to spend time writing and polishing it, only to have it rejected. Consultants are great for this (v/s using a busy friend or family member).
+ Consultant was nice and likable.
+ Quality of my apps improved.

Negatives
- Biggest negative: The consultant stuck to 72hr turnaround time clause of the contract. Initially, I had a lot of time so this didn't matter. However, during the crunch time of last 10 days or so before the submission deadline, I expected him to respond more quickly (meaning 36 hrs or less), especially for the smaller edits. Upon asking, he recommended that I pay more $$$ to 'expedite' my reviews. Now I know they are busy people, but it was still a ridiculous ask for something that would take him 10-15 mins to review. Not cool and definitely costed me in the quality of the app at the end.

- Sometimes the consultant would not be clear with what he wants me to change. You'd have to email a few times to get him to commit to the weakness in your essay.

- My expectation was that I would get ideas for great openings or closings for each essay. No such thing. I had to search for ideas there myself and he would just green/red flag them.

Overall:
I'm about 60% satisfied, hence the 3 stars. Since I did not have any MBA friends who had gone through the process and could review my essays, I chose to go with a consultant. If you don't have this handicap, I'd recommend tapping a current MBA student instead of spending money on a consultant.

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