Securing an admission in a top 20 MBA school is never an easy job. Its even worse with a GPA of 3.11 and a GMAT of 710 while being an Indian born male. My consultant Leslie was very honest about my situation and odds when I spoke with her. My very first interaction with Leslie was enough for me to make my decision to go with Admissionado. Out of at least 7-8 conversations I had with as many admission consulting companies prior to choosing Leslie at Admissionado, the passion and involvement that Leslie displayed in my pursuit was unparalleled. She was a great guide, mentor and would absolutely leave no stone unturned when it came to extracting highpoints from my career and life. She helped me take those ideas and craft them into great essays. Leslie was also monumental in helping me finalize my colleges and prioritize how I should distribute my resources while applying to these programs. These helped me not keep any of the elements of the admission process such as informational interviews, thank you emails etc on the back burner. The quality of comments provided after each revision was very high and the communication was extremely prompt. I am writing this note after the end of my first year at B-school waiting to start my summer internship in 4 weeks as a management consultant. Which is what I said I wanted to do in summer, in my essays. Looking back at the admission process, there is only one thing I would change - start working with Leslie and Admissionado earlier, so I could get more money from my college by applying in round 1!!

Very important after thought: Leslie also helped me successfully negotiate an increase in scholarship after admission when I retook the GMAT exam and scored 730. Result: 50% tuition scholarship.

All in all. You are in good hands with Leslie. Start the process early with Admissionado and be honest and patient with your consultant with all the million questions they will have for you in the interest of bringing the best story out for the essays. It won't be an easy process. But like all awesome things in life, getting into a top 20 Business school is not easy and you want the best people with holistic guidance on your side when you are competing with stellar applicants from all around the world.

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Before I start Admissionado, I was skeptical. Personally I don't believe that someone could get me into the place that I cannot get myself into, especially with my own professional service background. However, Claudia spent so much time talking to me answering my questions to get through my hesitation.

I was in a tricky position before I apply to CBS - I DIYed 2 applications before this and none of them ended with even an interview. I quit my job for personal reason so I was applying without a job. On a candidate strength level, my GMAT is border line ( I retook it 3X but ended with even lower scores every time) given the competitive demographic I was in and I was not involved in any leaderships in NPOs.

Phillip spent more than 1 hour on the phone with me to analyze the strength and weakness of my candidacy. He provided a detailed analysis over my strength, including some I did not even see for myself such as I had some great involvement with people in my side business so that compensates any lack of extracurricular after I started work.

The essay went back and forth more than 5 times. Phillip really provided meaningful comments in terms of giving evidence to support the sentences that I was writing. He also provided the sentence structures that I can start with for the examples. For a English-as-second-language candidate, those comments were so helpful for me to write concise but well- supported paragraphs throughout the whole application.

Overall, I only applied CBS and got into my dream school. I would have not done it without Adminssionado.

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I chose Admissionado based on the positive feedback from my friend, and also the online reviews. I am very pleased with their services, and highly recommend them to anyone looking to give that boost to his/her application. I opted for the Jr. Deluxe package. Yaron was fantastic, and I couldn't have asked for a better consultant. He was very thorough with his comments, responded promptly to any questions, and prepared me well for the interview. The rates at Admissionado are also very reasonable compared to other consultants out there, which is also a bonus if you're mindful of the budget.

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After I failed my GMAT 20 days before R2 deadline and scored only 680 (lower than mean score of any school I applied to), he was the man who helped me to believe in myself again and told me not to consider tier 3 schools. He firmly believed that I should not look outside of top 15 schools. Yaron walked me through the whole application process, reviewing my resume and essays, giving advises to my recommenders, practicing interview with me and advising how to respond to all the questions in application forms. I believe he is the main reason I was so successful with business school applications. We managed to complete 3 applications to Ross, Fuqua and Tuck in 15 days time. After that I applied to Kenan-Flagler on my own, using information from the essays written with Yaron. As a result I was admitted to Fuqua, Ross and Kenan-Flagler and waitlisted at Tuck (because of my GMAT score). On top of that, I received some merit based scholarship at Duke and Ross. I think that the fact I was granted some money even with below average GMAT score shows the strength of the application we were able to put together with Yaron. I’m happy that I chose Yaron and Admissionado team, but not another consultant.

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After extremely disappointing and disheartening R1 results with another consultant, I didn't want to give up and tried another 3 schools for R2. This time, I'm so glad I had Yaron on my side! I had a relatively low GMAT score (sub-700), so I knew I had to give it my all in my essays. Yaron was extremely attentive, detail-oriented, and strategic with the resume and essay writing. Yaron helped me rediscover the depth of my stories and really adhered to the "show not tell" principle, every time he would come back with feedbacks that asked me to dig a little deeper, to give more details in my examples. He also gave me a lot of confidence through mock interviews. In the end I got into INSEAD! I couldn't be happier with the result. I highly recommend Yaron to anyone who wants to put forward a stellar application.

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I enrolled into the 4-school deluxe package with Admissionado and I'm thoroughly delighted with the exceptional service that the Admissionado team (Lauren, Emily, Claudia and Kyn) have provided me over the past 8-9 months. I truly lovvveeeddd working with Kyn, who is a professional through and through, and whose expertise and skills truly helped me get admitted off the wait list to one of the schools that I applied to.

My first interaction with Kyn was during an essay writing workshop and I was so impressed with his insightful essay-writing tips and comments that I immediately set up an initial profile evaluation with him and signed up for four schools. The entire admissions process right from writing the GMAT all the way until landing an admit is an extremely exhaustive and tiring process but Kyn made sure that we didn't lose steam one bit during the process and ensured that we submitted the best application we could to all our schools. Also, Admissionado has invaluable resources (resume tips, school guides and interviewing tips) that helped me maneuver through the maze. I found Kyn's (and Admissionado's) services extremely useful, far exceeding the expectations I'd initially set. Their entire team is extraordinarily dedicated, professional, courteous and prompt (I observed this during some of the free workshops I attended).

PROS :- To me the biggest gain was gaining insight into the AdCom's decision making process, rationale behind wait listing, and, most importantly, tips to make an impression during an interview in spite of belonging to an oversubscribed pool of applicants. I was able to successfully be admitted off the wait list ONLY because Kyn helped me understand what would work and what wouldn't when wait listed. The comments and feedback on all my edits were extremely helpful, precise and positive through critical.

CONS :- I initially found it difficult to adjust to the 3-day turnaround time for every edit but, I eventually realized that it was to be fair to other applicants.

To summarize, if you're fine with the 3-day turnaround time (i.e. you plan and strategize your applications well), I'd highly recommend Admissionado and Kyn to everyone applying.

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I never pictured myself as someone who would use an admissions consultant. After all, I think I’m a pretty strong writer, and I had already decided to which schools I would apply. I wasn’t sure how a consultant could provide any additional value for someone like me. Nevertheless, when Admissionado hosted a contest for people who wanted to blog about their admissions experience, I decided to give it a try, and I was offered the Deluxe package for free for one of my applications.

It turned out to be a great decision. First, I was asked some questions and then paired with a consultant named Mark, who had a similar nontraditional background as my own. I most appreciated Mark for being an un-biased resource that I could turn to with questions. As I crafted my essays, there were numerous times when I worried how a particular story would be perceived by the admissions committee. Would they think I was too assertive, or perhaps not assertive enough? That’s when I’d turn to Mark, who would employ a tough-love approach, while always being incredibly prompt, insightful and thoughtful with his responses. He in no way wrote my essays, but he helped me to feel more confident with the content that I produced and the stories that I chose to share. I always felt that Mark was truly invested in my success, and he helped me to employ a strategic approach to my application.

Ultimately, I was accepted with a significant scholarship to a top 10 program.

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First of all, if you have already gone through all the review comments about this company. You will get mixed message and you may get confused, is it really good or mediocre? Well, it really depends on the reviewer's expectations. So be prepared, any admission consulting service can't do everything for you. They can help you find the best out of the best, but you have to dig deep yourself to find your own best first before presenting them to the consulting service. So that is basically what Admissionado did for me. They will first give you a questionnaire to list your accomplishments and achievements. It is a brainstorm process. By doing that, you have to think really deeply. No one can do that part for you since they don’t know you. Then you need to make the draft essays. And they will comment on your essays a couple of rounds depending on which service you choose.

For me, Admissionado meets my expectation.

Now let me summarize what I like them:

1. Quick turnaround. I started my application very late, really late. But they still helped me edit my essays through the holidays. I really appreciate it. And usually they would send back the essays to me very quickly.

2. Beautiful work. Since I am not a native English speaker, I sometimes can’t precisely express what want to say. After discussing with the consultant, they can make some good recommendations. What’s most impressive is, after their work, my essays are much more concise and smooth.

3. Very nice people. You will see if you use their service.

4. Since my background is nontraditional MBA applicant. They helped me find the best matching schools for me as well as making the application strategy for each school. That is one of the most valuable parts in this whole consulting process.

If you can see my ID, you can guess that I applied in 2010 but got no interview and admission at all. This time, I got interview from every school that I applied, finally got two AD and two WL. I am already quite satisfied. Had I used their service, I would have probably graduated right now. That is why I highly suggest to those who are not sure about their writing skills paying some money and hiring a consulting service. Time is much much more precious than money. That is a painful lesson that I learned until I realized.

Overall, I am quite impressed by Admissionado service and I recommend it.

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