Sharon Joyce Reviews

I happened to connect with Sharon through Fortuna Admissions. Sharon has been extremely insightful while reviewing my credentials and my life story. She gave my application a unique perspective and a highly personal touch. The best part of working with Sharon was that she is very detail-oriented and laid stress on the impact every single word would have on my application. She has a lot of experience consulting and helped highlight aspects that could bring out the best in my profile, increasing the admission chances. She pushed me at times to delve deeper into my life experiences and think from an alternate perspective, bringing out more examples to aid my application. I, without a doubt, highly recommend her for the MBA admission process.!

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I cannot express enough how fortunate I was to consult with Sharon as I navigated the MBA application process. Sharon has a vast wealth of knowledge and experience to leverage, and her insights were always incredibly helpful whether it was regarding my essays, letters of rec, or resume. In addition, Sharon was wonderful in terms of flexibility and ability to help me build out a plan of attack for my applications. Further, Sharon really took her time in getting to know me and my goals so that she could help craft the best application and what school would be the right fit for me. By the end of the whole process, I got into both of my target schools (Anderson and Haas)! I truly don't know how I could have gotten through everything without her. I highly recommend to anyone who wants help with any part of their MBA application!

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I cannot say enough good things about Sharon and the Fortuna team. She has an awesome wealth of knowledge about the process and did a fantastic job articulating what each school individually was looking for at every step of my applications. What really stood out to me about Sharon is the time and effort she dedicated to getting to know me on a personal level, which made the whole process feel really personalized and genuine to me and my goals, values and strengths. She (and the whole Fortuna team) went above and beyond - whether it was bringing in different experts from Fortuna to give me feedback or spending 2.5 hours on a Friday night to talk through an essay, she really pushed me to put out the best, most creative applications I could. I ended up with multiple scholarship offers from T15 schools - I cannot recommend Sharon and Fortuna enough!

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Sharon Joyce is an excellent coach. I believe I would not have even had the number of interviews I received if not for her guidance, let alone acceptance at CMU Tepper and Alliance Manchester Business School. She listens very well and provides informed and accurate advice. What impressed me the most was that she took the time to get to know me as a person and incorporate that information into her guidance during essay writing and interview prep. Sharon did what I’d expect most coaches to do:
– review my essays, LinkedIn profile, and resume
– set a clear timeline for each step in the process
– help with interview preparations
BUT it was the extra steps that she took that make her such a good coach.

She not only helped by providing guidance about how to leverage my experiences to create a unique and intriguing story for the applications, but she also pushed me to reevaluate myself and my experiences in order to get down to the “who”, “what”, and “why”. Helping me to understand my own motivations for applying to an MBA program in the first place not only helped me craft better essays and interview responses, but motivated me to truly apply myself to the application process.

Overall, Sharon was supportive, positive, and someone I enjoyed working with. She has all the knowledge and experience of the MBA admissions process to help an applicant be successful, AND the ability to translate that knowledge to the applicant in such a way as to allow them to best showcase themselves to the schools they are applying to.

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Sharon is an excellent coach. Without her guidance, I would not get into Berkeley Haas. I am grateful for her guidance during my application process. She is very friendly, easy to communicate with, and has excellent leadership qualities. She spent a significant amount of time with me on Zoom, phone, or email. In addition, she reviewed my application diligently in each section, like supplementary information, resume, essays, and interview.
Some of the actions that she took that made a difference in my application:
- She listened to my stories and reviewed my resume, LinkedIn profile, and draft essays.
- She provided strategy action steps with a specific timeline
- Her approach provided accountability for me to stick with the timeline.
After learning about my life experience, Sharon guided me to write my essays with a unique vision and objective. With her suggestions, I identified a few weak points in my essays. In addition, she helped me identify a few of my life stories to write as storytelling, which would appeal to admission committees. Finally, being from an overrepresenting engineer category, I wanted to distinguish myself from the pool of similar applicants; Sharon's suggestions helped me do that.

She also helped me immensely with interview preparation:
She delved into each possible question and spent a lot of time preparing for an answer, and then we did a dry run.
She pointed out a few weak points in my responses, such as my voice, pronunciation, and filer words.
She asked me to practice, practice and practice.

I had a fantastic experience with her, and I strongly recommend her to other applicants who want to get an excellent return for the bucks that
you would pend with a consultant.

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This is Sourya Mukherjee from India. I worked with Sharon my MBA applications to a few schools this year. I had a great experience and have received offers from the Kellogg MBAi program, and full-time MBA programs at Haas, Ross and Tepper.

It was great working with Sharon. I felt that her understanding of what the schools are looking for was extremely thorough. This was escpecially relevant for my reapplicant essays to Haas, Kellogg and the MBAi essay at Kellogg. We started out by doing an online evaluation that helped me identify my key strengths, which formed the foundation for a lot of my essays. We then worked on strategies on how to highlight growth and development in reapplicant essays.

The process was very smooth and Sharon made me feel extremely comfortable. She gave me the confidence to truly express the creative side of me (as a musician) and I feel that made my essays and application very genuine and unique. I'm really thankful to her for this. Although we had an 8-hour package, which was exhausted pre-application, she continued supporting me post-admit as well, helping me secure a $40K scholarship at Tepper.

Overall, I had a great experience and would highly recommend Sharon and Fortuna Admissions!

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I worked with Sharon during Round 2 of the 2017 – 2018 season and could not have had a better experience. I got a late start on applications and Sharon was crucial in not only getting my applications completed, but perfecting them before submission, helping to present the best and most honest version of me to admissions committees. Due to this time constraints and the difficulties inherent to the application process, I ultimately selected Sharon and Fortuna because they gave me an honest, no-BS perspective on my candidacy (as compared to other consultants I spoke with that were just happy to take my money), saving me time by helping me target my strengths and avoid schools that weren’t a good fit.

I initially purchased a 3-school package from Fortuna but added on essay editing for a fourth school after I saw how valuable Sharon’s insights and edits were. Sharon was constantly available, even for the smallest question, and always within 24 hours. I consider myself a good writer/interviewer, but Sharon’s talents for editing took my essays and interviews to the next level. With all of her experience working on various admissions committees, Sharon helped me avoid school-specific pitfalls and highlighted important themes relevant to each school that made my applications stronger. Sharon went above and beyond in helping me explore all of the areas that made me valuable as a candidate, providing activities and psychological exercises to get to the “real me.”

Sharon constantly provided the honest feedback I needed, as well as immensely helpful essay and interview ideas that highlighted the uniqueness of my application. I’m confident I would not have gotten as far in the admissions process if it wasn’t for her unique insights and ideas on how to present my story. With Sharon’s help, the immensely stressful and time-consuming application process was made much easier. I was ultimately admitted to a top 10 program and am on the waitlist at Stanford ( what I would consider a moonshot that never would have been possible without Sharon’s help).

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Sharon was amazing! I applied while traveling for work and she worked with my schedule the entire time. She helped me through the essay writing process and I received admission to every school I applied to, including HBS and Wharton! Great consultant who provides amazing feedback! She continues to stay in touch to this day and has helped me every step of the way. Also assisted a friend in the past with amazing reviews! She is very detail oriented, thorough, and understands the process well!. Skillful at reading resumes, helping with essays, and working through data forms. A++ Amazing Consultant

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If you want to win, put Sharon in!! I can't say enough great things about Sharon Joyce. She is the reason I was accepted to Kellogg and MIT Sloan. She is thorough, available, encouraging and also precise in her coaching. Sharon has an incredible systematic method that got me brainstorming and got my MBA narrative flowing. She also set out a timeline that enabled my resume, essays, LORs, portal, and additional information to be completed well before the application deadline which eased the stress inherit in the application process. With Sharon, you will have your best self placed in front of the Adcom and you'll also work with one of the most gracious, kind, and genuine persons that I've ever met. Sharon is truly one of a kind and while she is the reason I got into M7 schools, I truly enjoyed the months we got to know each other as people.

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I worked with Sharon during Round 1 applications for the current cycle (2022 start). I bought the 3-school package from Fortuna which meant that I had support all the way from refining my resume to essay editing and interview prep. I targeted 2 M7 schools and 1 T10 school and got into 2 of them, including my top choice (1 with a significant scholarship; waiting for the scholarship decision from the other).

Based on my experience, Sharon was amazing to work with and one of the main reasons I got in!

I was paired with Sharon on the recommendation of my contact at Fortuna and never actually spoke to her before we started working together. From the get-go, her working style resonated with me and I knew I made the right decision. Sharon took the time to get to know me and understand my reasons for pursuing an MBA. She was organized, detail-oriented and had a clear plan for helping me refine my application and have everything ready to submit based on our internal deadlines. Through Sharon’s previous experience working in admissions offices, she was able to provide unique insights into what schools were looking for and helped me refine my story to help me stand out.

I had spoken to one other MBA admissions consultant and felt that they were distant, unapproachable, and pessimistic about my odds of getting into a T10 school. Sharon and the whole Fortuna team were the total opposite. Sharon truly understands the MBA admissions process thoroughly and was able to provide honest feedback regarding my chances of getting into my target schools. As someone from a non-traditional background, there were many moments when I was unsure whether I made the right decision. Sharon’s optimism and empathy helped me during these tough situations and helped me get through the draining MBA admissions process.

Overall, I highly recommend working with Sharon!

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