I had John Sisk work with me to put together essays for two schools more than a year ago. I was told that I would have a good chance with the two schools I applied to and in fact one of the schools I applied to was a school he graduated from so I felt comfortable hiring him to help on my essays. He was pretty accessible most of the times through emails but I am really disappointed that I paid thousands of dollars to not even get a first round invite to any of these schools. In fact, I applied to another school where I didn't get any guidance in writing the essays and ended up being admitted to that school. Hiring consultants for essays are a huge waste of money and I wish I had not spent this much money on a service that yielded NO RESULTS. It would be better for you to just write the essays yourself and you will have just as much if not a better fighting chance at these schools.

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Revisiting this review because apparently I'm not the only one that feels this way. Be very skeptical when you see all the 5 start marketing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MBA/comments/1eumo7u/debbie_choy_from_mbamission_for_hsw/

I hate writing reviews but this felt like such a scam that I feel like I have to help future MBA applicants feel informed by what they are signing up for. I want to be fair by giving the good and the bad, but ultimately you're going to be paying $5,000 not for "consulting" or "expertise" but for some broad-brush edits that would be indistinguishable from (or inferior to) the help you would get from a colleague or friend.

I worked with Debbie Choy on the introduction and brainstorming session. Style-wise, it felt like I was on the clock all the time and she is quite good at ending discussions. The content of the brainstorming session was perplexing as we focused a lot on high school things that weren't really relevant to the MBA application or the essays. Lastly, I was hoping to get a lot of candid feedback from an admissions perspective but it felt like pulling teeth to get answers to basic questions like what schools would be competitive. On the plus side, some of the materials she shared were relevant and helpful.

I ended up working with John Sisk for the essay portion. The positives were that the revisions were very timely and the first round of feedback was fantastic to get in the right direction. After that, however, each subsequent revision felt pretty low-effort, with unanswered questions, grammar mistakes, and generic template-like feedback. At the end the essay had all the soul written out of it and felt more like a "list" than any individual behind the story. Schools stress the important of being authentic but the result read more like a husk of a product.

At the end I'm not really sure what I paid for. My guess is that these guys are too busy or too successful and don't really put the time into your individual application. The timeliness and initial direction were nice (maybe consider their hourly) but I wouldn't recommend against anything beyond that.

Best of luck in your applications!

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Ask yourself, why would an HBS MBA grad do admissions consulting. The work is neither challenging not impactful. I worked with Helen in 2018.

mbaMission promises that they'll get back to you within 24-48 hours with feedback. Whenever I would receive feedback, it would not be tangible and would really miss on the key characteristics that the question is asking for. As a result, my essays were horrible and I got rejected. I later took Fortuna Admissions in 2020 and as a reapplicant got accepted though I still didn't manage to get into my top choice because of my history as a reapplicant. mbaMission has more than a thousand good reviews but that also means that each consultant is looking after 20-30 clients and not really spending the time you need them to. I would not recommend Helen or mbaMission.

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I worked with Heidi during 2018 Round 1 and 2 cycles and came away extremely disappointed with not only the result but also the process. Considering how much time and money I invested into the services, I was unhappy with the level of effort Heidi put into reviewing my materials especially after the first school was done, and also with the level of expertise in managing my expectations as a client. Both of these reasons led me to have to reapply this year and despite Heidi having the audacity to ask if I wanted to pay for more services, I of course declined and was fortunately able to gain acceptance on my own without using any of the materials that we worked on together. I now know that hiring Heidi and mbaMission was a big mistake and I would never recommend them to any future applicants.

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I used the Complete Package for one school with Jessica and really regretted buying that. I chose her because of all the amazing reviews posted here, but now I doubted how many of the reviews really came from real happy clients. I got dinged with no interview for the school I had her help with the application, but I got nearly full scholarship for the school I built the application myself. Both schools are top schools so it is somehow fair enough to compare. For anyone intends to use Jessica's service, please really consider my experience with her:
PROs:
- On-time turnaround
- Helpful with 1-2 first review of the essay
CONs:
- I received far less customized advice than I expected from a ~$5K package. For example, when I send the application form (not the essay), I will received the reviewed document with most of the revisions related to wording or grammar. But those wording and grammar revisions will not help me get admitted. It should be the advice such as with all the information I gave her about me, which info I should or should not choose to put in the application. Or if I showed myself as an entrepreneur, I should be aware that the valuation of my start-up is the key for the school to judge, etc. I never got her advice on the important details to make my application become a stronger one even after I tried to ask several times. All I could get was just revisions on essay, but the essay I wrote myself got me nearly full scholarship anyway so that kind of support from her was really not that helpful for me. I was very disappointed that her service is just similar to or even worse than what I got from my friends' help.
- No point using the complete package which is a big investment. I found the helpful thing she gave is mostly about 2 first reviews for my essay. For other tasks in the process, I was very disappointed. My mock interview with her is only 20 min long (and I can only have one mock interview with that package). Her comments for that was something like I did well already, no need for much improvement. That kind of comment was terrible, seriously I did not spend ~$5K for that. I found out that the mock interviews I had with other MBA students were extremely far more helpful and customized to my case than from her.

In general, I found that Jessica's service was totally not worth my investment. If you intend to choose her because of all the flattering reviews here, please be more skeptical.

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I got the multiple school package and applied to five schools in R2. I chose to go with Harshad because I thought he would be able to understand my background and help tell my story. Working with Harshad was difficult to say the least. On our essay brainstorming calls, he would go off topic talking about his other students' profiles and essays to the point of gloating about how high profile some of his clients were. While working on school essays, at one point, he made it very clear that he didn't think much of one of the schools I was applying to. This reflected in his effort as well where he refused on start working on that schools' application until a week before the due date and expressed his contempt for the school culture as well as essay prompt. To top that off he wouldn't respond earlier than the stipulated 48 hours even though we were less than a week from the deadline. He glossed over other parts of my application without any insightful feedback in spite of sending it to him well in advance. The ultimate result was that I got dinged without an interview by every school I applied to with him.
On the other hand, I applied to one school in R3 without him and got in with a scholarship. No credit to him for this one.

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