Monica helped me gain admission to a very top MBA program with scholarship. This is of course what every applicant cares about the most, but getting admitted hardly explains what I've gained through the application process with Monica.

Monica was knowledgeable, embracing, and yet never afraid to ask critical questions. Not only did she understand my goals and aspirations, she also fully appreciated my non-traditional background.

Being an older applicant with a very nonlinear career path, I needed to present my journey clearly so that the admissions would see the reasons behind my choices. Monica's patience during the process of working through so many drafts of essays really paid off for me in the end. I didn't know how it was possible to show all the turning points in my life within word count, but somehow we made it happen. After the application process, I learned a great deal about myself. This is perhaps the even bigger gift from pursuing an MBA--I felt the personal transformation had already begun before the program started. And Monica was a great counselor in this stage of my life.

Monica was the first person I emailed when I found out I was admitted. I will always remember receiving her reassuring email on the morning of the interview and the incredible day that followed.

Working with Monica during the five-month application process changed my life in many ways. Monica became a dear friend who supported me in moments of indescribable joy and anxiety with her wisdom, honesty and grace.

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I had a lot of anxiety going into the MBA application process. My work experience is in a field where not a lot of people go to business school, so I was worried about how admissions committees would view me. With Rachel’s help, I was able to tell my story in a compelling way and effectively convey my leadership and teamwork skills in the applications.

Rachel was there every step along the way to provide helpful feedback, from our brainstorming calls to the many versions of my essays, my resume and all the short answers on the application forms. She helped me prepare outlines of my key accomplishments at work to guide my recommenders, who had never written MBA recommendations before. She was also hugely helpful in preparing for interviews, helping me tailor my responses to each school and giving me a much-needed confidence boost in the days leading up to each interview.

I can’t thank Rachel enough for all her help in the application process and helping me get into my dream school! I highly recommend her!

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With PhD in engineering and working as a researcher, it was tough for me to apply to B schools but even harder was to prepare an application that can justify my career path. When I attended one of Jessica Shklar’s session on admission process, I felt that I should definitely discuss my unique case with her. The best thing about Jessica was she never timed the 30 minute free consultation. She made me feel comfortable and at the same time posed questions that were very critical for the application process. She never pressurized me to sign up with her. Instead she asked me to work on ways to improve my application before even deciding to go with her.
I wanted to apply to only top 5 B-schools. My biggest challenge was that I had no clue how to connect dots from my professional and personal life. Everything looked very discrete and was not sure how to put them as a story in my essays. I think signing up for start to finish package was very useful. Once I reviewed my brainstorming document with Jessica, she knew exactly what examples we should focus on. The advantage of Start to finish package is if you are working on more than one application with a different essay prompt, your consultant already knows the key professional and personal parts of your life from the brainstorming document. Thus, it was easy for Jessica to suggest stories we should be including in essay 1 vs essay 2.
Jessica is very well organized. She not only keeps a track of her time but also ensures that her clients meet their deadlines. I got all my essays with edits from Jessica on or before the expected 2 day deadline. If it is a quick question, Jessica will definitely reply asap. I remember discussing some behavioral questions with her over email before one of the top school’s interview. Even though those were not quick questions, she understood my need and was very willing to respond quickly over emails. Even though it was a professional relation with Jessica, I felt a personal touch.
The other advantage of Start to Finish package is that we also get a chance to do mock interviews. Jessica’s expertise in interview preparation was very helpful. She advised that never practice your answers because you don’t want to memorize your answers. This is very true. The best advice she gave me was to read several behavioral questions and think about multiple scenarios so that I have enough examples from my past to tell during interview. It really worked for me because for one interview question I was asked to tell more than one scenario in which I showed a certain behavior. At that time I did’nt have to take that awkward pause because I already had thought about so many different situations from my professional and personal life. All thanks to Jessica for asking me do this rather than rehearsing my answers.
When I started thinking about signing up with a consultant, things were hazy. I wanted to do MBA from a top B-school but was not sure if I have done enough in my past to get admitted to the schools I want. Jessica helped me at every step of the application process and with her support I got admitted to three top B- schools. Thanks Jessica for making this happen.

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Rachel is an extremely engaging and really good at helping you find a good "spin" for your MBA stories. She will not only help you honing in on worth-while stories to tell–but how to create those attention grabbing phrases that really lure the reader in, and make for an MBA essay that will stand out to the adcom who reads through dozens of essays a day. She is also extremely clear and diligent in getting her comments and edits back to you in a timely manner. Honestly, there are a lot of good stories out there, and it really is just a matter of how you tell the story–Rachel is fantastic at this. After working with Rachel I am now going to a top 10 program with a scholarship.

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Jen worked towards tight deadlines to help me to submit outstanding applications to LBS and Imperial Business School. She took the time to understand my personal story and helped me to shape essays and a video that brought out the best in me. When I was invited for interviews, Jen provided me with comprehensive mock interviews and followed up with very detailed feedback.

I was offered a place on my dream course at LBS and I was also offered Imperial College Business School’s highest scholarship. Jen was a pleasure to work with and I can’t recommend her highly enough!

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In summary, Monica is incredible!

Back when I started looking for admission consultants to apply to HBS for Class of 2018, I spoke with over 8 different ‘top’ admission consulting firms based in the US. Given that no one can guarantee success in as-subjective-a-process-as-MBA-admissions, I was looking for the right fit, a trustworthy partner and most importantly, someone who felt confident about helping me achieve my goal.

I found all of that in Monica, during our free discussion (also came to know of how amazing her track record was). And much more once we started the process. Safe to say, working with Monica was one of the best decisions in the anxious period. She was a wall providing strength along the way, apart from paving a path to a solid application for HBS.

I also believe mbaMission has a very robust methodology to provide structure to the application process and some great reading/reference material to look at. The Complete Start to Finish Guide and individual School Guides are amazing and Monica makes additional webinars / guides to top it all.

I still remember how the first brainstorming discussion with Monica (starting point of the engagement) was so thorough and rigorous, I’m sure Monica knows me as well as anybody around me. She never shied away from going the extra mile by setting up follow-ups when she felt we were not able to complete the discussion in our original schedule. She had some excellent feedback every time she reviewed my essay versions and pushed me for ever more iterations. The final result being, I was quite happy with submitted essay.

Monica puts in a lot of effort to each aspect of the application – from the resume to the questions in application and looks for avenues to better the whole package. She’d remember such minute details from our conversations and probe me on them to build out some very integral portions of the application. And that’s the kind of person you need to guide you. Someone who can look through gaps and crevices to discover gems you wouldn’t have identified yourself.

A huge positive about Monica is that she’s candid and disarmingly friendly. One of the big issues many of my friends had with their consultants was that they couldn’t trust enough. With Monica, that will come naturally, as she clearly knows what she’s doing and will adapt herself to your personality.

Lastly, I’d like to add that unfortunately, I did not get an opportunity to interview with HBS in R1, but Monica readily offered to help with my interview prep for the R2 schools I applied to, even though I was working independently in that period. She was actually the one who helped me vet the schools I applied to in R2. At first, I bombed the mock interview with her so bad, but I was eventually accepted by Wharton, MIT Sloan and Kellogg schools. All credit to her for the interview prep! Thanks Monica for everything.

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When I first started the MBA application process, I really had no idea where to begin. I was one of the first of my peers to apply to business school and was coming from a somewhat non-traditional background (family business).

After doing some preliminary research, I decided to reach out to MBAMission and set up an initial consultation with Jessica Shklar. In our first meeting, I was immediately blown away by how much interest Jessica showed in my story and how much it genuinely seemed that she cared about my future (and admission to the business school of my choosing). Even in our first consultation, she was already coming up with the best possible ways to tell my "story" and present my accomplishments.

Throughout the admissions process, Jessica was there every step of the way. From reviewing my resume until it was absolutely perfect to going through iteration after iteration of my essays, Jessica was always willing to help and guide me through the process. Jessica was especially helpful during the "waiting" process, always willing to calm my nerves and answer any calls/emails/questions I had (no matter how often and I'm sure annoying!).

In summary, I really could not be happier with the consulting experience Jessica provided for me. I would not be where I am today without her help and truly believe that she is the reason I was accepted to Columbia Business School.

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I was unfamiliar with the MBA application process and decided to choose mbaMission (Jessica) to guide me from start to finish. I evaluated several consultants at the time and, after talking with Jessica, I felt that she was the right person! In the 30-minute free session, Jessica tried to help me as much as she could within the time limit. If you have a chance to evaluate many consultants, you will certainly know that the free session is actually the marketing session. However, this is not the case for Jessica. I bought 5 school start-to-finish package and eventually got interview at HBS (post-interview waitlisted and dinged), Wharton (admitted), and Booth (admitted). So in this review, I would like to tell you 3 key points about Jessica that eventually led to my successful applications.

1. Identification of Meaningful Personal Stories

In my case, I was able to list out personal stories that really shaped my life but, at first, connection among them was relatively weak. Hence, I was so tempted to write about my job, initially. Jessica was an expert in identifying meaningful personal stories and she would keep asking you to explain those stores in details. During the process, you would start to realize by yourself how much impact those events were. In the end, a few personal stories represented the core part of my essays and were used for 4 schools (out of 5) and accounted for at least 70% of word counts. I wrote only 1 paragraph about my job for each essay and its role was to support my personal stories.

2. On-Time Delivery and Perfection

Jessica always commented my drafts, on time, and she would not stop doing it until the essays are perfect. She would ask you to write as much as possible up 50% more than maximum word counts and gave you tons of comments that, sometimes, took me a week or so to address. This is a very efficient process. You overwrite it first and then remove certain parts, one by one, so, in the process, you will see the big picture and force yourself to consider each point in depth. You would likely run out of energy before she does. On each school, I worked with her at least 8-12 drafts. And even my final draft sometimes still had her pending comments that I needed to remove because of limited space.

3) Genuine and Authentic

My essay got me an interview at HBS so it was great, although I couldn't convert the interview to the offer. The essay question was "Introduce yourself to classmates" and was the great opportunity to show your personality so I wrote it in a very personalized and funny way, while mentioning some of my achievements but not too many (imagine you brag for 10 minutes. How could that be interesting to your classmates?). Before I submitted my essay, I sent the essay to my boss (and my recommender) for review. And he said "this essay is so authentic. It feels like you are speaking to me..... It's alive". Jessica helped me set the tone for my essay and, in my opinion, I like HBS essay the most.

So in my opinion, I strongly recommend Jessica. You need experts who can look into your stories and express independent opinions. During MBA application, you will burn out. So better invest now and get the best shot.

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I was paired with Krista Nannery from MBAmission as my admission consultant. Right off the bat she assisted with my decision of what schools to apply to. We decided that given my academic history, professional career, and GMAT score, I would be best off applying to Harvard, Wharton, Booth, and Kellogg.

Applying to 4 schools is a ton of work but Krista made the process extremely smooth. She set a very organized schedule and always kept me on track with essays, short answers, and the online applications.

The most helpful aspect of Krista's consulting was in the essay brainstorming and drafting. She has a lot of experience quickly and effectively giving comments and helpful guidance and made the process go smoothly. I would have been lost without her help in this area.

Overall, I can't express how essential Krista was to my success. I ended up getting into 3 of the 4 schools I applied to and know for a fact that it was due in large part to Krista's guidance.

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I chose mbaMission and specifically Jessica on the recommendation of a friend who applied to business school the year before me and thought that mbaMission was the reason that he was able to get into a great school and complete his applications on time, and I could not agree more.

I was extremely impressed with Jessica from the start of my consultation and have recommended her to friends already. The consultation is a free 30 min session and I assumed that she would mainly sell me on mbaMission. However, she did so much more than that. I did my consultation 6 months prior to starting the application process and I asked her what I could do to strengthen my application. Because she had spent time looking into my resume and activities, she gave me actionable items which I did over the next 6 months that really strengthened my application with tangible examples – and that was even before I hired her!

I decided to apply to 6 schools and I do not believe that I could have done it without Jessica. The ability to send an essay off to Jessica and have her look at it with fresh eyes and a different and honest perspective was so valuable. Not only did it help me stay on track with timing throughout the process, but she also had a different perspective and would point out when I said something that didn’t make sense due to company/industry terminology, didn’t answer the school’s question or was not my best work.

Her ability to answer quick questions that would have taken me valuable time to research (and who knows if I would’ve gotten the correct answer) and help me with interview prep kept me sane through the process and helped me feel confident and prepared during the interviews.

I think that the brainstorming sessions however, were where Jessica really went above and beyond my expectations. My brainstorming doc was a total of 26 pages full of disjointed random things and stories. I was so impressed how Jessica was able to connect my work, health situation, volunteer, and family experiences all into one strong story full of rich, measurable, tangible examples. She even pulled some great quotes from my doc that I used as my intros to many of my essays! The story she helped me create really painted the best picture of me as a candidate and enabled me to get into one of my top schools which I am so excited to attend!

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