Melody Jones Reviews

Results speak for themselves: I was admitted to my dream school, HBS!

Melody has been an invaluable sounding board, copy editor and advisor for the past few months. I especially appreciated: her availability on short notice, her tirelessly critical eye on my essays (from version 1 to the final version 54 I submitted) and ability to continue to push me to dig deeper and demonstrate impact. I worked with her on an hourly basis on my resume and essays, and interview preparation. Melody was extremely helpful at helping me articulate my personal and work history, aspirations, goals, etc. and I consider both the money and time spent in the process as well invested.

I would strongly encourage others to work with Melody – I truly don’t think I would have had the same results without her expertise on crafting my application to showcase my story and personality.

Read More

I worked with Melody for over a year, from the initial phase of deciding whether to apply to business school, through a successful application to a top 10 program. I found her objective input and feedback to be a tremendous asset throughout the entire application process, both through providing a source of vetting for initial ideas as well as refining key themes and stories. From the outset of our work together, the structured framework she provided was extremely helpful in breaking down an otherwise daunting application process into manageable steps, while ensuring a high level of self-reflection throughout. In addition, coming from a professional background which did not require much creative writing, Melody’s insights were invaluable in translating raw ideas into a final product which was both more personal and well-polished. I would highly recommend her to anyone interested in applying to business school.

Read More

Melody was exception and felt like a real partner in my application process. My MBA journey was off to a bad start, I had applied and got rejected to the only school I really wanted to attend. When I began the reapplication process, I knew I needed help to nail the re-applicant essay. Melody was the perfect partner in this. I reached out to her in late July on helping me with my application but was focused on improving my test scores until early September. I had an application deadline of October 4th leaving me just 3 weeks to perfect my essay. Melody was instrumental in providing quick, direct, and invaluable feedback. There were about 4+ iterations of my essay before we were happy with the final result. With just 3 weeks to work through this, she was incredibly accommodating of my tight timelines and was always incredibly timely in providing feedback. She helped take my essay from a generic story to a thoughtful depiction of me, as a candidate. I submitted my application feeling confident that all aspects of my application were as good as they could be... which definitely contributed to my acceptance! Very excited to be attending one of the top programs in the country this coming year!

Read More

I believe that any good consultant can work with a strong candidate (great GPA, GMAT score, extracurriculars, etc.) and produce a winning application, but it takes a truly exceptional consultant to work with a candidate that has major application weaknesses (aka me, very low GPA, few extracurriculars, no quant classes in college, etc.) and create not just a strong application but one that results in an admittance. That exceptional consultant is Melody.

Melody is patient and thoughtful and will diligently review every aspect of who you are as a person so that she can craft a cohesive and realistic story with her incredible creative ability. She is honest and direct when you come to her with questions, and she is supportive and understanding you just need someone to be your rock during this stressful process.

There are a million things I could write about Melody, but what it all comes down to is this: Melody is your partner. She is your partner every step of the way and she will be there with you at the very end to celebrate. I could not have gotten into business school without her: the story might have been mine, but the presentation was hers and I am truly honored to have worked with Melody.

Read More

What I love about working with Melody is that she is able to push me to the best of myself. Working with her is a great investment to my MBA application. I reached out to Melody a little late in the preparation process while I was quite overwhelmed and confused working on the applications myself. After I reached out to Melody, she made sure she understood what I was looking for in schools and helped me strategize my application package. Her feedback to my essays was straight to the point and constructive. She made me feel that we were on the same team and she was committed to help me achieve my goals. Although she was busy, she was always able to meet the timelines that we initially agreed on. I can’t thank Melody enough!

Read More

Melody (VantagePoint consultant) provided an excellent service which ensured that I got accepted to the school of my choosing (LBS) while minimizing friction in the process. LBS was the only school I chose to apply to hence our collaboration was fully geared towards LBS adcom requirements.
Melody is a very insightful person with a very clear perspective on how the admission process should be run in order to be successful - clear sign of experience / expertise. While ensuring a super pleasant dialogue, Melody will know when to challenge the status quo and push to hit milestones. Melody was very structured and managed the timeline very well, which was the most important contribution that I was looking for.
Being a good consultant, Melody kicked off the advisory relationship with in-depth interviews. Melody provided a very tailored set of objectives / milestones for me to hit to really improve my profile before applying. Networking with past / current students was one important avenue that I explored thanks to her advice.
I recommend Melody and VP full-heartedly because of a very high level of professionalism, result-driven approach as well as supportive culture (for those tough moments where you will inevitably worry too much about your GMAT score, essay, etc).

Read More

I did not enjoy applying to business school. There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty inherent to the process and each school varies greatly in both deliverables and expectations.

That said, I did enjoy working with Melody Jones at Vantage Point. It is largely due to her amazing efforts that I was ultimately admitted to Stanford GSB, Columbia Business School, and the Cal Berkeley Haas School of Business. The reality is that I did not believe I would get into any of these schools and all credit goes to both the process and diligence of people like Melody at Vantage Point for helping me flesh out and articulate a coherent, authentic story.

This last point is perhaps most important as I think the tendency for most (at least me) is to write what one believes an adcom wants to hear. Melody and her team were particularly adept at helping me find and express the best version of my personal truth in my essays. This took many drafts and much patience and Melody is exceptionally disciplined and responsive and consistently provided meaningful feedback to keep things moving forward. The fact that this specific service also included a review from an expert at a given school helped me fine tune my application prior to submission and ensure that nothing was missed along the way.

These services are expensive, but I can say without hesitation that Vantage Point represents a worthwhile investment in the future of any applicant.

Read More

I can't say enough how great it was to work the Melody. My MBA journey started off disorganized, unsure and confusing. I've had an interesting (and very unconventional) career to this point and wasn't quite sure how to staple it all together. I have about as many red flags that one could imagine: two job gaps, eh GMAT and GPA, and switched jobs a few months before the Round 1 deadline. Despite a stressful new job and all these headwinds, Melody was super *accommodating* (can't emphasize this enough) with me throughout this entire process. She guided me on how to craft my story, clean up my resume, and write compelling essays. We must have gone through at least 10+ drafts on my first essay before I finally hit submit. The word limits forces you to be careful with how you craft your essays, but Melody’s feedback is blunt (with the best intentions) and really make you to get to the point. The service is expensive, but it's an investment. It's a stressful process and you only get out of it what you put into it. Thank you for everything, Melody!!

Read More

Melody was a fantastic resource and cannot recommend her enough! I worked with her on an hourly basis since I decided to use a consultant relatively late in the process (I had already written first drafts of all of the essays). Melody was tremendously helpful in helping me refine my story and ensuring that every word of each essay and my resume supported that story. Her feedback was always constructive and relevant and reflected a high level of detail despite me being an hourly client. Furthermore, Melody is extremely professional: she initiated an introductory phone call to discuss my goals, accommodated my timelines, clearly communicated how much time each request would take, and never tried to upsell me. She also following up with me throughout the interview process and offered support and tips. Thanks to Melody I got into 3 of the 4 Top 10 schools I applied to (including my dream school) and was awarded one full merit-based scholarship!

Read More

Melody Jones at Vantage Point MBA is a wonderful consultant and I am very fortunate to have worked with her.

Firstly, if you are on the fence about hiring a consultant in general, I was in the same boat last year and I highly recommend pulling the trigger and going for it. When I first decided to apply to business school, I had never even heard of an admission consultant. The concept was foreign to me and as such I was reluctant to pay up for one. However, once I started my essays, I realized that they were nowhere near the standard required for the schools I was targeting. I was really struggling to express my "story" in a cohesive and compelling manner. Given that the MBA is such a large investment overall, I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be leaving anything on the table, and I ultimately decided to bring in a professional.

I researched most of the firms and interviewed consultants from each of them, but I was immediately drawn to Vantage Point due to its smaller size, which I felt would be most conducive to a genuine, personalized experience. When I spoke with Melody on the phone, I just knew that she was the one. Not only is Melody brilliant, but she is friendly and down-to-earth. I felt like she really understood where I was coming from and where I wanted to go. Having Melody in my corner curbed my anxiety tremendously and increased my confidence - that alone was worth every penny.

I had a 700 GMAT and not-so-great GPA and I was applying to some of the very best schools. On our kick-off call, Melody kept it real with me and was upfront about where my weaknesses were (later, she helped me develop a game-plan to directly address each of these challenges), but she NEVER attempted to discourage me from applying to the programs I'd set my sights on. I believe that it is crucial to work with a balanced consultant like Melody, who makes a point to manage your expectations but then puts in an insane amount of effort to elevate your application to the highest possible level as if your weaknesses didn't exist.

Melody is an MBA expert and if I hadn't worked with her, I'm certain my application strategy would have been all wrong. Admissions folks only spend ~15 minutes reviewing your entire application and I was surprised to learn that most of them do not have business backgrounds. Therefore, you must present yourself and your materials in a way that is drastically different from a job interview, for example. MBA essay-writing requires a significant amount of introspection and Melody possesses the rare skill of helping you spin life experiences (that to you may seem mundane) into captivating stories. Melody worked tirelessly to help me put together seriously killer essays (I'm talking 10+ drafts each). She will not do any of the work for you, but she asks very pointed questions that force you to dig deeper and she will not let you off the hook until every single sentence is perfect. There were many occasions when, after 5-8 drafts, I thought my essay had finally reached perfection and I had mentally checked out of it, only to receive yet another completely red version from Melody. I cannot stress this enough -- if you work with Melody, she will not simply check the box by providing a few iterations of useful feedback. Rather, she will be totally personally invested in you and your success. On that front, this review would not be complete without a shout out to Katherine Canning, who graduated from Wharton and works in my industry. She took time out of her vacation (!!) to do a final, last-minute review of my Wharton essays before submission. The consultants at Vantage Point are passionate about what they do and are seriously dedicated to you.

Finally, pretty late in the process, I realized that one of my 4 target schools actually wasn't the best fit for me and I decided to switch it out for another top 10 school (which I will be attending in the fall!!) just a few weeks before the deadline. I NEVER would have had the courage to take such a big turn so close to the end without Melody's encouragement. When it came time for interviews, Melody held several mock interviews with me. I went from being terribly awkward during the first mock interview to absolutely rocking it at the real thing! Also worth mentioning that throughout the process, I experienced several SNAFUs (the kind you never expect to happen), and if I didn't have Melody to guide me and calm me down, I would have had a meltdown and handled the situation incorrectly.

TLDR: Do something special for yourself this year and hire Melody Jones from Vantage Point MBA!

Read More