** Junior Deluxe Reviews

After trying to start the MBA application by my own, I got stuck in the eternal questions of "Describe yourself 10 years ago/now/in 10 years", "Greatest achievements/failures" etc. I talked to some of my MBA friends and found out that a lot of them were working with consultants to properly pack their stories.

I searched the internet & GMATclub for the list of consultants and found plenty of them. What immediately caught my attention at Admissionado is their website and the general flow of becoming their client. I submitted my request through the website and received immediate reply.

The service of Admissionado is just great, they were fast to reply to any question I had and they were always to the point.

I worked with Yaron and what I liked about him is that he actually was making me work on myself. My first essays were a disaster, since I had not written any essays for at least 10 years after graduation from university. Yaron was asking questions and helped me rethink my previous experience to pack it in some stories to present to the admission board.
I also had an interview practice with him, and failed during the practice attempts. However, during the admission day everything went right and in the predictable manner.

I got admitted to my dream school and was happy to work with Admissionado.

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I'm a 32YO male, I'm transitioning out of the Navy as a 10-year aviator, and I was honestly kind of terrified about the transition. I'm now at the end of my application process and I will be attending Booth in the Fall. This was my #1 choice and I couldn't have done it without the Admissionado team.

Bottom Line: once you have decided that an admissions consultant is critical to your success in the application process, Admissionado will be your best friend and your professional guiding light. The stress level comes down by orders of magnitude with these guys on your side.

I will echo what other reviews have previously stated: you need to know whether or not a consultant is a critical component to your application process. Don't hire a consultant because you have a fear of missing out. Don't hire a consultant because you assume that's what everyone else is doing. Do your due diligence, interview at least five companies (like most successful applicants do), and find the right group that will meet your specific needs. And set your expectations appropriately for the advertised timelines because the company is very open and honest about exactly what they can provide for you (and oftentimes they go way above and beyond that level of support). My specific needs, as an example, were as follows:
1. Find a shop that can help me translate successes in a military career into words that resonate with a civilian institution used to looking at non-mil candidates.
2. Find a specific consultant that is willing to be honest with me right off the bat and gives specifics regarding how he/she will shape my profile.
3. Hire the shop that demonstrates that they truly want and respect my patronage.

With these needs in mind, I interviewed 6 firms. Admissionado broke out from the pack when it came to #2 and #3 above, and they have been authentic and consistent ever since I hired them. The initial interview with Shawn, my counselor, provided tangible suggestions for tailoring my application packages. He followed up after our interview to see if I had any additional questions or concerns (as did Claudia and Lauren, which was a great touch). This team has a legitimate desire to see you succeed. And since receiving my acceptance I have kept in touch with all three and they have offered friendly advice for transitioning to a new city. This group is as good as it gets.

Their bevy of products to support the process are very useful as well. These products cover everything from essay edits to crafting a resume, and I will probably put them to good use beyond just this application marathon. I will also keep every version of the essay edits because I found the whole experience refreshing and it fine-tuned my ability to deliver a good message. You may think you're decent at writing ... and you may even be above average (believe me, I thought I was too, I got a 46 on the Verbal section of the GMAT) ... but they will make you better. Bet on it.

Feel free to PM me if anyone would like more information about how I went about choosing which Admissionado products I wanted and the timeline I put together for myself in order to put those services to good use.

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First off, let me say that I was initially skeptical about admissions consulting. But my friend swore by Admissionado, comparing them to the specialists that help NFL hopefuls prepare for the draft combine. After going through this experience, I am confident that I would not even have gotten the opportunities without the help of my Admissionado coach, Mark.

My undergraduate GPA of 3.2 was subpar and my GMAT of 710 was average, so being admitted to a top school was going to be a reach for me. With Mark's help, I was admitted to Duke (with scholarship) in the 1st round, waitlisted from Columbia (early decision, still pending), and invited to interview with NYU/Michigan (results pending). I definitely would not be in this position without Admissionado's services, especially the waitlist at Columbia.

Don't get me wrong, it will not be easy. Don't expect to put down $3k and have them do all the work. Mark challenged to find my authentic story and suggested edits on ways to make the essays flow together. I had MBA friends who helped with some of my other school essays and it didn't turn out even a tenth of the quality (mainly because they didn't have dedicated time). Mark was always quick to respond and offer guidance.

I wholeheartedly recommend Admissionado's junior deluxe package. Working with Mark got me an invite to the 2 schools we worked on. I was able to use this as a start to other school essays and received invites to interview from them.

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1. The advice the consultant gave to me was very critical and helpful. I decided to use the service after failing in R1 application to CBS and Wharton. In R2 application the consultant pointed out the mistakes I made in R1, and helped me make several changes to my package. And for me they helped really a lot in the essay part considering English is not my first language. The result of an offer from a M7 school proved the success of this consultation.
2. Price is really expensive considering what their efforts.
3. Overall, since the result is satisfying, I would give a four-star rate (out of five) to this service.

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Anne-Marie was my Admissionado consultant for three MBA essays that I wrote between June-September 2015. She was very helpful from start to end, whether it was helping me start to articulate my MBA goals for the essays in June to reviewing my final essay drafts in September. I'm so glad that I found Admissionado! I think the prices are really fair and lower than most competitors, and the essay edits and advice I received were excellent. The service really helped me write the best essays I could.

I always received my edits within 72 hours and often 24-48 hours. The edits were usually very on point and really dug into points to improve my language and arguments. It was clear to me that Anne-Marie and the editors worked hard to give strong advice. I would recommend Admissionado and Anne-Marie to anyone writing essays for business school!

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Hey, everybody!

I want to write couple of words about my experience with Admissionado. As I have issues with my profile and have never had an experience of writing any kind of motivation letters or essays about my background, I needed consulting services to even get a sense of what to write in my essays.
So, before I started my application I had a free 30-minute consultation with 7 different companies. I tried to choose consultants wherever it was possible and chose Uyen Tang in Admissionado, because she lived and worked for couple of years in Tajikistan and it was important for me that consultant would know the culture and society and understand overall situation in Central Asian countries (it's where I'm from).
All other consultants, except Uyen, having learned my profile and my target schools, in one or another way told me that I should probably reconsider my list and include some 2nd tier schools, as my profile is not strong enough for H-S-W. Uyen was the only one, who told me that I should try whichever school I want and that I have all the chances to be admitted. She actually told me that she believes in me and I needed to hear that from someone, except my dad :) So to hear that I have a solid chance to be admitted by super top schools from a person, who has expertise in evaluating MBA applicant profiles professionally, was a decisive moment.
I eventually chose to go with 3-school Junior Deluxe package and Uyen helped me to identify my application strategy and to craft all the essays to 3 schools. The process of writing essays wasn't easy at all for me, but Uyen made it as easy from her side as it was possible. Closer to deadlines she was very quick with editing to help me meet the deadlines on time.

I am very happy with the outcome of our cooperation, as I was admitted to Wharton two days ago! And I honestly think that Uyen played a great role in my success. I would strongly recommend Admissionado and particularly Uyen Tang for anyone, who wants to achieve their dream of a top MBA admission!

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I purchased a 3 school junior deluxe package from Admissionado. My perspective is one of someone who doesn't have much disposable income, and who comes from the nonprofit sector. Based on my experience, I feel that the junior deluxe package was a good fit. For someone on a budget, I really wouldn't see needing more than this in order to give yourself the best chance of admission into top schools. As an additional way to save money, I would recommend working with Admissionado on a handful of schools. From there you can easily tailor the essays you developed into essays for other schools. In my case, this meant working with mark on essays for 3 different schools, but using those developed essays to apply to 9 schools total. This fall I will now be attending Harvard on a $51,000 per year scholarship. I won't go so far as to say that working with Mark got me into HBS. What I can say, however, is that working with Mark brought my essays from good to amazing. The benefit of working with Mark is that you have someone who reads dozens of essays and knows what it takes to have an amazing essay. I can unquestionably say that working with Mark was a tremendous experience. He was patient and took the time to fully understand my unique background. At the same time, he was honest and didn't sugarcoat things. He was willing to ask difficult questions and in some cases flat out tell me that an essay idea that I had was a bad move. In my opinion, being willing to give these tough answers is what makes working with Mark such a pleasure. In the end, you will unquestionably give yourself the best chance for admission into business school. Whether this marginal advantage is worth the high pricetag is an individual decision, however. In my case, I believe it was worth it. I really cannot recommend Mark more highly, and if you've already made the decision to invest in admissions consulting services, I really don't think that you'd regret going with Mark!

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I am a re-applicant and used a different consulting firm the first time I applied. The first time I thought the essays were very well polished, but I think what I wanted from an MBA and what I had to offer wasn’t as clear. The second time around, I had a better idea of what I wanted out of an MBA and wanted to get a different perspective on the MBA process. I talked with several consulting firms and Admissionado seemed to be able to relate to my background the most. Additionally, since I already applied once, I didn’t need a full package from a consultant. I only needed help on essay editing and picking the correct topics to build the proper story. In this sense, I needed a more flexible program and Claudia at Admissionado was quickly able to tailor a program for me as a re-applicant. This allowed me to save money while still getting the support I needed.

Claudia was also able to match me up with a consultant, Mark Lellouch, who could really mold my background, engineering, into what adcoms are looking for.

Mark was quick to respond to any questions I had, no matter how dumb they sounded, and gave me good feedback on my essays, which topics I should write about, and prioritize what I should include in my application (hobbies, extracurriculars, etc).

On the first round application, I received interviews from every school I applied to. I received acceptances from all except one, which I got waitlisted. I am still waiting for my second round results.

After all my experiences applying to business schools, I think Adcoms are always looking for someone who is different and adds new insight/perspectives to the class, so the key to applying is to build a story about your background that sets you apart and would help diversify your class. Mark at Admissionado really understands how to build that story and to get the right messages across to the Adcoms.

I would highly recommend Admissionado and Mark at Admissionado to help you to get to your dream school.

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Read more at: http://topdogmba.com/2015/01/01/fixing-a-hole-admissionado-review/

I am a re-applicant so writing this from the perspective of someone who has been through the pain once before and didn't want to make the same mistakes the second time around.

I first learned about Admissionado as their founder, Jon Frank, hosted a free webinar about 'Dealing with a Ding'. I was one of the lucky few chosen to be critiqued in the webinar and, while not a pleasant experience, I really appreciated the straight talking, no nonsense approach employed by Jon.

This is not a service for those of you wanting someone to praise you constantly and tell you what a good job you're doing - this is tough love! My consultant was a former Admissions Fellow at my top choice b school. We had a great free Skype session which overran the allotted time, but I just had a lot of questions and she was in no hurry and did not rush me.

After the call, I tried to imagine finding time to not only figure out my strategy, but also to write my resume, essays, manage my recommenders, all while having to check my own work and try to find friends who would help me out and review it. I decided I wanted a paid consultant, someone I could jump straight in and start discussing my stories with, someone who was always available and would push me to do more and better.

The Junior Deluxe package was great for this, it wasn't cheap but in line with other leading consulting firms. Best of all, I could bolt on additional services like Skype calls and urgent reviews of my essays (sadly, I did have to resort to this once or twice!), all in a very transparent way.

If I had any negative comments to make, I'd say that it took several days to get comments back on essays. This is because not only my consultant was reviewing them, but also an editor who added a lot of comments on how to improve the writing style, what else I could talk about, how to build the story more effectively etc. It was only a problem because I was busy for weeks at a time (with non-MBA stuff) and when I was free I liked to focus in on my essays for days at a time. If you're like me, then just make sure you spread the essays out - one school on Monday, another on Tuesday etc. - once I figured this out it was easy to adjust my schedule. Like I said, this is really not a major issue but I struggle to think of anything bad about Admissionado.

And, now for the results: well, I applied to three schools and got three interview invites. One is converted into an offer(!) and the other two I'm still waiting to hear from. Could I have got the same result on my own? Possibly, but why take that risk for the sake of 1-2% of the cost of your MBA programme!?

Thanks to Admissionado I am going to be doing my MBA next year, no matter what.

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Long story short, I got a 710, solid GPA, but weaker than avg experience. IT Proj Mgr in biotech with some exposure to strategy, but nothing like consulting or i-banking.

Shawn and the team tailored a story and strategy around the fact that I couldn't compete based on raw strength or quant ability against others looking to get into a Top 20 school. There's no way I would have got into my dream school if they hadn't helped me form and completely revise my strategy. I'll be honest, I had a "good" story before, but they pushed me to make sure everything aligned: my past exp, why I want an MBA, and my future goals. It sounds basic, but it needs to be immaculate.

Once I got my big interview, I felt super confident about my entire story, because it truly did all add up. I was able to tell it very naturally, because each piece lined up, all the way to my 20 year plan. And I didn't even use them for interview prep!

The whole team was very laid-back (not a bad thing), and it allowed me to really divulge every piece of information about myself. Some of which I would not have told many people, but that ultimately became an important part of my story. Also, I got a late start (began in mid-Aug for Oct 1 deadline), and the editors turned my drafts around literally every 3-4 days.

Can't say enough great things about Admissionado, would highly recommend for anyone looking to get into a Top 20 school. If it looks expensive, well...you're about to invest $150-200k. Do you want to spend that getting in a "mediocre" program, or would you rather be in your dream school and freakin' stoked on where you're spending the next 2 years, and WHO you're spending them with. I can't even explain how excited I am for the school I got into, such a great feeling compared to "settling" for a backup school and attending because, "well, now is the time" and "I don't want to go through that process again".

If anyone has questions about my experience, I'd love to answer, because I seriously owe it to Admissionado for the milestone that I've reached.

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