The day has come…

We’ve got a big change to announce today: We’re going to start charging. Going forward, select posts on the EssaySnark blahg will be available to paying members only.

We realize that this may be an unpopular move.

Here’s why we’re doing it:

• Free content certainly is not free to produce and distribute – this snazzy new website involves a lot of costs
• When stuff is free, some people don’t appreciate its value. When people don’t appreciate the value, we get demotivated – and that doesn’t help anybody.
• Frankly we’re tired of educating the competition – some days it seems that there’s just as many admissions consultants hanging out on the EssaySnark blahg as there are Brave Supplicants

We will still offer content for free on a regular basis.

We’re committed to helping you out with your apps. You’ll be able to find value here regardless of whether you’re plunking down a little cash or not.

However, for those who can’t get enough Snark, we now offer a very inexpensive monthly full-blahg membership. We’re talking less than five bucks a month – $4.95 to be exact. This gives you complete access to everything we’ve ever posted on this blahg, and everything that’s to come, for as long as your membership is active. You can sign up for 6-month subscription, where you’re billed every month, yet you can cancel anytime during that period. If you want to continue past six months, you can sign up again when the original term expires.

Anyone purchasing one of our consulting support tools and services like the Comprehensive Profile Review or the Complete Essay Package or anything else will get a six-month one-month blahg membership included in their subscription (had to change this offer 8/22 – the accountants told us that six months was ridiculously generous). If you’ve purchased anything from us in the past month or so, your account should already be enabled with this complimentary access (those purchasing before 8/22 got the six months, going forward you’ll get one month).

We will also be changing the policy around offering free help and essay reviews: The reviews and advice will still be free, and they’ll still be posted publicly here or on Twitter, but you will need to be a member of the blahg to submit a request. By doing it this way, we’re going to be able to answer a lot more of your questions. We’ve been feeling bad about how many requests have gone unanswered lately. We still can’t guarantee a response to a freebie request, but the odds of getting one will go up significantly. Anyone who submitted a request for help prior to this announcement may still get a response; no need to resubmit. We are trying to work through the backlog and it may take a little more time before we get to you, but we’re hoping to do exactly that, and soon.

We know that money is tight. We know that some of you have limited funds, especially those from overseas. But let’s look at the facts: You’re here because you want to go to a top bschool. Everything about bschool is expensive – and it’s got huge ROI.  The blahg membership is ridiculously cheap, and it’s also got huge ROI. There are many many success stories to prove it.

Basically it’s like this: If you can’t afford $5 a month, we honestly don’t know what you’re doing in even applying to these places.

We thought long  and hard before deciding to take this step. We hope it doesn’t alienate too many of you. We believe this will allow us to provide even more useful information to help motivated Brave Supplicants like you to succeed with your MBA applications.

We’re happy to entertain questions in the comments section below. We’re looking forward to adding value to your app strategies!

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 Quick FAQ

1. Will any content be available for free?  Yes. We don’t have any estimates or ratios or anything, but we’ll definitely still publish material on the open blahg, for anyone to read.
2. Why should I pay for anything? There’s lots of MBA websites out there. Valid point, Brave Supplicant. However there aren’t any other EssaySnarks out there. Whether you value the information we provide enough to pull out a credit card is up to you.
3. How do I sign up? Go here and use PayPal to initiate your membership.
4. What if I want to cancel? No problem. We will set you up with a recurring membership that expires after six months. You can cancel at any time during that six-month period.
5. Can I get a refund? Sorry, due to the liberal cancelation policy, and the fact that you have had unfettered access to all the goodies for however long you were active, we can’t entertain requests for refunds on blahg memberships.
6. I’m supposed to have access but it’s not working. Very sorry! The system may have a glitch or two. Please email us at techsupport at our domain and we’ll look into it right away. Please include your username and your first and last name. If you have a PayPal receipt, you can forward that for reference.