MBA Essay Reviews by EssaySnark

I would love to write a 1000 word review for Essaysnark, but since time is going by at crazy speed in my life right now, I would sum up my experience in a line or two (though I would make sure to come back for rest of the words). From the experiences of my friends and me, I have seen the work of a couple of consultants out there in the market, and I found EssaySnark undoubtedly the best - for multiple multiple reasons that I would come back to write about. I did not find the ROI with any other consultant justified. Essaysnark does the job with utmost dedication - as if this job is ES's passion. I have always wondered who is the expert brain behind this great portal and wanted to know his/her identity. Okay back to the point - Thank you, my friend! You're the best in this game!



Just one piece of advice to the brave supplicants -"take EssaySnark's criticism POSITIVELY and that will do the magic for you. Cry, get over it, and start working on their comments - seriously!!".

I decided to use go with the Essay Decimator after showing my essays to another consulting service and feeling like I never got blunt, honest feedback. EssaySnark was the complete opposite -- by eliminating face-to-face interaction, you really do get all of their unfiltered opinions, all of which are valid and valuable.



I used the Essay Decimator on my Stanford application, and what a whirlwind that process was. I've never gotten such honest feedback on my writing before, but it was critical to helping me shape my whole story. By the end of the process, I felt like I had really learned from the process -- it wasn't just a cut and dry consulting service, but really an experience that helped me become a better writer and applicant. As I filled out the short answers in the application, I found myself assessing each answer by trying to figure out what EssaySnark would say.



EssaySnark doesn't pull any punches, but that's what makes them so helpful. Even though it was painful at times, I'm really glad that I used EssaySnark because I'm genuinely proud of the essays that I produced. My entire pitch became more streamlined and I was able to really connect the dots between my application. You have to put in the work, but if you do, you will come out of the process with a great essay.

I had found EssaySnark's posts to be entertaining, but was never completely comfortable working with a consultant, especially one that only worked through an anonymous website. I can, however, say that trusting EssaySnark with my MBA essays was one of the best moves I've made throughout the application process. Because their consulting services are exclusively through a website (no calls or skype), it was imperative that I used clear and concise communication with EssaySnark, and in turn, doing so helped my final drafts show the same degree of brevity.



Using the Stanford Essay Decimator was like getting punched in the face, picking yourself up, and then coming back to ask for more. It was easy for me to feel that my essays were ready for submission because of our natural, inherent bias, but after receiving the feedback from Snark, I saw flaws all over my entire story. In fact, I ended up rewriting the entire draft. It was painful, but necessary.



ES will NOT do your homework for you, but they did provide me the confidence in showing my most authentic self. Their feedback will sting, but it motivates you to come back as a more improved and stronger writer for the second draft. I was VERY pleased with the final product.



Unlike the plethora of other MBA consulting companies out there, ES will not hawk you a bunch of services and products just to make money. Their prices are more than fair, and throughout the entire application, I felt that they had genuinely wanted to help me. Having said that, I also feel that they find great pleasure in ripping our first drafts to shreds: it was engaging, fun, and entertaining, BUT definitely not for the faint of heart!

I think that the reviewer raised a lot of good points, but a) three pages of feedback on a 250 word essay confuses efforts more than it helps b) they tore my essay to shreds without offering a way to put it back together. So now I'm a week out and I don't have any idea how to start writing this essay even though I need to redo it from scratch. They also linked to a ton of articles that I would need to pay for after I already spent $300 on this service. This was a complete rip off. I don't really know how they could fix it though because they have no idea what examples I could use from my background to put together a better essay. So I guess my conclusion is that they shouldn't offer this service at all? I don't know. I just feel like I got swindled out of $300 to be told that my essay sucked, which is all good and well, but not really constructive to putting together a better one.

As a re-applicant, I knew I needed considerable improvement to my pitch in order to maximize my chances at the top schools. EssaySnark was the perfect person to reach out to based on the great job they did with my Comprehensive Profile Review during the 2016-17 application season, in which they provided 18 pages of detailed feedback on my candidacy.



I started with the App Accelerators included in the Foundations package, which helped me define my accomplishments and refine my career goals pitch, both of which provided a base from which I could tackle the essays.



From there I went through the Essay Decimator. EssaySnark provided two rounds of in-depth, honest feedback on all my essay drafts, including a 6-page analysis on my first drafts which analyzed where I stood and what I needed to do to take my essays to the next level. Thanks to EssaySnark my pitch is a lot tighter, my essays are a lot better, and I've learned how to "translate" my accomplishments as a non-traditional applicant into business school speak. Highly recommend their services.

I worked with Essaysnark on my Business School Application and was very satisfied with the service. It is very clear and direct but incredibly helpful to get to the point. Afterwards my application was directly related to the essay questions and good to read. The experience of essaysnark was very helpful to get information about the structure of your answers.

I will keep this tight with minimal fluff (thanks Essaysnark). Essaysnark provided brutal feedback on all my essay drafts but the feedback made sense and helped me develop a stronger pitch. They made me think about how to bring out the best examples as a way of 'showing' what I accomplished. The initial feedback was not so great for my ego, but I got over it. I only wish that I had done this MUCH sooner in the season but I am confident that my essay is much stronger now. Highly recommend the essay decimator service.

Want to know the simplest way to differentiate your application? Don’t write crappy essays!



Essays are the only component of your application where you can address the admissions committee with flexibility, and there are dozens of ways to blow this critical opportunity: rambling, not answering the question, inconsistencies, jargon, excessive detail, confusing writing, unwanted messages…the list goes on. You might think you can avoid these issues if you’re aware of them – I thought so. During school, all of my English teachers loved me, I got a perfect 800 verbal score on the SAT, and a 49 (99%) on the GMAT Verbal section.



The Snark humbled me. It was much more difficult than I could have imagined to write a good set of bschool essays – to craft a tight, concise pitch to the admissions committee that highlighted new strengths with specific, detailed stories; addressed my weaknesses; reinforced my application theme; and let me stand out as a unique individual. When you layer on the stress and deadlines that typically accompany essay writing, this difficulty turns into a recipe for heavy drinking. It takes time, reflection, and a good dose of honest feedback to produce good essays. EssaySnark’s App Accelerators or Complete Essay Package (which I also recommend) help with the reflection part; the Essay Decimator delivers the feedback.



What I got was a granular line-by-line analysis of my essays within the submitted Word document, and a separate PDF discussing overall issues, specific issues, advice for improvement, and an analysis of the overall message. It’s not just “hey, the outcome of this story doesn’t quite line up with what you said in the middle.” In the review of one of my drafts, theSnark indicated that while my writing was technically great, it was a bit one-dimensional and didn’t make me stand out as a person at all – and then recommended that I consider incorporating some elements from a prior submission for another school that might help. It did.



Bottom line: After going through the Essay Decimator, I won’t second-guess my execution on essays. If I don’t get into a school, it won’t be because I fumbled the essays. At the risk/certainty of sounding cheesy…EssaySnark helped me find my voice. I still had to put in a ton of work on my essays, but they were genuine and written by me – theSnark just made sure they didn’t suck.

This is by far the best application advice/service available. Before coming to ES, I had worked with some other consultant and had been quite disappointed with the suggestions that I was getting. However, I knew that I had a 'vanilla' profile and I would have to write strong essays if I was to get admitted to a good program. That is when I stumbled upon ES's blog and started working with them. Over the last three months, I have worked extensively with ES and have ended up using almost all their products. "Essay Decimator" is perfect for anyone who has some idea of what they wish to write but are either not sure of the content or wish to improve the presentation. The advice is direct and clear. And the suggestions are mostly implementable.

ES will not tell you what to write (I don't think anyone can) but they will tell you if what you have written is good enough or not. If they say it is not, they will explain exactly why they feel so.

These guys know what they are doing. You cannot go wrong if you choose to work with them.

I'm an editor by trade/get paid to write for a living. And I know this is going to sound like a not-so-humblebrag, but I knew I had the writing thing in the bag. I just had no idea if the strategy behind my words was going to be on target. EssaySnark's feedback was essential for me--I cringe thinking about some of the wrong turns I would've made otherwise. (And maybe, just maybe, they made me a better writer too, which is hard for me to admit). Plus, you can't beat the value. I did this for 3 out of the 5 schools I applied to, because I was able to apply the lessons I learned from those essays to the other two (and you can probably get away with doing it for just one or two schools, depending on your targets and overall confidence level). Another bonus: All of the pushback you'll receive will help you formulate a pitch that will help you in interviews too. For the one open interview school I applied to, I actually read over their feedback/questions to help me prep for the interviews, which helped me ID things I should and should not prepare to talk about.



(And yes, it can be brutal. But that's what you're looking for, right?)