I was specifically looking out for someone to understand my career vision and guide me not only with the essays but also with college selection. MER is a dependable brand to rely on. The reviews and results available on the website and GMAT Club made MER my first choice and hence, I approached Poonam to help me out with my MBA application.

During the free Video consulting session, Poonam evaluated my profile on my work experience, participation in extra-curricular activities, and academics. I was also briefed on the current admission scenarios in various colleges which helped me choose my future colleges.
 
After registration, we had two counseling sessions on Zoom:
1. To discuss resume strategy, school selection, and turnaround time where we both agreed mutually to reply within two working days.

2. On the second call, we discussed my doubts regarding the school selection. We also discussed the essay stories and the important pointers to make my essays more effective.

Both sessions were informative and helped me make concrete decisions further. Before starting with the essays, we had a brainstorming session which made me explore my life deeply and we were able to extract relevant stories for different essays. This, I believe is one of the most powerful exercises during the complete process as it laid the foundation for story selection. Along with the story selection, we also worked together organizing even the small details in my essays to make them perfect. Poonam made sure that we reach word limits without compromising on the content.

Holding over three decades of experience in teaching and helping students out, her skills in sentence structure, grammar and punctuation made my content a professional one. Every iteration of the resume made me feel more confident as my total experience of more than eight years was classified on a single page. This was beyond my imagination. Poonam’s extraordinary review skills provided me the confidence to proudly brief myself during the interview.
Poonam guided me adequately regarding the selection of recommenders and the LOR process so I could guide my recommenders about LOR requirements.
She is a proactive person when it comes to turnaround time. Because of her professionalism, her response to my draft was bound to come within 48 hours. She met all the expectations listed on the MER website showing 100% professionalism. Her over the decade of experience in admissions consulting gave me all the valuable inputs which made me strategize and execute the plan. She answered every query with all the knowledge she has which equipped me with information and enabled me to make further decisions.

In Conclusion, my experience with Poonam has been exceptional and I feel lucky that I had the honor to work with her. She is a live example of a disciplined professional and cares about every small detail in your application.
The hard work did pay off with an admission offer from Kelley with scholarship of 55,833USD per year along with a waitlist from Tepper and McCombs. I would recommend Poonam’s amazing services to prospective students.

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When applying to my dream business schools, I had only separated, pieces of ideas that I wanted to convey into the essays, but I didn’t know how to put them together. I learned about MER services which are highly recommended by the GMATClub community, made further research about MER and Poonam, and then quickly decided that MER is the perfect solution to guide me through the critical brainstorming process. I was lucky in making the immediate decision because available spots are filled rapidly, and I was happy to be one of a few candidates collaborating with MER each application round.

Poonam paid great attention to details and laid out the next steps for us to work on. It was so easy to talk to her because she cares about my story. She also made initial evaluation of my profile and suggested which MBA programs that fit.
I’ve worked on my resume multiple times applying for jobs and other short programs such as the Global Energy Leadership at Rice, therefore I thought I was in a good spot to use the same resume version. And I also waived my right to check the LORs because I trusted that my recommenders knew me well enough to write those letters positively. Poonam helped me to understand what are needed in a one-page resume, there’re redundancy to be removed and information (usually be thought of as unnecessary) to be added. She also went beyond to advise me and offer her editing to clarify the sentences. My resume was presented in a transparent, connected, and sufficient. Thanks to her work.
Poonam gave me plenty of times to work on the questionnaire. It’s the next step after our zoom session to provide wider and deeper perspectives of my background, historically and emotionally. With her guidance and analysis, I answered the questionnaire only to realize that it’s tailored to help me understand more about myself and my beliefs. The art of applying to business schools is that knowing how to mix the significant desire of being successful (higher salary, reputation school, switching jobs, relocations etc…) in the future with the humility of who you are as a person. Therefore, it’s a valuable time spent to think, answer, refine the mindset and answer the questionnaire again and again.

She has the experience and wisdom to clearly understand my profile in a short time. She also knows exactly what characteristics business school will find interesting in a candidate and help me to spell out those enthusiastically. Organization of details was the most exciting aspect while working with her. With her review, everything I thought was perfectly structured was positioned in a stronger system. That helped me gain confidence on my resume and essay. She carefully paid attention to my background even in our first meeting before registration. So I had no doubts about her capability in sections that needed greater focus in detail. In fact, she beautifully broke the long sentences and divided them into more concise, simpler ones with carefully chosen words. I couldn’t and would never find her misses on word counting, grammar or punctuation. Editing is her genius!

Poonam not only keeps our agreed timeline work but also understands that nothing is a fixed bullet point. I have kid and a full-time job therefore I deal with changed schedule all the time, and Poonam was so flexible, responsive, and patiently to work with. And she always clarified my doubts/ questions in super short time. She committed on deadlines and promises and let me know how many days she would take to revert while she was working on multiple applications simultaneously. They are solid commitments and I never got wrong with her response time. She helped me craft my resume and essays, and gave them clear sense of purposes, conciseness, and strong voices about who am I and what I could bring to the class (in business schools). She always did repetitive reviews to guarantee there was no weak spots left in my resume and essays.
Poonam prepared me for a mock interview within two days after I apprised her of my interview invitation. It was a serious process of analyzing my performance so that I can equip myself better for the D-day. All actions and details were discussed by Poonam, and she gave tons of valuable advice that if I weren’t aware of, I would not have felt confident of having the important interview.

Application to business schools is not the same as applying for jobs but must be viewed as a learning process. And Poonam is the brilliant instructor for your learning. You will always expect your mentor to listen to your voice, understand who you are as a person, accept your failure, and encourage you to do the right thing; an instructor who is disciplined, experienced and has high value in your works. And you will find such personalities in Poonam.
I’ve learnt so much from her and enjoyed every moment of working with her. If you’re thinking about business schools, I strongly recommend you reach out to Poonam and schedule your call with her.
I am happy to say that I have received admission offer from McComb’s EMBA program, and I would like to say that this is my second MBA.

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I was looking for a consultant of Indian origin because I wanted someone who could relate to the Indian education system and help me understand the nitty-gritty of the international MBA application process, considering my Indian education background.
The second reason was that Poonam holds a Ph.D. in English with three decades of soundtrack experience with outstanding outcomes. GMAT Club helped differentiate between Indian consultants and made me select MER over other consultancy firms. Another selling point was that she did not have any other junior consultants editing the application on her behalf. The entire process was handled by one single person, which I liked about MER.

I must appreciate her candid nature, which helped me finalize my decision on selecting MER for my B-school application journey. Her strategy guides helped me map out the application process and what steps need to be taken to execute a robust application. Poonam guided me to appear for a GRE retake and apply with a better version of me which I completely agree upon.

The counseling session was an eye-opener where I learned different possibilities for improvement. Poonam was very particular about the questions, so she directed me to focus on what precisely the admissions committee is looking for in the essays, resumes, and LORs. My takeaway from the counseling session helped me develop appropriate stories with a lot of introspection and brainstorming.

Poonam is an excellent storyteller who possesses a good sense of how to showcase a story to convey appropriate meaning, answering the question asked. Poonam was relentless because she wanted to ensure the story was sound and to the point. Hence, there were instances when I had to make four drafts to develop fine-tuned stories that made my profile strong. In addition, Poonam helped me understand the concept of S.T.A.R. format, which made my life a lot easier in organizing the essays to make a good sense of the stories.

I could see the flow getting better and better in each edit that I received from Poonam. Her language skills and storytelling attitude helped me get my stories properly critiqued to get a better version of them. Poonam utilized her storytelling approach and constantly motivated me to use my story, highlighting my strengths and advising me to speak quality content in the essays instead of focusing more on quantity.
Poonam was extraordinarily cautious about grammatical mistakes or any sentence structure failure. Also, she used to comment on the exact errors in the sentence, commenting on what best could be done to improvise the sentence. Her role in trimming the essays was tremendous, as she made the essays so succinct (following the strict word limit requirements) without any loss of meaning and what I intended to showcase to the admissions committee.

I already had my resume ready, which I thought was a perfect one. However, when I saw the comments from Poonam on different aspects, it was new to me. For example, I learned how we need to display our extracurricular hobbies in the resume. Instead of making a laundry list, we need to be more specific about our hobbies. Poonam responded to my questions within 24 hours. During the three long zoom sessions, I understood that she is dedicated and diligent in ensuring that all my queries were answered correctly and did provide valuable advice. If she was unable to respond within 24 hours, she would notify the reason why the delay occurred and still try to respond as earliest as she could.

I did one mock interview session. The tips on improving my performance in the interview were precious. I figured out which area I need to focus more on, the behavioral questions where I need to use the S.T.A.R. format to get solid answers. Poonam's verbal and written feedback on my interview helped me develop a solution to the mistakes committed. The suggestions I received for the LOR were also commendable as they provided my recommender to come up with impactful stories that gel with my short-term career objectives.

My overall experience with MER was excellent. Yes, I would definitely recommend MER services to prospective applicants.

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I signed up for MER services for help and guidance with MBA application essays and resume. After first review of resume and essays, we had two long counseling sessions on Zoom. What I liked the most was that though each session was scheduled for 1 hour each, Poonam did not bother about how long it took until we got the perfect outcome. It was good to be asked questions about my motivation to apply for MBA. Poonam made me think deeper and dig into my own self and be clear about my own objectives as well as background. It helped me to articulate my thoughts. Here are my thoughts on each aspect of the process :

1. Resumé building:

Before this year, I had never thought about building my resume for a generic or business focused role. My resume was completely technical, full of very industry specific jargons. Poonam helped with picking out what was important and then translate the technical achievements to plain English yet keep the impact of the achievement. The call helped as I was able to explain what exactly I had done, and Poonam updated my resume and took notes in the call.

2. Essay Help- Content (Understanding profile and positioning of stories):

This was the step I enjoyed the most while working with Poonam. The discussions we had on the zoom call were very introspective for me, and Poonam helped me clarify my own goals and desires and then put them down into words. With the zoom meeting, I was able to put my thoughts to the right words and make a meaningful impactful essay.

3. Structure/ organization: (Organizing details to make the story flow better):

This was all Poonam – I completely used her pointers to create an interesting coherent flow in my essays. I would have been totally lost without this guidance. It helped to have some pointers for the structure and for me to think what experiences I wanted to share and establish a flow that would keep my readers interested.

4. Editing Skills: (Sentence structure, grammar, punctuation):

I was expecting Poonam to be great at this from all the reviews I had read, and the outcome was just as expected. She is an editing genius and helped keep my essays within word limit while also keeping the gist and main ideas impactful enough.

5. Answering queries:

I received some good suggestions and out of the box answers to my questions that I posted in my drafts. Poonam was never pushy, but her experience definitely showed through all the answers to questions I had.

6. Turnarounds (Response time):

Just as expected and agreed upon – Poonam was very prompt to reply and always communicated if at all any turnaround was going to be late. I really appreciated her keeping me in the loop and openness.

I will recommend Poonam to anyone who is seeking advice to write great essays for MBA applications. Poonam helped me clarify my own reasons for an MBA. It was great having discussions over zoom meetings and just talking to Poonam as a person. She brought out my strengths and unique capabilities in the essays. I am delighted to say that I have received admission offer from Wharton EMBA program.

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I signed up for MER services as I was looking for support on my MBA application for Mcgill and Concordia. After thorough research, I realized MER had supported students with a lower-than-average GMAT score get into their desired business school. Given my GMAT was lower than average, I decided to go ahead with MER. Also, compared to other editing services, MER charged reasonable prices for its services.
The free consultation was helpful as it made me connect with Poonam better. Also, through this session, I understood that Poonam is very serious about her work and has strict guidelines an applicant should follow, something which I admire in mentors.

Then the long counseling session helped me understand the real ask behind each essay question and the resume. Poonam answered all my questions and helped me get the bigger picture.
Poonam supported me a lot with my stories. On my first session, I thought I had nothing to tell on a personal level, however, the more time I spent on Poonam’s feedback, the more I realized I have a lot to tell. This helped me craft top-notch essays with relevant content.
The feedback Poonam shared in her edits helped me organize my story better and draft it in a clear flow. Poonam helped me input diverse synonyms in my essays. Her ability to bring down the word count to the required word count without losing the flow and meaning was amazing.
Poonam helped me quickly move from a professional resume format to an academic resume format. She also helped me add an exceptional Extracurriculars section, something which I never thought I had enough stories for.

The LOR process was smooth and helped improve the quality of my recommendations. Throughout our engagement, Poonam answered all my queries quickly and clearly. I felt free to ask her the silliest of questions as she managed to create an open culture. Her response time was on point! It helped me not to over-stress and helped me avoid the fear of last-minute delays.

Working with Poonam was a great experience. The level of service met my expectations. The challenging process of an MBA application was made smoother and more organized with the support of Poonam. Yes! The content on the MER website describes the actual experience. I am happy to say that I have received an offer of admission from both, Mcgill and Concordia! I really appreciate your support and would like to thank you for the guidance! I will definitely recommend the service to prospective applicants.

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I came across MER during my search for MBA consultant to help me with my EMBA applications for top business schools. I went through multiple other MBA consultant websites but found MER unique, after reading through the successful stories and experiences of other MER students.

My initial call with Poonam was very affirmative and informational. Initially, I was not even considering applying for top business schools, but after talking to Poonam, I got the motivation and self confidence that I should apply for top business schools. In my first call, I remember Poonam saying that you will only get a single chance to go through this wonderful application process. I didn’t quite understand it back then, but now after going through the process with her, I understand why. It’s an interesting process where you not only write application essays but also learn how and why you write them and what is admission committee is looking for.

Each counselling session was great and very informational. Poonam is very organized and has the editing process in place to speed up the application process. While writing essays, I learned a lot about myself. Poonam explained to me the STAR method to write the situational essays which I am pretty sure will help me in future. She also pointed out things that admission committee looks for in LORs and suggested ideas that make your case more promising to the admission committee.


Poonam just didn’t only help build my resume, but also explained the entire process how I should write the resume and what admission committee is looking for. I believe it will help me in entire my career. I chuckle when I see my old 2-page resume, which was bad (No wonder, I didn’t get many jobs interview calls). She helped me reduce it to very brief and concise one- page resume. This will not only help me applying for business schools but through out rest of my life.
She is very direct and knows what is important and what not.

Poonam not only edited my essays but also helped me pick the best stories to make my case very strong. She knows what stories will be appealing to add in the application. It is very natural for her to read your essay and point out what should go where. Going through the essay writing process, now I see how my essay transformed from my first draft to the final essay. Reading through the final essay, I didn’t believe my stories could be this powerful. She makes sure the essay flows nicely and stories are all lined up to show your candidacy.


Poonam not only makes sure the grammar, punctuation is correct, but she structures your sentences in a very nice way. In fact, I was never worried about the word limit because I knew Poonam has extraordinary skills to cut down my essays to the allowed word limit without trimming my stories. She also makes sure to use simple words, so it looks like it is written by you and not by an English Professor.

Poonam is very knowledgeable and supportive at the same time. Whenever I had any questions about any of application steps, I reached out to her, and she was always there to help me with my queries. The response time for essays was less than 12 hours and she made sure that my application was ready before the deadline. She is very responsive if you have any question about the application process and makes sure that she answers your questions correctly.

One of the best things I learned through this process was learning about myself. She pointed out my weaknesses and highlighted my strengths, making my case realistic and strong at the same time. Personally, I think it is good, because you get very true opinion about yourself and how you are being portrayed to others.

Interview Prep: To be honest, my mock interview with Poonam was more rigorous and realistic than my real interview. It prepared me well for my actual interview with the business school interviewer. Poonam gave me confidence on how to interview and what should and shouldn’t I say during the interview. She made sure I am fully prepared for the interview. I remember, my laptop battery died during my mock interview with Poonam, and I had to leave the mock interview for a few seconds. She pointed out that I should be extra prepared for unusual events like this. She asked relevant questions and provided nice feedback towards the end of the interview. She also sent a detailed written feedback report on the mock interview which is always very helpful to go back and prepare.

I enjoyed the entire application process working with Poonam. One thing I really liked about Poonam is that she works with only 6 candidates at a time. That gives her enough time to read through your stories, understand your point of view, and provide feedback. Sometimes, it even feels like she is only working on your essays because she is totally invested in you. Working with her, I always felt motivated and inspired not only during essays but also during the time I was preparing for my EA exam.

I am happy to inform that I am accepted into Wharton’s EMBA program . No doubt, I would like to recommend her to the prospective applicants. She has great English background and experience in writing essays for business schools and her style of working with each applicant personally makes her unique. I don’t think you will get same package as her from another MBA consultant.

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I wanted to give the best shot to my applications as this was the final year of me applying so I went with Poonam who has already delivered exceptional results in the past with applicants. This was the 3rd year I was applying to B-schools and Poonam understood the importance of this year’s application for my career.

In the strategy session about school selection, Poonam carried out a detailed discussion on selection of schools, and I was happy with the outcome. In the counselling session, I was provided a detailed instruction on essays, resume and LoRs. Poonam conducted a comprehensive review of my resume, and I was happy with the final product. Overall, it was much sharper. The selection of stories, content, structure and organization of my stories and positioning were spot on. She did her best to highlight my strengths.

Poonam provided top notch editing services (Sentence structure, grammar, punctuation), and trimmed my essays to the allowed word limit. Throughout the process, she answered all my queries in a timely manner and scheduled phone calls as and when I requested. The turnaround time was good and was in fact better than what was agreed between us. On some of the occasions, when things got delayed at my end, Poonam went above and beyond to ensure that the submission on deadlines was not affected.

Poonam’s guidance on LOR was nice, too. She highlighted how LOR and stories should complement each other. I was able to share the feedback I received from Poonam with my recommender which resulted in a cohesive story. I was happy with interview prep. I received comprehensive feedback after mock interview session -both verbal and written. I was made aware of certain things I was doing unconsciously such as plenty of hand movements which I worked upon post my feedback from Poonam.

I had an excellent experience of working with Poonam. More importantly, the softer aspect such as motivation and encouragement provided at crucial juncture of application process helped me a lot. I have received admission offer from McCombs with scholarship, interviewed with Duke Fuqua, and have been waitlisted by Stern and Haas.

Thanks a lot, Poonam, for your support. I am immensely grateful for the help provided during the application process. Definitely, I would recommend the MER services to prospective applicants.

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I chose MER because of the following reasons:
1. Good feedback from public
2. 10+ years experience
3. English PhD background
4. Good at storytelling

I signed up for the essay review service. During our engagement, we had two long counseling sessions on Zoom. The sessions were helpful and provided me with a detailed feedback for my essays and how to improve them.

Poonam provided a lot of useful comments/suggestions about my story and how to improve it and make it strong. After her editing, the structure became much better than before, and all essays were completed within the words limit. The editing process made my writing easier to understand and more concise. Also, the editing made my story stronger. Poonam’s turnarounds were also on time. She always sent me back the edited essay within two days. We finished the essays before the deadline.

I am admitted to Chicago Booth MBA program. I would recommend MER services to prospective applicants.

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I availed MER services because I needed objective feedback and advice on my resume, essays, and letters of recommendation. I believe that well-written, polished, and impactful stories will increase my chances of getting admitted to business school. I also read highly positive reviews on GMATClub, where I learned that the pricing on MER’s service packages is comparatively much lower than the exorbitantly priced services of other consultants. Therefore, I could have all my documents reviewed by a professional without breaking the bank.

1. Free consultation

I was impressed with the free consultation. Poonam took the time to review my short profile before the consultation. We discussed my goals, schools I have chosen, timing of application submission, among others. Since it was a free consultation, my signing up for MER services was not yet certain. However, Poonam approached me as if I were already her client, so the free consultation was incredibly informative and helpful. By then, I knew that Poonam was my best choice as consultant. Immediately after the consultation, I signed up and paid for the 3 schools basic package.

2. 1- hour counseling session on Zoom:

Poonam and I scheduled our 1-hour counseling session after I submitted to her the accomplished brainstorming questionnaire and the initial drafts of my resume, goals essay, and leadership essay. It was also the perfect opportunity to understand each other’s working style and personality. Through this counseling session, we had a fruitful discussion as we ran through each of my submitted documents. She gave me a lot of useful pointers on how to improve them. I liked her idea of starting the essay writing process with my third school of choice before proceeding to the essays of my second choice and finally, my top choice. She explained that as I slowly get used to writing essays, I could produce the best outputs for my dream business school. Finally, I sought her opinion on my choice of recommenders, and she advised me to explain my decision on it in my optional essays. At first, I only thought about explaining my employment gap in those essays, so without Poonam’s advice, I probably would have had a glaring missing piece of information in my applications.

3. Essays: Content (Understanding your profile and positioning of stories):

Poonam’s brainstorming questionnaire helped me draw out stories and ideas that I could use in my essays. She ran through my responses in the questionnaire and gave her comments on them. She also pointed out which of my responses did not sufficiently address the question so that I could choose another topic. The questionnaire served as a pool of ideas for the essays and gave Poonam a deeper understanding of my profile especially on my personal traits, family background, interests, and memorable experiences. She used the information to give me the most appropriate feedback and advice when reviewing my drafts. For essay topics that were not part of the questionnaire, I wrote two short stories for her and she explained to me which of the two stories would be the better choice for my essay. Lastly, Poonam made me realize that the best way to address the essay prompt is to break it down into parts and answer each of those components before combining all of them to make one cohesive essay.

4. Structure/ organization: (Organizing details to make the story flow better):

Poonam taught me how to best present my ideas through the sequence or flow of my story. Her most important advice regarding essay structure was about using the STAR method to address behavioral essay questions. This method served as my guide in writing the leadership essay.

5. Editing Skills: (Sentence structure, grammar, punctuation):

Poonam is a master in editing. She rephrased some of my awkwardly written or lengthy sentences to make them sound natural without changing my tone or writing style. Word limit was one of the biggest challenges that I encountered in essay writing. I had to remove some parts of my story to comply with it. Poonam, however, revived those parts by shortening other wordy portions of my essay, so we could retain all key details of my story without compromising the word count. Also, she replaced some adjectives with more powerful ones and changed my sentences from passive voice to active voice whenever possible. Poonam handled the editing of my essays with great care and attention.

6. Resumé Review:

The resume review was immensely useful in crafting a resume that was a lot more impressive than my first draft. Through her brainstorming questionnaire and 1-hour consultation, Poonam identified parts of my career and personal experiences that I failed to include in my resume, such as higher-level responsibilities I undertook at an early career position, volunteer experience, and interests/hobbies. She also suggested that I quantify the results of my career achievements using numbers and percentages so that the reader will understand the impact of my contributions to the company. Lastly, Poonam instructed me to simplify finance and accounting jargon that I used in my draft. All these changes drastically improved my resume.

7. LOR Review:

Like her review on my essays and resume, her advice on the LORs was as detailed and thorough. She made her revisions without changing the writing style of my recommenders. She also provided valuable advice on addressing the requirements of the LORs, each of which had a different format, and helped choose which among my strengths and weaknesses my recommenders could highlight in each LOR.

8. Answering queries:

Poonam answered my questions with detailed responses in a timely manner. One of her most informative answers is related to my concern on the recommendation letters. I wanted to know how one of my recommenders, who is my mentor at a language institute, could comment on my leadership skills. She gave me an in-depth explanation including examples on how leadership skills can be demonstrated other than by managing people and teams. All the advice she provided me during the entire process has been incredibly insightful.

9. Turnarounds (Response time):

Poonam was true to her word. She returned my drafts with her edits within her stated turnaround time of 24-48 hours. Most of the time, she does it within 24 hours, so our progress moved at a reasonable pace. In fact, we finished two weeks ahead of our agreed deadline.

Poonam exceeded all my expectations. Through her thorough review and guidance, the final products were far more effective, straightforward, crisp, and concise than the original drafts. I am beyond satisfied with how everything turned out to be. Initially, writing the essays was an overwhelming and stressful task for me, but with her assistance, it gradually became an enjoyable activity. It was also learning process for me.

Beyond her impressive storytelling and editing skills, Poonam is genuinely interested in seeing her clients succeed, so she did not treat our partnership simply as a consultant-client relationship. Her assistance to me over the past few months felt more personal. Not only did she provide constructive feedback and points for improvement on all my outputs, but she also praised my work whenever I did a good job. I found that very inspiring and motivating. I am deeply grateful for her sincerity and thoughtfulness.

Because I was applying to Japanese business schools, I feared that consultants will not take my applications seriously or will not prioritize it as much as they do for applications to Harvard, Stanford, INSEAD or any other big-name school. When Poonam showed support in my goal of studying and working in Japan during the free consultation, that fear was put to rest. She also explained that the best business school is the one that provides a program that is most closely aligned with one’s career goals, so chasing after the top-ranking business schools like most people do may not be always appropriate.

If I were given the chance, I would gladly work with Poonam again. That said, I highly recommend MER to prospective applicants.

I have received admission offers from my dream school, Hitotsubashi ICS, with a nomination for the prestigious government scholarship, Waseda, and NUCB. Thank you very much for your kindness, patience, and dedication!

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I signed up for MER services for support for my MBA narrative and essays. Before contacting MER, I had already chosen my preferred programme but was unsure of how I should present my story. In my 5-year career, I have worked in different capacities in several sectors. I was clear on the next step I wanted to take but I was not clear on which highlights from my career I should stress and how I could tie my experiences to my post-MBA goals.

After looking at several other MBA consultants, I chose MER because I wanted to work with Poonam. Her profile as a Ph.D in English with three decades of experience helping people craft compelling stories for business school applications convinced me that she would help me define and refine my essays in a clear and comprehensive manner.

During the counseling session with Poonam, we discussed my profile, goals, and ambitions. We conducted a review of my resume and post-MBA goals. The counseling session was well-structured and productive. We discussed my overall profile and purpose for pursuing an MBA; at the end of the session, we agreed on which achievements and strengths should be highlighted to bring the two pieces together. Poonam brought a professional and disciplined approach to the session. We worked slightly over the expected session time, giving me confidence that I was working with a consultant that was invested in my success.

During the resumé building process, Poonam was patient and informative. Through helpful probing questions, Poonam helped guide me to reformat my resume to concentrate on my achievements and specific contributions to each role. Poonam’s advice helped my work experience come to life. There was a significant difference between my first and final resumé draft.

Poonam and I spent a large portion of our counseling session discussing my professional and personal profile. I proposed which stories should be highlighted and Poonam provided her feedback. Poonam’s inputs regarding story selection helped emphasize my personal values and career ambitions in my post-MBA career goals essays and additional essays. Poonam consistently provided strong technical advice to improve the structure and organisation of my essays. From Poonam’s feedback, I could better understand how the reader would interpret my essays and what questions they would ask. Poonam helped me eliminate vague and passive passages from my essays and highlight my strengths and achievements. Poonam also provided valuable guidelines, such as the STAR framework for situational questions, that helped me tell my story in a clear and fluid manner.

Poonam’s editing skills are top notch. Her input on sentence structure, grammar and punctuation helped me to craft well-structured and compelling essays that I am proud of. For the majority of my essays, we had to trim 10-20% of the words to meet the word limit. Poonam’s advice on where to trim and where to add substance to my essays gave me confidence and helped bring out the authenticity and originality in my story.
Throughout my 4-month engagement with MER, Poonam was always very prompt and professional in responding to queries via email. The tone of our email exchanges was always friendly and productive. MER’s turnarounds and response times were consistent and reliable from the start. Each question or edit was answered within 1-3 business days. Poonam is organised and possesses strong collaboration skills. From the very start of our engagement, I felt as though I was part of a team. Poonam’s set strict turnaround guidelines compelled me to push myself to meet deadlines and produce my best work. Poonam’s organisation on a tight schedule helped me to produce a final MBA package that was complementary and comprehensive.

Poonam asked me to think critically about each component of my MBA application, highlighting my strengths and addressing my weaknesses. My low undergraduate GPA was the one glaring weakness in my application I was especially concerned about. Poonam advised me to address my low GPA head on in my additional essays, describing the circumstances that led to it and assuring the admissions committee that it is not inaccurate indication of my abilities or potential. Poonam provided me with strong technical guidance to mitigate my weaknesses and highlight my strengths throughout the editing process. Both of my recommenders produced drafts of the LOR’s. Poonam’s feedback helped align my recommendations with my qualities.

I was elated when I received an invitation to interview Oxford Business School. The interview prep offered by Poonam challenged me during the interview prep to think critically about the “why” behind each facet of my application. Our mock interview lasted 45 minutes, afterwards Poonam’s verbal and written feedback pinpointed specific strengths and weaknesses in my presentation and profile, helping to better position me for success during the live interview.


It was a pleasure to work with Poonam. Poonam is a skilled storyteller and possesses expert editing skills. Throughout our engagement, I was impressed by Poonam’s professional and organised approach as well as her encouraging and warm persona. I have received an offer from the Oxford MBA:) Thank you, Poonam, for your guidance throughout this process!!

I recommend her without reservations to any prospective MBA candidate who is searching for a consultant to help tell their story in a compelling and comprehensive manner.

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