Aston &amp; James, LLC

RUSH - Hourly Trusted Adviser Service

During the MBA application preparation process, there are moments when an individual has overlooked an aspect or multiple aspects of their application package and requires urgent and immediate assistance.

The Aston & James, LLC RUSH - Hourly Trusted Adviser Service has been developed to assist individuals refine their pre-existing MBA application deliverables or wish to have Aston & James consultants provide a final review of any aspect of their admission process in a time sensitive manner.

The Aston & James Hourly RUSH - Hourly Trusted Adviser Service provides our clients the ability to utilize Aston & James consultants to refine any aspect of their MBA application and to provide a response within a period of twenty-four (24) hours.

The RUSH - Hourly Trusted Adviser Service can be used for a variety of activities, such as Resume review, essay annotation, recommendation strategy, as well as interview preparation. The benefits of the Aston & James' RUSH - Hourly Trusted Adviser service is that our clients can purchase urgent and immediate hourly guidance for the task at hand and add on additional hours as they deem necessary, so that they can meet pressing admissions deadlines.

Image Management

The Aston & James Image Specialists are either former or current marketers, models, fashion column editors, fashionistas, etiquette experts, professional speakers or grooming stylists. Aston & James Image Specialists are involved at various parts of the admissions consulting process given the specific needs of Aston & James' clients.

This team of experts work with our clients to provide aesthetic, physical image, body language and communication guidance to our clients. Image Specialists have a proven track record of providing objective guidance in a constructive and empathetic manner to our clients, which results in a highly beneficial discussion. Image Specialists come with extensive experience in creating an optimal style for the candidate, which encompasses image, personal style, and an unforgettable brand.

For some our clients, Image Specialists provide grooming and physical image guidance prior to the candidate’s interactions with any MBA Program representative; for others, Image Specialists are involved to provide advice prior to a client’s MBA admissions interview. The prep may also be focused on assessing the client’s communication style, voice inflections, modulations, pace and breadth of grammar as per the client’s request.

Profile Assessment

It is imperative that our clients have a clear road map when applying to the world’s most elite business schools. In order to be able to navigate the complex business school application landscape, it is critical to have a thorough understanding of one’s strengths and areas for improvement.

The Aston & James' Profile Assessment provides our clients an intimate perspective regarding their capabilities and competencies. The power of the Aston & James' Profile Assessment arises from its ability to identify those attributes of our clients which the top-tier MBA Admissions Committee will find to be an asset and those attributes in our client’s repertoire which may be viewed as unfavorable. The outcome of the Aston & James' Profile Assessment is a mutual foundation which both the Aston & James' consultant and client can use to create the most compelling application.

The Aston & James' Profile Assessment Service Offering may be purchased as a stand alone service. However, given the importance that Aston & James places on the Aston & James' Profile Assessment Service Offering, Aston & James executes a thorough assessment complimentary for our clients who have purchased the Comprehensive Application Package (CAP) to provide them a prescriptive path towards achieving business school admissions success.

Creative Planning

The Aston & James' Creative Planning service is where the Aston & James consultant will utilize a sequence of conversational questions to explore aspects of your background which potentially will be highly salient to a top-tier MBA Admissions Committee.

The primary objective of the Aston & James' Creative Planning service is where both the Aston & James consultant and client collaborate on the client’s personal as well as professional experiences, that will resonate with the Admissions Committee.

Across MBA applications, a top-tier Admissions Committee frequently receives applicant perspectives which, while some clients may believe are highly unique, are actually quite common and in many circumstances, not clearly communicated. As such, the challenge for a top-tier MBA applicant becomes not only to impress the Admissions Committee with their specific competencies and capabilities, but also to do so in a manner that is effective and engaging. The outcome of the Aston & James' Creative Planning service is a portfolio list of several key themes which the Aston & James'consultant and client will use as foundational context while creating compelling essays.

Resume Review

The Aston & James' Resume Review service is utilized by our clients to specifically create a world class MBA application Resume. The MBA applicant assumes that majority of the admissions decision by the Admissions Committee results from either, the Grade Point Average, GMAT score or Essays; however, the experienced MBA applicant knows that the professional context can greatly influence a positive outcome from the MBA Program's Admissions Committee.

The MBA Resume differs from the traditional professional work experience Resume, in that it elaborates upon a greater number of attributes. The importance of the MBA Resume cannot be overstated, for it is often the first impression of you and your application to the Admissions Committee. Hence, it is very important to ensure that the MBA Resume accurately reflects your true capabilities and competencies in a manner which impressed the Admissions Committee immediately.

The Aston & James' Resume Review involves the Aston & James consultant performing an initial review of your Resume. Following this, the Aston & James consultant will provide general or detailed annotations directly to your Resume and to identify areas which require additional elaboration, editing, as well as content restructuring. After the client has addressed the primary areas of concern, the Aston & James consultant will perform subsequent reviews of the Resume and then direct in-line edits to create an MBA Resume of the highest caliber.

Essay Outlining

The Aston & James' Essay Outlining service is a preferred service by our clients who wish to primarily focus on essay creation and are looking to formally define the structure of their essays. Although the Aston & James' Essay Outlining service is similar to the Aston & James' Creative service given its focus on fostering essay development, the Aston & James' Essay Outlining service provides a detailed framework in which to develop your essays.

A variety of different outlines will be the resultant following the completion of the Aston & James' Essay Outlining service and will provide a highly structured method to ideate, outline and construct your essays. The Aston & James' Essay Outlining service will yield multiple dividends, as you will avoid the common mistakes which your competition will make in their essay construction.

Short Answer Review

With increasing numbers, top-tier MBA programs are providing additional requirements for prospective applicants to demonstrate their creativity to the Admissions Committee. The advent and proliferation of Short Answer questions, as well as limited character count response questions on top-tier MBA applications demonstrates this objective.

The Aston & James' Short Answer service entails a Aston & James consultant working with you to define precise responses to top-tier MBA program Short Answer questions, as well as the highly limited character responses.

Given Aston & James' consultants’ experience in this realm, the Aston & James' consultant will perform an initial review of your Short Answer question response, as well as your responses to limited character response questions. Following this, your Aston & James' consultant will provide several themed responses of appropriate length which address the Short Answer or limited character response questions. Subsequent to this, your consultant and you will work together over multiple iterations to construct the Short Answer or limited character responses.

Essay Development

The Aston & James' Essay Development service is one of our most popular services, which is focused exclusively on reviewing your essay, providing detailed annotations and helping you create a world class essay. The Aston & James' Essay Development service applies a technique which Aston & James has named “Annotation Compounded Micro-polishing.” The Aston & James' Essay Development activity begins with your Aston & James consultant performing an initial review of your essay and then providing detailed annotation in the form of comments directly on your essay.

The detailed annotations will identify areas of strength as well as areas for improvement. Following this initial identification, the client will address the Aston & James' consultant's recommendations and provide a more refined essay version. After potentially some additional exchanges between the Aston & James' consultant and the client, the Aston & James Consultant will take the semi-final version of the essay and apply our Micro-polishing technique to it. Micro-polishing essentially reconstructs your essay by focusing on each sentence in your essay and addressing the root issues with each sentence and working from the most detailed level up. The end result, is a highly polished essay at the macro level with finely tuned sentences yielding a highly compelling essay, all while maintaining the essence of your inner voice. This process is completed when you and the Aston & James consultant are completely satisfied with the quality of the essay.

Interview Preparation

Nearly all of the top-tier MBA programs offer admissions interviews to a select group of their applicants on a yearly basis. It is a rite of passage for our clients to receive their admissions interviews, because it is symbolic of the top-tier MBA program’s interest in finding out more about our clients.

The interview time can be one of immense trepidation for all, especially for our clients who are very familiar with interviewing essentials in their respective countries; however, who are not as confident in interviewing in a different cultural context. Furthermore, even for domestic U.S. nationals or international clients, who are interviewing with U.S. based institutions, the MBA interview can pose a significant number of challenges which may not arise in a normal interview context. While a career interview is primarily focused on competencies, the MBA interview focuses on broad topics from professional experiences as well as more personal areas.

The Aston & James' Interview Preparation service is comprised of separate sessions where the consultant will facilitate mock preparatory interviews. Sessions are usually conducted either telephonically or via multi-media communication tools such as Zoom, Skype or Google+. The Aston & James consultant will primarily ascertain the client’s ability to communicate past experiences as well as their short-term and long-term goals. The consultant will ask a series of actual MBA questions that the interviewer will most likely ask. Feedback is also provided accordingly, to ensure that the Aston & James' client addresses the areas of concern. The Aston & James consultant will focus on bringing all of the learnings from prior sessions, cohesively into the last mock interview.

Acceptance & Scholarship Assessment

Aston & James' Acceptance & Scholarship Evaluation service provides objective and high value guidance to our individuals, who have been accepted to at least one and frequently multiple top-tier MBA programs, so that they can make the best decision regarding which program to enroll in. Aston & James consultants are highly skilled at performing comparative analysis between the various top-tier MBA programs and providing clear recommendations on the appropriate course of action.

Furthermore, Aston & James consultants provide expert guidance in negotiating and securing scholarships as well as additional monetary grants for those who have been offered or not granted scholarships. Aston & James' consultants work in concert with you to make the appropriate requests in a manner which is both professional and effective for the funding that you would like to secure.

The primary objective of the Aston & James' Acceptance & Scholarship Evaluation service is to ensure, that as our clients embark upon the next major phase of their life, that they do so with an absolute affirmation that their decision to attend their school of choice was the right decision to do so.

Hourly Trusted Adviser Evaluation

There are moments when our clients wish to refine their pre-existing MBA application deliverables or wish to have Aston & James consultants provide a final review of any aspect of their admission process. For this type of situation, MAC offers our Trusted Adviser Hourly service.

The Aston & James Hourly Trusted Adviser service provides our clients the ability to utilize Aston & James consultants to refine any aspect of their MBA application. Hourly services can be used in a variety of activities, such as Resume review, essay annotation, recommendation strategy, as well as interview preparation. The benefits of the Aston & James' Trusted Adviser Hourly service is that our clients can purchase hourly guidance for the task at hand and add on additional hours as they deem necessary.

MBA Program Analysis

The Aston & James' MBA Program Analysis service give our clients a clear assessment of how top-tier MBA programs directly align with the personal and professional goals. The Aston & James' MBA Program Analysis service complements our Aston & James' Profile Assessment service.

Ideally, an Aston & James' client will first go through the Aston & James' Profile Assessment, to best understand their core competencies and capabilities prior to the MBA Program Analysis service; however, Aston & James' clients can choose to only purchase the MBA Program Analysis service to help them quickly filter those top-tier MBA programs which would be most conducive to their ambitions or those which would be the most favorable for admission.

MBA Recommendation Guidance

The MBA recommendation process can be daunting as this is one area of your application, which you potentially may have the least control or influence, as another individual is providing authorship of the material. The Aston & James' MBA Recommendation Guidance service is for our clients whom are seeking to gain highly polished and impactful recommendation letters.

Over years of experience and many clients, we have developed a guaranteed methodology to facilitate your recommenders in creating successful recommendation letters. Aston & James' approach towards recommendation letters which are of the highest quality and energy, is one that is integrity filled. Aston & James' MBA Recommendation Guidance service begins with the Aston & James consultant working 1:1 with you to identify the most influential and positive recommenders based upon Aston & James' strategic assessment criteria.

Following this identification, your Aston & James consultant will further develop the short list of recommenders who should be selected to provide you recommendation letters. Furthermore, your Aston & James consultant will work with you in a detailed prescriptive manner to execute a series of activities which will result in your recommender creating the most positive recommendation, without you authoring any portion of it. In addition, Aston & James' MBA Recommendation Guidance service will also result in your recommenders completing the on-line recommendation matrix or matrices for each of the top-tier business schools flawlessly.

LIFETIME Comprehensive Admissions Package (LCAP)