28,622Leland Reviews

Indrani offered new information and helpful tips! Her presentation was easy to follow and made writing essays for law school feel less intimidating.

‘Let your achievements speak of your character.’ Donna Pelletier showed me how to let my experiences in volunteering demonstrate the empathy and personal qualities that my top schools were looking for in their applicants. Her guidance resulted in essays that were authentic, relatable, and comfortable for me to submit. I was everything I purported to be and I got accepted to three of my top five schools.

ChatGPT seemed like a good choice for my resume, statement, and cover letter but, to be sure, I wanted a professional opinion and connected with Donna Pelletier. She told me that, despite all the sophisticated vocabulary and sentences of varying length, she had no idea who I was, that there was no personality, no passion, and no individuality to make me stand out from the competition. Although distressing to hear, I knew she was right. That work got deleted and she helped me find my own voice and express the real me.

Donna Pelletier was assigned to me on my first order and I was blown away by her insights, feedback, and quick response time but also by her enthusiasm in wanting to see me succeed. I requested her for all my applications and we were a real team. She told me, ‘I can only succeed if you succeed,’ so I had every confidence in her. When I emailed her my good news, she was as thrilled as I was.

If Donna Pelletier keeps a list of her most difficult clients, I must be on it. We worked closely on all my essays until she felt satisfied that they were ‘spot on’ and ready to submit. But, filled with self-doubt and second-guessing, I questioned everything and kept sending her revisions that were totally off the track. Her understanding, patience, and thorough explanations saved me from myself. When I was accepted to two top-choice programs, she was the first person I notified.

I only worked with Donna Pelletier in her writing program, Writing Winning College Essays because my father enrolled me. I hated writing and stared at my blank screen, struggling to answer her prompts. Donna suggested a phone call and told me that she and I were now a team and I should write to her as if she were my best friend. It worked. She made me think seriously about a range of topics, and I surprised myself to discover that I even had opinions. I became editor of my high school newspaper, was awarded a full ride to a prestigious university, and my father quickly enrolled my younger brother in her program.

Donna Pelletier worked with me on all my essays for MBA programs, encouraging me to market my qualities and life experiences beyond my grades and skillset – not something I felt comfortable doing. Who was I? I didn’t know what to write. But my essay, Made in China, was the result of our working together and I was admitted to my dream school. The connotation of anything made in China did not always equate to quality, but I was made in China and determined to bring honor to my family and my university.

I was very ashamed to say that, as a newborn, I had been placed in a cardboard box and abandoned in a supermarket parking lot, but that was my story. Donna helped me write about being thrown away, placed in an orphanage, adopted by loving parents, nurtured and educated, and now volunteering at that same orphanage in China, my home country.

Donna kept me from sounding like a real jerk. I related a personal story about ‘my old man’ and how I took his boat out without permission. She made me realize that my arrogant tone would not get me where I wanted to go, and I think my application would have been quickly dismissed. But she turned things around; we worked on essays that showed my better nature and I actually got into my first- choice school.