Shijia, UC Irvine Merage PhD (Accounting)

Without Hillary’s help, my PhD dream could not come true! Thanks, Hillary!

Before started working with Shine, I totally had no clue how should I set up my timeline and proceed with my applications, especially for my resume and SOPs (Statements of Purpose). My previous resume was a mess. It is Hillary who encouraged me to think about my relevant life experience that will benefit my application. She also used her excellent marketing strategy to help me sell my strengths. The same thing for my SOPs; she could always come up with constructive advice/comments from the outline to every draft. The feedback and suggestions she gave me were from the perspective of an admission officer, which is significantly important and something I definitely couldn’t get on my own. She also helped me a lot on my language (since I’m a foreign student, she spent a lot time on my grammar, writing style, tone and other writing issues, and still made sure it’s in my voice).

Another thing is Hillary is a really well-organized person. She keeps everything organized and clear, which makes it easy and efficient to work with her. She’s also a super enthusiastic person. She loves to hear my stories and know my personality, then help me build those traits into my SOP to make it unique and vivid. Her positive energy also encouraged me to keep moving forward during the whole application process and gave me more confidence in achieving my goals.

It was a really nice and valuable experience to work with Hillary, and I’d definitely recommend Shine to my friends if they need the help.

(New York, NY/Shanghai, China)