Accepted.com:
Company Background
Linda Abraham founded Accepted.com in
1992 as a general editing service operating under the name of Linda Abraham &
Associates. At the time Ms. Abraham edited for businesses and students and explored
freelancing as an additional source of revenue. While noting the increasing demand for
personal statement editing, she also recognized that if students wrote their essays
with the techniques used in writing human interest and feature stories, the essays
would be more engaging and compelling.
In 1994, despite the skepticism of family and friends, Ms. Abraham decided to
specialize in personal statement editing. She wrote a booklet "How to Write
an Outstanding Personal Statement" and lectured over the next few years at
a number of colleges and universities in the Southern California area, including
UCLA, UC Irvine, USC, Pepperdine, Scripps, and the California State University
at Northridge. More recently, she gave a presentation at the annual American
Medical Student Association convention in Washington D.C. and at Yeshiva
University of New York.
Simultaneously, use of online services grew, and Ms. Abraham realized that
these services removed geographic boundaries and could aid the growth of her
business. She began participating in forums on Compuserve and message boards on
AOL. In addition to obtaining clients, this participation earned Ms. Abraham
Guest Expert status on Kaplan Hall and the Business Week area of AOL, and on US
News' Forum on Compuserve. Most importantly, this experience prepared Abraham
and Associates to transform itself into Accepted.com when the Internet
metamorphosed from a techie toy into a mass medium.
During the primordial era of the Internet, July 1996, Ms. Abraham posted her
first Web site. The business exploded and in Fall 1996, she added two editors to
her staff to handle the increased volume. The business incorporated and changed
its name to Accepted.com in January 1997 and has been growing every since.
As off Summer 2000, Accepted.com has eight editors working for it with plans
to add additional staff. The Web site underwent a major revision in 1998 and
added a monthly newsletter at that time along with a bookstore and new articles.
Innovative features are added constantly. Most notably, the MBA Interview Feedback
Database was launched in June 1998. Growing steadily since then, it has over 300
entries. A chat section joined the other areas of Accepted.com in May 1999.
In Fall 2000, Accepted.com added a section for resume writing so that it can
continue to serve its overwhelmingly satisfied clients with their future writing
needs. It also developed a section for college applicants and a press section.
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