College application & Essay mentorship

May we tell you a secret?

After you choose your schools and define your major, every other aspect of the college application process is writing. Furthermore, except for the admission interview, the essays an applicant writes are a school’s only way to garner personal insights about the student; all other submitted materials fall to numerics and the opinions of others.

Essays are what make a student shine.

We are not college counselors but writing specialists working within the college academic system. While a college counselor’s skills lie in major refinement and the curation of a student’s school list, students choose to work with us because writing is our expertise. 

College readiness starts now.

Our mentorship programs offer comprehensive guidance and individualized support beginning in a student’s freshman, sophomore, or junior year. Our approach prioritizes the nourishment of the whole person and the development of both critical thinking skills and the creative voice, ensuring students are well-prepared not only for the demands of college applications, but also for the future that awaits them.

  • Our flagship program.

    The Full-Service Application Strategy is a 1:1, fully tailored college mentorship program designed to encourage a trusting rapport between the student and the essay specialist—one rooted in the shared goal of acceptance to elite universities and programs in the U.S. and across the world. 

    Students engaged in the Full-Service Application Strategy are guided step-by-step through the entire application process. However, reflective of each student’s individuality and corresponding individualized needs, the Strategy does not function as a fixed-rate “package” in the way other college counseling consultants understand the term. All work is done on an hourly basis in order to afford families the most choice and students the most autonomy in their application process. We do not set any limits on the number of schools or essays or the time spent. Students are invited and encouraged to apply to as many schools as they desire. We never want a student to apply to a school where they cannot genuinely envision themselves thriving for four years. 

    Many families choose to secure their spot for our Full-Service College Application Strategy in their student’s freshman or sophomore year. Not only does this give families peace of mind, but it allows us to establish connections with students earlier so that we can support them and their writing to the best of our abilities before the college process looms.

    For those students who join us in their freshman or sophomore year, we meet at several critical junctures to determine academic and extracurricular objectives and track the overall development of each students’ college applicant profile. Between these meetings, focus is placed on academic improvement, test prep, extracurricular advising, the development of critical thinking skills, and the nurturance of both analytical and creative writing skills. Programs are entirely customizable to an individual student’s needs. Students are very well prepared when the college application process begins in full force at the beginning of junior spring.

    We work with students on seven types of writing:

    • The Personal Statements

    • The Supplemental Essays

    • Honors Program Essays & Scholarship Essays

    • Teacher Recommendation Requests and Materials

    • The Academic Résumé

    • The Activities Pages

    • Professional Business Writing

    The Full-Service Application Strategy also includes assistance with:

    • Building a school list according to your unique criteria

    • Defining and refining your major(s)/minor(s)

    • Completing the Common Application and other state-specific or individual institutional applications

    • Planning high school courses

    • Brainstorming and executing passion projects

    • Devising holistic summer engagement

    • Training for admission interviews

    • Curating artistic portfolios for admission to film, art, theatre, music, writing, or dance programs

    We work with a handful of students in the Full-Service Application Strategy each year. Our clients come to us for guidance from all over the world.

    To inquire about availability for the 2025-2026 application season, please complete the contact form below.

  • We also offer support to students who are not engaged with the Full-Service Application Strategy.

    With the Proofreading Application Strategy, we offer detailed editorial feedback to students on their drafts, with a focus on the Common Application Personal Essay and the supplementals. Feedback consists of line edits, developmental suggestions, and an analysis of the overall effectiveness of the essay from a literary and an admissions perspective.

    After an initial email exchange, students are invited to forward their essays as Google Docs. Edits and marginal comments will be returned in a timely manner, and we remain accessible to students for the duration of the application process if they have additional drafts. We do not limit the number of drafts or revision requests.

    This service is not conducted face-to-face and does not involve the Interview; it therefore does not afford the same level of personal connection, but the student is assured of sending polished application materials to schools.

    If a student who engages the Proofreading Application Strategy ends up requiring further attention, they are welcome to switch to the Full-Service Application Strategy for the remainder of the application process (assuming there is availability remaining in our schedule).

    As with the Full-Service Application Strategy, the Proofreading option is also available to those students applying to graduate school (including law, medical, and business), private high school, academic summer programs, internships, and study away programs.

  • We also offer personalized guidance with the following applications:

    • Graduate school applications (business, law, medical, etc.)

    • Transfer applications

    • Private high school applications

    • Study abroad applications

    • Summer program and internship application

    For any of these applications, a student may engage the Full-Service or Proofreading Application Strategy.

We’ve helped students gain admission to colleges, universities, and graduate programs including:

American University

Barnard College

Bates College

Boston College

Bowdoin College

Brown University

Bryn Mawr College

Cal Tech

Carleton College

Carnegie Mellon University

Case Western Reserve University

Chapman University

Colgate University

Colorado School of Mines

Columbia University

Connecticut College

Cornell University

Dartmouth University

Digipen

Drexel University

Emory University

Fordham University

Georgetown University

Hamilton College

Harvard University

Harvey Mudd College

Imperial College London - School of Medicine

Johns Hopkins University

King’s College London - School of Medicine

Loyola Marymount University

Middlebury College

New York University

Northeastern University

Northwestern University

Norwich University

Oberlin College

Occidental College

Pepperdine University

Pomona College

Purdue University

Reed College

Rice University

Saint Andrews University

Santa Clara University

Sarah Lawrence College

Scripps College

Skidmore College

Smith College

Stanford University

Swarthmore College

Texas A&M

The New School

Tufts University

Tulane University

UC Berkeley

UCLA

UT - Austin

Union College

University of Chicago

University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign

University of Michigan

University of Notre Dame

University of Pennsylvania

University of Southern California

University of Virginia

University of Washington

Vanderbilt University

Wellesley College

Wesleyan University

Whitman College