The essays only your kid could have written.

What I work on

I work individually with high school students on the writing side of their college applications — the Common App personal statement, supplementals, and the activities section. Sessions are done by video, with written notes on drafts back within 48 hours.

Most people who do this work come from admissions offices or general tutoring. Very few of them write for a living. That matters, because the college essay isn't just an admissions problem — it's a writing problem. A senior sits down to write about themselves and produces something careful, generic, and safe. An essay generated with AI fails the same way, for the same reason: it produces what an essay is supposed to sound like. An admissions reader going through two thousand applications skips those in seconds, and no one ever tells the student why.

Who I am

My books have been published by Random House, and I've written under contract for Star Wars, Transformers, and Call of Duty. I graduated from Yale with a degree in history, and spent several years at a company later acquired by Gartner, coaching Fortune 500 executives one-on-one on structure and storytelling.

Teaching people to write clearly about themselves — under pressure, about material they're close to — has been part of my working life for two decades.

How it works

1. I read everything the student already has — drafts, fragments, the activities list, work they're proud of.
2. Then an in-depth conversation. This is where the essay actually gets found, and it's often not the story they came in planning to tell.
3. We pick the thread together, and I say why.
4. I give them the shape, so nobody starts at a blank page.
5. They draft. I give line-level notes, back within 48 hours, and we revise until it's done.
6. A final pass across the whole application, so the supplements and the activities list sound like the same person as the personal statement.

The student writes. That's not a technicality — an essay authored by someone else or by AI reads as careful and generic, and that's exactly what gets skipped.

What it costs

Full applicationPersonal statement, supplements for up to five schools, activities list. Additional schools $250 each.

$2,400

Personal statementInterview through final draft.

$950

School list reviewStandalone.

$300

Single working sessionCredited toward any package.

$175

Every essay gets two full revision rounds plus a final polish before submission. Half at the start, half at first submission.