Most applications are eight unrelated documents that happen to be about the same person. We build one, from the school list through the final draft, and keep the parents informed the whole way.
If $1,500 is not possible, write to me. I keep a small number of reduced places each cycle and I would rather they go to someone than go unused.
It is autumn of senior year. There is a list of schools that came from a ranking, a personal statement that has been started four times, a set of supplements nobody has looked at yet, and an activity list that reads like a résumé for a job nobody is hiring for.
The advice around you is contradictory and confident. Be authentic, but stand out. Be humble, but impressive. Write about a hardship, but not that one. Meanwhile the student who actually has an interesting mind is being flattened into the same essay about a sports injury that a reader has now seen two hundred times this week.
The part nobody says out loud: an admissions reader spends a small number of minutes on the whole file and is looking for a single coherent impression. Eight strong documents that do not agree with each other produce no impression at all. One argument, made consistently in eight places, produces one.
That is the work. Find what the argument actually is for this specific student — which takes real conversation, not a questionnaire — and then make every piece of the application carry it.
Structured across the autumn and paced to the deadlines, with parent check-ins at each stage.
Before I work with any student under 18 I speak with a parent. What the family is hoping for, what the constraints are — financial, geographic, otherwise — and how involved they want to be. We agree that up front so nobody is surprised in November.
A long conversation with the student, not a form. What they actually think about, what they have made, what they do when nobody is assigning it. The thing worth writing about is almost never the thing they came in planning to write about.
Built around this student — what they want, what they can pay for, where they would actually be happy — with a realistic spread. I will say plainly when a list is unbalanced, which is the conversation most families are not getting.
Structure first, then a real draft, then rounds of revision. The student writes every word. My job is to keep asking the question that makes the next draft truer than the last one.
The "why us" essays that actually require research, the short answers that most people waste, and the ones that are secretly asking something other than what they appear to ask. Each one has to carry the same argument without repeating the statement.
The activity list is read as evidence for the claim the essays make. We write it so it does that job, rather than listing everything in order of when it happened.
Consistency across the whole file, last revisions, and a check that nothing contradicts anything else. Then it goes.
At each stage, so you always know what is done, what is next, and whether we are on schedule. No mid-October panic about where things stand.
Things you can act on, not things you have to remember.
Built around the student, with the reason each school is on it and an honest read on the spread.
Taken from nothing to submitted, in the student’s own voice and written by the student.
Researched and written to carry the same argument as the statement without repeating it.
Activity list, narrative and essays that agree with each other and add up to one impression.
If after the school-list stage you do not want to continue, tell me and I refund everything beyond the work already done. You keep the list and the notes.
What I won't promise is the outcome itself — a place in a lab, an offer, an acceptance, a specific number. Those are decided by people I don't control. Anyone guaranteeing you one is guaranteeing something that isn't theirs to give. What I will promise is that the parts within your control will be done properly, and that you'll know why each one is the way it is.
No. The student writes every word. I ask the questions, push on structure, and say when something is not yet true or not yet clear. Essays written by adults read like essays written by adults, and the people reading them do this all day.
As involved as you want, and I talk to you before we start regardless. The default is a check-in at each stage so you know exactly where things are. The sessions themselves are with the student, because that is where the honest conversation happens.
Because doing them properly takes real time, and a list that needs twelve is usually a list that has not been cut yet. If your list genuinely needs more, tell me before booking and we will agree what that looks like.
It depends on the deadlines and how much exists already. Write to me with where things stand and I will tell you honestly whether the remaining time is enough. If it is not, I will say so rather than take the money.
A small number each cycle, because the work is only worth anything if I know the student well. When the places are gone they are gone until next August.
$1,500 for one application cycle, August through November. I speak with a parent before starting with any student under 18.
Pay and book — $1,500Not sure there is enough time left this cycle? Write to me first and I will tell you honestly.