College Application Essay Consulting

When I was preparing to write my novel ADMISSION about a Princeton admissions officer, I interviewed multiple Deans of Admission (at Princeton, Middlebury, Dartmouth) and admissions officers at many other colleges to learn what I could about the current state of competitive college admissions. For two years during that period I also served as an Outside Reader for Princeton University, reading and reviewing hundreds of applications, receiving training from and working closely with Princeton admissions officers. These experiences were invigorating, and gave me an excellent view of the process.

Since then I have continued to pay close attention to the ever-shifting forces in competitive college admissions. For the past six years I have worked for a wonderful college counselor based in Connecticut, helping her clients craft compelling and effective essays, while providing that same assistance on a pro-bono basis for first generation college applicants at a New York City parochial school. I have never advertised this work, or publicly sought students to work with.

Personal statements are extraordinarily important in highly competitive college admissions, where most applicants will have high grades and test scores. Alongside teacher recommendations an applicant’s personal statement may be the only way for an admissions officer to get an idea of who the student is on a personal basis, and what they can contribute to a college environment.

Students and their families can experience so much anxiety surrounding the college application process; let’s not add any more stress with the Common Application personal essays and supplements! With good preparation and a student’s willingness to respond to editorial comments and write multiple drafts, every applicant can be represented by persuasive and well-written statements.

To the Student: You may not think of yourself as a writer. In fact, you might never write a personal essay again. But for the duration of this process you are a writer, and I’ll be treating you like one. That means you may need multiple attempts to identify what you want to write about, and once you have that subject, you may need multiple drafts to get it right. There is no set number for this: some students require only a spell-check and a light edit on their first draft, but most essays will go back and forth between myself and the student many times. Let me say that again: many times. As a habitual (professional) writer myself, every single thing I write undergoes many drafts, and trust me: the process works best if we take our egos out of the equation. In other words, getting your personal essay back from me with comments, suggestions, and the occasional “No way should you write that” does not mean you are a bad writer or a poor applicant; it simply means that the essay could be better, and I’m going to keep sending it back to you until that’s no longer the case. To put this another way: I will not let you submit an essay that isn’t as good as it can possibly be. Getting to that point might take one draft or it might take ten, but we’ll get there eventually, and when we do you can feel confident about this part of your application.

I am a graduate of Dartmouth College and Cambridge University, and the author of nine novels, several of which were New York Times bestsellers and one of which was a Tonight Show Summer Reads selection. One novel has been adapted as a major film, another was the basis for an HBO series; two others are in development as limited series. As the spouse of a Princeton University professor for the past 30 years, I have had a front row seat as admissions policies have shifted and adapted to cultural trends, and my extensive reading on the subject has set those observations in an even broader context. I also survived the application process as the parent of a student who made it to college and out the other side. Twice.

Please contact me via this link to discuss fee options, including:

Start to finish consulting for three schools (including personal statement and any supplements), as many drafts as necessary: $3000

Start to finish consulting for four schools (including personal statement and any supplements), as many drafts as necessary: $3500

Start to finish consulting for eight schools (including personal statement and any supplements), as many drafts as necessary: $5000

Payment must be received in full before my first meeting with a student. (Payment options include personal check, Zelle, or wire transfer.) Because I do not offer refunds for any reason (including missed deadlines or disappointing final results) I encourage students to make full use of our work together.

Please read my Agreement document, which all students I work with, and their parents, are required to sign.