College Entrance Essay Coaching

For over 15 years I have been working privately with students helping them transform their thoughts and experiences into their college entrance essays. The results have been consistently remarkable, breathtaking, and noteworthy. I love nothing more than working with the younger siblings of former students and working with former students years later on their med. school, law school, and grad. school essays. My experience as a mom, author, essayist, English professor, and creative writing instructor makes this process casual and stress-free.

My process includes a 1-to-1 meeting on Zoom (or on Martha’s Vineyard) to brainstorm, create an outline, and do the all-important first paragraph together. At this meeting, we agree on a deadline for the student’s rough draft. After I receive the rough draft, I offer line-by-line editorial feedback and promptly send it back to the student. After making their preferred changes, they re-send their new draft. We work back and forth online editing together until the student loves it.

I got into Stanford and I just committed! Thank you so much for all the help on the essays. Your help really improved my writing. I will be sure to recommend you to all the juniors I know at my high school who will be applying to colleges this coming fall.

– Sam, 2022

Multiple colleges made note of his essay in their handwritten cards and _____ University blew up one of the quotes from his essay on a poster! I’d never seen that marketing tactic, but it impressed us all. Powerful to see his own words blown up into a poster.

– M. 2022

Laurie helped to transform my original ideas into a clear, concise essay that embodied everything I wanted to inform colleges of and more. Her editing led me to discover the truly important pieces of my essay which assisted me in weeding out insignificant portions. From the start, I was guided on a distinct path towards the final draft of my essay. After the completion of my edited draft, I consistently felt like I was able to squeeze more relevant, detailed information into my next draft. I couldn’t have been more proud of my final draft, and it definitely added boost to all my college applications.

– Sam H. (accepted to Brown Univ., 2020)