Academic Planning
Perhaps our biggest aspiration for our 9th and 10th graders (and often our 11th graders too) is to help them develop a sense of why college matters, both as a goal in itself and as a steppingstone to the next stages of their lives. Meetings with students and parents focus on which subjects a student enjoys, how much academic rigor to build into their schedule, and how to reflect their personal interests in their course choices and school activities.
Student interests come into focus gradually through our meetings and conversations. To explore those interests more fully, we collaborate to identify summer programs, internships, and potential areas for multi-year study. Competitions, clubs, and volunteer work that can build to leadership roles and reveal more deeply held values are high on our radar.
Essays & Applications
Essay work is where a student’s choices, achievements, and even failures come to life. Whether a student is staring at a blank page or revising a full draft, we meet them where they are and guide them through brainstorming, drafting, and revision. With one-on-one conversations about the experiences, relationships, and turning points that have shaped them, we help each personal statement, UC prompt, and supplemental essay reach admissions committees with real structure, detail, and voice that make each essay distinctly theirs. Supplemental essays, activity lists, and resumes receive the same care as main statements, with close attention to what each school is asking and to how the pieces work together across the application.
AI use is widespread, and we protect the authenticity of every essay: working on ideas and drafts one-on-one, discussing each student’s story, and screening drafts with AI detection scans. The goal is writing that sounds like the student, because it is the student’s.
Our students never stop impressing us with the depth of their work and the honesty they bring to writing about themselves. As with the leaps in confidence we see in students preparing for the SAT and ACT, the long, intense process of completing statements and applications is often transformative, and we love being a part of it.
Application Strategy and Overarching Themes
We look at any overall application as a wider extension of the goals we have for personal statements and UC prompts. A well thought-out and complete application builds on personal statements, UC prompts, and supplements to coordinate a fuller picture for admissions committees. Each component of a school application can bring out a different facet of a student’s personality, life, and personal growth while also staying true to the core themes that underpin their decisions. These core themes characterize the way the student approaches the world and emerge throughout their stories and experiences. We work closely with students to draw out their stories, to build a picture for admissions committees that will round out test scores, GPAs, activities lists, essay statements, and referrals.
Timelines & Collaborations
For so many applications, from colleges and universities to business school, PhDs, Law and Medical school, the test and personal statement work is shaped by the dates highlighted by the schools themselves. Medical school applications require the MCAT as well as primary and secondary applications; art and screenwriting submissions can necessitate work well ahead of the main application; athletes must be in contact with coaches and respond to questionnaires, coordinate camps, and be sure their own coaches are informed; and extracurriculars can require a tremendous lead time. We help our students to track their short-, mid-, and long-range goals, working together to develop timelines, problem solve, and re-prioritize when bumps appear along the route. It is this collaboration with students and our teams that keeps students on track, reaching the big and small goals, and maintaining their energy and sense of self through these fascinating times in their lives.
Art & Screen Portfolios and Sports Recruiting
Many of our students have special interests in art, film, screenwriting, and athletics. When these interests are the main driving force behind college choices, our essay team and specialty tutors have years of experience helping to sort busy sports calendars and complex portfolio requirements. Art and writing portfolio submissions require time and attention so that students can engage with assignments and deliver the kinds of pieces that tell admissions committees who they are as artists, within the larger picture of who they are as potential members of the school. Our expertise goes further than structural, and we dive into uncovering programs, majors, and clubs for an individualized for education and more, while keeping an eye on the balance of the application as a whole.