Before answering a Common App prompt or a UC Personal Insight Question, there's an even harder challenge to consider.
How do we fit 17 years into 650 words?
Why I Can Help
Figuring out how to present 17 years in 650 words (or in 1400 words for the University of California schools) requires more than excellent writing skills.
It requires creativity.
I co-founded Oakland, CA's only public Montessori charter school, and BrainQuake, an equity-oriented middle school math company that secured seven patents and three federal research grants from the US Department of Education. I've published a book on adult social emotional learning. I’ve written for peer-reviewed journals and education magazines, and I dabble in flash fiction. I’m also an amateur photographer who loves looking for interesting angles and discovering how to see people in unexpected ways.
Excellent college essays are, fundamentally, a creative act.
I studied philosophy at Middlebury and hold a Master’s in Education from Stanford. I look for and notice when things a person believes don't align. Being 17 lends itself to contradiction.
A student tells me he doesn't like confrontation. He also tells me he thinks students should have a real say in how his school is run. I ask him how someone who believes that has never fought for it.
My intention isn’t criticism; it’s a call to reflection. Most important, I highlight how authentic, vulnerable stories are exactly what an admissions officer seeks and rarely finds.
What happens next is how I support students to solve the 17 in 650 problem. They begin to share new thoughts, allowing me to ask new questions. Ideas they’d never had before, or ways of expressing themselves they’d never considered, start to emerge. Momentum, confidence, and fresh understandings of themselves ensue.
It’s a lot like what the college experience is meant to do.
How I Offer Support
Creativity can flourish through collaboration. Our first call is a free one-hour consultation. I’ve been in your shoes. I’ll seek to understand your needs and nerves.
I’ll also share a customized plan for working with your student. We can work on the Common App Personal Statement, University of California Personal Insight Questions (that’s the 17 years in 1400 words problem), supplemental essays, activities and honors lists, and/or school lists. School lists are free, by the way, and so is guidance on how to align teacher recommendations to your student’s applications.
Your student’s writing skill, dream school, and their capacity to internalize and apply new approaches to writing are just some of the key factors that suggest how much time we’ll need to create authentic representations of who they are. I’ll share my assessment of what might work with you and together we’ll refine it into an approach that makes the most sense for your student.
My promise to you: If your student requires more time than I anticipated to complete the Personal Statement and/or the PIQs, I’ll never bill you for more hours.
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If you have one readily at hand. No worries if not. Let me know who, if anyone provided support/feedback. This helps me get a glimpse into where we’d start. I’ll review it before our free consultation call and share my assessment with you.
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I’m not looking to quote you, I’m just looking to understand if we’re talking about a high, medium, or low admit rate school.
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Once I’ve completed my review of your student’s writing sample, I’ll reach out to schedule a video conference to share my assessment and a detailed look at the process your student and I would use.
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If I’m a good fit for your student, we’ll begin creating as soon as possible.
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I’ll share assessments of how our work is progressing throughout the engagement.
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Successfully completing work that powerfully reveals who your student is on the page is hard. It’s worth celebrating.
What I Offer
I’m currently accepting 25 students who will apply in the Fall/Winter of 2027. The more time your student has to reflect on their 17 years, the higher the likelihood we can surface deep and differentiating insights.
We can start right now. With a few short sessions between now and the Spring, your student and I can likely get to a rough draft on the Personal Statement or one or two UC PIQs well ahead of Summer 2027.
Common App Personal Statement Plus
The solution to the 17 in 650 problem: personal statement, activities and honors lists, and progress reports.
Early Bird Price with 20% Discount: $4,000
Price After 4.30.2027: $5,000
Did you know? On average, students applying via the Common App will submit their personal statement to seven to eight schools. That works out to under $600/school at the Early Bird Price.
Supplemental Essays
I price by the prompt, and can provide full start-to-finish support, review-only support, or outline-only support.
Price: TBD based upon your selected supplemental essays.
Did you know? Depending upon the schools your student will apply to, we can develop an efficient supplemental essay strategy that maximizes reusability whenever possible.
UC Personal Insight Questions Plus
The solution to the 17 in 1400 words problem: four 350-word essays, the more-demanding-than-the-Common-App activities and honors lists, and progress reports.
Early Bird Price with 20% Discount: $4,800
Price After 4.30.2027: $6,000
Did you know? If your student applies to one reach, two targets, and two safeties, the average cost of the PIQs and Activities/Honors list per UC is $960 at the Early Bird price.
Always Free
Up-to-15 Schools list and/or review of your student’s current list
Strategy and supporting documentation to ask for teacher recommendations aligned to your student’s application theme
You’ll receive everything in each stand-alone package at a nearly 20% discount.
Early Bird Price: $7,200
Price After 4.30.2027: $9,000
Did you know? Preparing the Personal Statement and four PIQs (never mind any supplemental essays Common App schools may require) is an extremely large lift. Starting early on this work — even just a little bit — will likely significantly reduce stress and increase quality.
Heard on the Quad
“Your process pushes my son to think about his experiences in ways he hasn’t before. I’m revisiting them, too. Thank you so much!!!”
— Parent of a current student
“I’m so proud of my essay!”
— Current student on completing the Personal Statement
“I really appreciate how quickly you respond to my questions and feedback.”
— Parent of current student
“I had never talked about my interests that deeply and for sure hadn’t written about them.”
— Former student on using writing to explore new thoughts
“I don’t remember a specific one but the introductory questions really helped to get the ball rolling and made me feel like you really understood what I was passionate about.”
— Former student on the most useful question I asked
Assign Me Some Homework
I’ll gladly provide a free review of a sample of your student’s writing. Ideally, you’d have something on hand — this is supposed to be my homework, not your student’s — that’s comparable to a college essay (not a lab report or a research paper). Let me know who, if anyone, supported your student to produce the piece.
You can also share a possible dream school, if your student has one.
I'll read your student’s piece and I'll produce an initial assessment of what your student can already do, what their writing may not do yet, and three specific things we'd work on first. I’ll provide concrete examples of what that growth looks like.
We can review the assessment, as well as the process I’d use with your student, in a free one-hour consultation.