I don’t write the essay.
I read it the way an admissions reader will, and tell you what I see.
At the top of an applicant pool the grades and scores start to look alike, and the essay is the one part of the file that belongs only to the student. Most students who send me a draft can already write a clean paragraph. What’s missing is the thing only they know, the detail that makes a reader stop and picture a particular kid. I find where it belongs and ask for it.
How it works.
Notes come back within 48 hours of the draft reaching me.
1 · The draft comes to me
After checkout you get an email with a link for uploading the draft (a Word file, a PDF, or a Google Doc downloaded as either), and two sample essays so you can see how I read. A parent can pay and make the introduction, and often does, but the work happens between me and the student.
2 · Two reads, notes on the lines
I read it twice and leave notes on the lines themselves. Most of them are questions, because the fix is almost always something the student knows and didn’t think to put down.
3 · A short summary
The two or three things that matter most, in the order I’d fix them.
4 · A call, then the rewrite
A call with the student to talk it through. They revise, send it back, and I read it again. Revisions are part of the work, and I don’t bill for them.
Two rules.
I price by the essay, not the hour. A supplement that takes me 25 minutes and one that takes 90 both cost $99. Hourly billing on writing turns into an argument about how long something should have taken, and I’d rather not have that argument with anyone.
Revisions are included. Two rounds on the same essay is one essay. If a second look cost money, students would stop sending the revised draft, and the revised draft is where an essay gets better.
What I read for.
A competent essay is clean and forgettable. The ones that work sound like one particular seventeen-year-old and tell the reader something the transcript can’t. That’s what I read for: whether it sounds like the student, and whether I finish it knowing something about them I didn’t know before.
The students I see most already have the grades and the scores. So does nearly everyone in the pool they’re applying into, whether that’s the state flagship or a school that takes one applicant in ten. Many of them are strong in math and science and less sure of themselves on the page, and the essay is where they stop being interchangeable.
Two before-and-after examples, so you can see what changes between a first draft and a finished one: a Common App personal statement and a supplement.
When to start.
One essay needs about a week on the calendar to get through two drafts. The suite needs about three. Count back from the deadline. Below are a few of the schools competitive Georgia students apply to most, with the dates each one publishes for the 2026 to 2027 cycle.
Start with a note.
Tell me which schools, which deadlines, and where the draft stands. I reply within a day. (706) 389-0528 if a call is easier.
My first reply goes only to the person who writes. If you’re a parent and haven’t told your student yet, nothing reaches them until you say so.