It’d be disingenuous to pretend there’s any spell, any formula, adherence to which would guarantee you admission to every school. But the college essay is a literary form with conventions like any other, and you need to know them in order to leverage them. You can’t just wing it. Yet “it” remains an art.

The best solution––the way to maximize your chances of getting in where you want to go, and of being happy where you end up––is to tell the honest story of where you’ve been, where you are, and where you want to be. And to tell it in good writing.

College essay editing is a strange mixture of editing, therapy, and counseling. And that’s how I approach the work, with an emphasis on building a working relationship that allows us to:

• Find, clarify, and shape the student’s story

• Work with the essay form in interesting ways

The main goal, of course, is to get in where you want to get in. But the process also offers the opportunity to play Janus––to look backward and forward, make sense of what’s happened in your life so far, and to decide what you want it to be going forward. It would be a waste––a tragedy, even––to neglect such an important opportunity.

With me, the opportunity won’t be wasted.