• Common App

• Personal statements

• Supplemental essays

• Statements of purpose

• Short-answer responses

• Scholarship essays

• Academic writing samples

Application writing presents an unusual challenge: a writer must represent one’s life, intellectual trajectory, or a set of ambitions within a highly constrained format without sounding generic.  With the advent of AI, applicants now face the further challenge of needing to sound “unlike” an AI chatbot.

I help applicants discover material that is genuinely theirs and shape it into writing that is focused, memorable, and appropriate to its audience and purpose. We might begin before a single word has been drafted—with conversation, planning, and brainstorming, sometimes in real time—or with an existing essay that needs a more compelling structure, adjustment of focus, negotiation of examples and transitions, or more individual voice.

For graduate, law, medical, and other professional-school applicants, I work especially closely on articulating intellectual interests, professional motivations, prior experience, and the reasons a particular program represents a meaningful next step. The objective is to help applicants recognize what is distinctive in their own experience and communicate it with precision and conviction. My previous clients have gone on to competitive colleges and graduate, law, and medical programs.

College & Graduate School Applications

I offer individualized support across the entire academic writing process, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, including: 

• High-school essays

• Capstone projects

• College research papers

• Literature reviews

• Senior theses

• Advanced humanities writing

• Subject matter tutoring

Some of the challenges I might work with you on:

• What a writing prompt is really asking

• How to turn an interest into a workable question

• How to select and use evidence

• How to articulate one’s interpretation of a source

• How to make several different ideas cohere as a single argument

Academic Writing Support

I have worked with international and multilingual writers for more than twenty years. My approach is patient, explanatory, and individualized. I provide support and sustained coaching for those who seek greater confidence and flexibility in written English across a variety of projects:

• Coursework

• Research papers

• Application materials

• Professional correspondence, presentations and written statements

Together, we can work on:

• Grammar

• Syntax

• Idiom

• Punctuation

• Vocabulary

• Sentence structure

…and on the less visible conventions that often make English-language writing difficult:

• how directly to state a claim

• how individual paragraphs function successfully within a larger text

• how much contextual information a reader needs to understand a writer’s argument

• how stylistic and organizational expectations change among disciplines and professional settings

International & ESL Writers

For writers who already have substantial material on the page, I offer editing at several levels—from developmental consultation on the argument and structure of a piece to detailed attention to paragraphs, sentences, diction, grammar, style, and mechanics.

I tailor the level of work to the writer and the project, and, where appropriate, explain significant edits so that the process remains collaborative rather than one-sided.

Together, we might work on:

• large-scale rethinking,

• tightening an already strong draft

• clarification

• smoother transitions

• greater stylistic consistency

• careful line editing before submission

Editing & Refinement

Not every writing problem fits neatly into a category. I tailor my coaching for unusual assignments, independent projects, long-term writing goals, and writers who want an ongoing intellectual interlocutor rather than a conventional tutor or editor.

I meet regularly with individuals who want to become stronger readers and writers, and help people work patiently through philosophy, literature, history, or religious texts before developing an essay. I help turn a large and intimidating project into a set of manageable problems, diagnose recurring difficulties in a writer’s process, help people develop their writing voice for a public audience, or talk through an idea before there is yet a draft to edit.

Tailored Writing Support