Essay Coaching provides one-on-one, expert written feedback on college application essays and graduate school application essays. This includes Common App essays, personal statements, supplemental essays, and short answers. Our writing advice helps clients strengthen their application essays and feel more confident in their chances for acceptance.
How We Evaluate Application Essays and the Common App Essay
We’ve developed our evaluation technique from reading thousands of college application essays over 17 years, training to understand how to evaluate college application essays, and hearing success stories from past clients now in college and the workforce.
Questions we ask ourselves before delivering one-on-one feedback:
- What did I learn about this student from reading this essay?
- Was I interested and/or impressed with what I learned? Did I learn about qualities that might help this student to enjoy, participate in and graduate college?
- Could I follow this essay, especially the timeline? Did any parts of the story confuse me?
- Was I curious to hear more about anything mentioned in the essay?
- Does the essay seem as impressive as the student I read about in the questionnaire or met on a Zoom?
- What images do I see when I try to envision the student and his/her story? What phrases do I remember?
- Were there grammatical errors?
- Were there unnecessary sentences or paragraphs? Did anything need to be moved?
How To Get Written Feedback on Your Application Essay
1. To get started, write to Debbie@EssayCoaching.com with any questions and to receive two simple forms that help us helps us get to know you and keep track of our work together.
2. Please make a payment for your expert written review here. Thank you. Refund policy.
3. Share your essay draft(s) in a Google Doc with debbiemerion@gmail.com, and check to give Debbie editing permissions (very important!). Include the prompt(s), the college, the word limit, and your concerns. If you need suggestions for how to reduce the number of words in a polished essay, we usually can only work on that one essay during our review. If the essay is not over the word limit, depending on the status of the essays, we can often complete more than one essay review during the session.
4. After you complete the steps above, you will receive a 13-page handout with writing tips, essay samples, and a copy of Debbie Merion’s award-winning book, Solving the College Admissions Puzzle.
You will also receive a date when the review will be complete. All reviews will be completed within one week.
When our review is complete, you’ll receive a Google Doc with comments and questions and positive, constructive feedback. You’ll have a good idea of what works in your essay and what to do to strengthen your essay.
Questions? Write to Debbie@EssayCoaching.com