We'll coach you closely, but we won't write anything for you. Every word you submit should be yours. Here's that policy in writing, specific enough that you can hold us to it.
What we do
Ask questions
The questions that bring up your real material: the job, the argument with your dad, the project that failed. The ideas are yours. We just know what to ask.
Tell you when it isn't working
Plainly, and early. That's most of what we're for. It's the difference between an essay that reads well and one that reads like you.
Suggest ways to restructure
We'll tell you your opening belongs in paragraph four, that the essay actually starts halfway down page one, that the timeline is confusing. Architecture, not authorship.
Push you to be more specific
Margin notes like "why did this matter to you?" and "I don't believe this sentence." The best edits are questions you have to answer in your own words.
What we never do
Draft original content
Not a sentence, not a phrase, not "here's how I'd say it." If wording appears in your essay, you typed it.
Supply anecdotes or details you didn't give us
No invented stories, no inflated roles, no activities you didn't do. We won't polish a lie, however small.
Rewrite the essay in our own voice
"Member" doesn't become "founder." Ten hours doesn't become forty. Readers have seen thousands of applications; inflation reads as inflation.
Use AI to generate any part of an application
Not the essay, not the activities list, not a supplement. And we won't fill in any part of the Common App on your behalf.
In practice
We will suggest cutting your third paragraph. We won't write its replacement.
We will say "this ending is generic." We won't dictate a better one.
We will flag that your commitment reads thin. We won't backdate it.
Why we hold this line
That's a position we hold on principle, but there's a practical argument too. Admissions readers go through thousands of these a year and are skilled at spotting writing that doesn't match the rest of an application. An essay ghostwritten by a twenty-year-old Princeton student would almost certainly serve you worse than a rougher one that actually sounds like you.
And the essay is practice. College will ask you, over and over, to figure out what you think and say it clearly on a deadline. Writing this essay teaches exactly that. Pay someone to do it and you show up without the skill you paid to fake.
On extracurriculars
The same logic applies. In mentorship, we help students find and develop things they're actually interested in, and we don't fabricate activities on their behalf just to look good on an application. Admissions officers are good at telling real activities from manufactured ones. And beyond that, we want our students spending their time on things they actually care about, not checking boxes.
We don't guarantee admission, because no one can, and any company implying otherwise is telling you something they know isn't true.
For parents
Students under 18 will need a parent or guardian to sign our agreement, and parents are welcome to see any of the work we do. The one thing we'd ask is that you let your student write their own essay, including in the moments when you're certain you could improve it.
This policy protects your kid, but it also means something practical for you: if your student works with us, what colleges read is what your student can produce. There's no version of their voice that disappears when they get to campus. If another service offers to "handle" the essay, that's the moment to leave.