Learn more about me and my background in helping rising seniors get into their dream schools.
So, here is your bottom line:
Why hire me?
Three reasons:
my experience—over three decades serving my seniors
my passion for the process
my drive to continuously update myself on the latest trends in the college application process
Here is the scoop on my experience.
I have been doing this for over thirty years; I have a deep well of experience in this field.
I was a high school English teacher for thirty-three years, and I have taught in diverse settings—in a boarding school in England, in a large suburban high school, and in a small independent school.
Right out of the gate, I got the green light from my department chair in a large suburban high school in Indiana to go all out in fleshing out a college unit. My seniors wrote resumes, worked on their common app essays, and did mock college interviews with me before and after school and during my free periods.
I am proud to say my college unit became a rite of passage.
I have helped kids brainstorm, assisted them in extensive revision, and have rejoiced with them as they have been accepted to their top schools.
I have edited thousands of resumes and common app essays, and I don’t even want to guess how many supplemental essays and scholarship essays I have helped students write.
I even made Parents Day a day when parents interviewed their children speed dating style in my classroom. Parents leaned in to grill our students. My students walked into parents day trembling but determined to impress their parents.
Second, this is my passion. It has been since the early 1990’s.
Advising students applying to college, graduate school, law school, pharmacy school, and med school lights me up.
As my friends from high school and college approached their children’s senior year, I eagerly volunteered to help their children with their college apps. I did it for free for many years.
I told my seniors that my college unit was my gift to them. I went way above what was expected of me for no extra compensation.
This is my calling. It feeds my sense of purpose and is my way of serving especially after taking early retirement at the age of 55 in 2021.
I stay current by talking to people in admissions, watching documentaries about the process, listening to podcasts, and reading books about the process. I am a little obsessed with it. I think it’s fascinating to track the trends.
If a parent who interviewed people in corporate America volunteered to conduct a masterclass on interviewing skills, I jumped on it:
Last, I pride myself on staying current on trends in the field.
And over thirty years, you better believe there have been trends. And the onus is on me to stay current for your children.
When I first started, colleges preferred kids with a long list of activities across multiple fields of interest. That changed. In time, they wanted kids to whittle that list down after a period of exploration to do a deep dive into an activity that sets them on fire by their senior year.
I vividly remember the year a bunch of our highly-qualified kids didn’t get into their “reach” schools after applying Regular Decision.
I can still see Matt Lauer and Katie Couric on The Today Show noting the shock of crushed seniors and their parents that year shortly after April 1st. I recorded the segment. I watched it over and over again as my students started texting me one after another crushed that they didn’t get into their “reach” schools. I got online and found as many articles as I could documenting the shift.
And I played The Today Show segment for my glum seniors the day after their spring break to drive home to them that this was a nationwide event and not just due to their own personal failure of not being “enough” for their dream schools.
From that moment on, the percentage of my kids who applied Early Decision or Early Action blew up. In the past, the handful of kids I had who applied Early Decision were legacies. Or they had a deep connection with a college spanning their entire lives. No more. Now, only a handful of my clients apply AFTER November 1st.
In 2023, I met with a former student involved in reviewing applicants to his Ivy League law school. We met for three hours over two Zoom meetings, and he took great pains in educating me about what they hope to see in personal statements for their law school applications.
He drove home how functional the personal statement should be. I took copious notes and grilled him. It was just in time to advise one of my former students who is getting ready to apply to law school this school year.
I took early retirement and moved to Tucson for a couple of years, but I still feel that charge of anticipation as the new school year starts. It is a humbling thing for kids to entrust me with guiding them through this process. I no longer have a set of eighty Frankenstein essays to grade before I can help my new crop of seniors. This is it.
In these early years of retirement, I lived my best life in Tucson and took advantage of all that was available to me: Lady Putters, pickleball, and my book club occupied my time. Being the College Application Whisperer means more to me now than it did when I was a full-time English teacher doing it as a side gig outside of my school day. I plan to continue to do this indefinitely. It feeds my sense of purpose.
After my adventure in Tucson, I moved back to Indiana in November 2023 to be closer to my family, my friends, and my former students. I continue to go to Salt Lake City every June to score the AP Literature and Composition Exams, and I have been doing some substitute teaching in Indianapolis. I have squeezed in some dog sitting, too. I volunteer my time with Indiana University's School of Education and have just been asked by the dean to join her advisory board. As you will see in one of my blogs in the life unit, I speak to the Global Gateway undergraduate students who student teach overseas as I did at the start of my career.
If students in the greater Indianapolis area would prefer to meet in person, I would love to do so.
Final thoughts:
Why hire me? Because I know my stuff, and I will set those intermediate deadlines and give you tips I have picked up from other students (boy, are they bringing on the mother of all spreadsheets this year!).
I will nudge you when you need a push. I will review your essays with care and give you genuine feedback in a timely manner. And I will keep it real. If your essay doesn't sing, I will tell you that. You would rather hear it from me than be rejected.
I am humbled by the thank you cards I have received from my students over more than three decades of doing this work; I have a file folder of those notes going back to the early 1990's. My former students are starting to hire me to help their sons and daughters navigate this application process. Please review testimonials from former clients who deeply appreciated my guidance.
Commentaires