One-on-One College Essay & Application Coaching

Amanda is a veteran educator, writer, and storyteller, and expert in helping students reach their full creative potential. She has 15 years of college essay coaching experience and has been a coach with CEG since its origins.

A graduate of the University of Virginia (BA English) and UC Irvine (MFA Theater Directing), she is a career-long educator and arts leader in both non-profit and higher ed. As a tutor and college admissions coach she has worked with hundreds of high school students to tell their truest stories. Her students have been accepted to some of the country’s best schools, including UPenn, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and many more.

Her approach to coaching is to help students to mine their stories for gold and find dynamic connections between all the points of their life.

Colleen has been making theater for over 20 years as a director, producer, educator, actor trainer, and communications coach. Her undergraduate degree is in Accounting Information Systems, but that was a long time ago. She’s gone back to school three times since — earning an MA in Education, an MLitt in Shakespeare and Performance, and an MFA in Theater from Sarah Lawrence College. She directed over 30 world premiere plays at the Off-Broadway Ensemble Studio Theater in NYC, creates her own work with collaborators around the world, and has taught directing, Shakespeare, and actor training as a professor at American University and Chapman University. She also occasionally trains UN Diplomats in public speaking. As a professor she’s been on the other side of the college application process — auditioning hundreds of high school students and reading their applications. She’s also recently worked directly with seniors on college essays at an independent school in Sun Valley, Idaho. She loves the connections she finds between theater directing and personal essays — they’re both dramaturgical investigations: what’s fascinating about this person, what’s their story, and how do we make that story come alive? Colleen has helped her students get into Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Yale School of Drama, RISD, Occidental, Sarah Lawrence, North Carolina School of the Arts, and beyond.

Dan is a multilingual educator with a decade of experience helping students develop their voices. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a minor in Writing, he lived and worked in Morocco, Germany, Spain, and Argentina as a teacher, editor, and consultant. In roles at the U.S. Department of State, the Spanish Ministry of Education, and the German Bundestag, he has honed his ability to listen deeply, tuning into what is said, unsaid, and repeated. As a psychotherapist, he brings a deep appreciation of the human experience to the writing process, helping students uncover the connections and insights that make their essays stand out. A lifelong immigrant, Dan views writing as discovery and creates space for students to think deeply, take creative risks, and thrive. His students have been admitted to top universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia.

Gracie earned her BA in English from Stanford, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with minors in Political Science and French, after which she earned her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. While teaching and tutoring English and Creative Writing, she found she enjoyed using her love of stories to help students explore the meaningful, vibrant connections in their own lives. As a published author, Gracie guides students in crafting sophisticated essays that reflect their unique talents, interests, and aspirations. Her collaborative and structured approach empowers students to express themselves with creativity and authenticity. Over the last few years, she has worked to get to know each and every student in order to help them create rich, confident, and distinctive portraits that both impress admissions officers and inspire self-reflection for the next phase of life. Gracie’s students have been accepted to many selective colleges, including Stanford, Cornell, UVA, Wake Forest, and more.

Jane has been an essay coach for almost a decade. Her love of stories began when she discovered the joy of reading at an early age. Rarely without a book, this interest persists today as she works to help others share their stories. Having graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Modern Languages, Jane worked as a teacher in the UK for ten years before moving to Nicaragua where she has lived for over twenty years. Through courses in Person-centred Therapeutic Counselling and Boarding Education, Jane discovered her ability to come alongside others and help them tell their stories. Working as an essay coach feels like the perfect way to combine her enjoyment in connecting with others and finding just the right word or phrase to express an idea. Jane loves the opportunity to help students make connections and understand more about themselves as they reflect on their experiences and craft their essays. Jane enjoys working with students from different countries and backgrounds and has helped them gain acceptance to many selective colleges, including Brown, Cambridge, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, and Yale.

Jesi is a longtime teacher of writing who delights in helping students craft compelling stories about who they are and what they believe in. She earned her B.A. in Humanities from Yale University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Texas at Austin, where she spent a decade teaching courses in English and community-based research methods. Jesi has also spent the past thirteen years supporting students as a writing consultant and college essay coach. She loves guiding students through the admissions process and believes that with the right combination of structure, support, and humor, the experience of applying to college can be enjoyable rather than anxiety-inducing. Her students have gone on to attend Yale, Columbia, Georgetown, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School of Business), Emory, UCLA, Sarah Lawrence, Rice, The University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt, the University of Washington Seattle, and Washington University in St. Louis, among others.

Kala has been helping students prepare for post-secondary success since 2018. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College with a BA in Psychology and English, Kala decided to serve her community as an AP educator and curriculum lead. After three years in the classroom, Kala decided to shift her gears to college access as the school’s college advisor. Inspired by the opportunity to help students tell their story, their way, she started to help students in the local community and beyond. Kala enjoys watching the change in students from the beginning of the process to the first acceptance letter; the hope is both palpable and addicting. Eager to gain more skills, she pursued her PhD from Florida International University in Teaching and Learning with a concentration in Language, Literacy and Culture. Her holistic and authentic approach has helped students gain acceptance to a variety of programs at selective colleges like Yale, Georgetown, Pomona, Duke, Spelman, and more.

Kirk is a graduate of Stanford University (BS, Econometrics) and a small business owner who resides in metropolitan Atlanta with his wife, Angela, and their four children. Kirk has served as a community volunteer coach for 30 years and for the past 11 years he has guided middle school and high school students through career and college planning activities. His volunteer organization, Crossroads for Students (CRFS), assists students in identifying the right career path, the most appropriate major for that career path, and the best institution to matriculate with that major. Ultimately, CRFS’s goal is to help its students find the right fit academically, socially, and financially.

Kirk is passionate about helping students master the art of expressing themselves in writing. After reviewing over 1000 application essays as a member of the Georgia Stanford Alumni Board and coaching CRFS students through a 1000 more, he has developed a writing philosophy with two commandments: be compelling, be interesting. This philosophy has contributed to student admission to such great institutions as Amherst College, Bard College, Boston University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, Harvard University, Howard University, Indiana University, University of Illinois, MIT, Northeastern University, Oxford University, RPI, Stanford University, UCLA, University of Southern California, Williams College, and Xavier University.

Sara has shaped her life around her love of words. She earned a BA in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing from College of Charleston and an MFA from Columbia College Chicago, with a quick break in between for a Poetry Fellowship at Charles University in Prague. She has been helping students of all ages find and hone their voices since 2013 in spaces ranging from creative writing summer camp to MFA poetry workshops. She has been a college essay coach for over a decade. A former state High School Teacher of the Year, she first found her love of college essays while teaching high school English and has since turned all her attention to individualized college advising. She believes everyone has a story to tell and loves helping students find and craft theirs. She particularly enjoys the narrative aspects of essay-writing and the moments when her students realize the connections between their experiences and their beliefs. She guides her students with compassion, humor, and patience to create authentic and memorable essays that have helped them gain entry into schools across the world, including Barnard, Georgetown, Swarthmore, Duke, Wesleyan, and more.

Susan has been an essay coach for 8+ years but has, at her core, been a writer, storyteller and lover of language(s) since she was very small (possibly earlier). Susan earned a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Stanford University and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In between, she spent a year teaching English in Grenoble, France on a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship; she also spent a summer in Tashkent, Uzbekistan during her Harvard studies. After several early career changes, Susan finally came to realize that she could in fact make storytelling into a unique professional path for herself. Since 2000, she has been infusing her writing and editing skills into businesses across a wide range of industries: cybersecurity, software, entertainment, healthcare, law, and education, among others. She has particularly enjoyed working closely with students to find and express their own authentic stories in their application essays. Susan loves the moment when students discover themselves on the page — and are able to then see themselves in a new and empowering light. Susan has helped these students earn admissions to a wide range of programs at highly selective colleges, including: U Penn, Yale, Brown, Georgetown, USC, UCLA and UC Berkeley — and more.

Tom has worked across every side of admissions: as an admissions officer at the College of the Holy Cross (his alma mater), where he led diversity fly-in programs and the LGBTQ+ Staff Mentor Program; as an Assistant Dean of Admissions at Pomona College, where he helped implement the school’s test-optional admissions policy; and as a college counselor at a selective Seattle independent school. He has also spent four summers as a faculty member at College Horizons, an organization dedicated to supporting Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students through the college process.


Tom first connected with CEG when, as an admissions officer at Pomona, he encountered a Matchlighters student whose essay stopped him in his tracks. He has been part of the CEG family ever since. Rooted in a deep commitment to equity and authentic storytelling, Tom helps students move from “I don’t know what to write about” to a polished, compelling application that feels unmistakably them.


Tom specializes in highly selective admissions and works closely with students applying to competitive schools nationwide. His students have been admitted to places like Columbia, Harvard, Duke, Stanford, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, USC, University of Washington, Colorado College, Case Western, Amherst, Yale, Pomona, Northeastern, Northwestern, Pitzer, Williams, Bowdoin, University of Chicago, every UC campus (including Berkeley and UCLA), US Naval Academy, Middlebury, University of Virginia, Notre Dame, Penn, Brown, University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, MIT, UIUC, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Caltech, Cornell, Carleton, Scripps, Claremont McKenna and many others.


A passionate Kacey Musgraves fan (all eras, not just star crossed and Golden Hour), breakfast burrito devotee, and committed space tourism skeptic, Tom is the first to acknowledge how high-stakes and personal this process can feel. He has been on both sides of the admissions table, and you will find nothing but genuine empathy and solidarity from him as you navigate your college admissions journey. Tom splits time between Los Angeles and his roots in coastal Maine.

Wendy’s life has revolved around curiosity and finding various paths that connect her with people, places, and ideas. Studying Biology at Trinity University, she explored science’s links to other fields including Art and History, eventually leading to a Master’s (Texas State University) and a PhD (Arizona State University), both in Geography with a focus in Environmental Science. She has taught at secondary and university levels, and spent the past 15 years working as an international college counselor in Taiwan and Japan supporting students from 30+ countries to find their way into universities. This year marks her seventh year with CEG. She has coached talented students who have collectively gained admission into nearly all of the most selective universities for STEM, including Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, USC, UPenn, Yale, MIT, and Caltech. By drawing out students’ individual strengths and helping them to strategize their essay approach, she helps ensure that their finished essays will stand out in the application field.