Jonathan K.

College Essay Mentoring - Top Yale Grad / Fulbright Mentor / 25 Years

College Essay Mentoring - Top Yale Grad / Fulbright Mentor / 25 Years

My professional passion is mentoring bright young people applying to university, with a primary focus on strategizing, planning, and revising application essays. With twenty-five years' experience in teaching writing, I've earned a solid reputation for helping applicants garner admission to top-tier universities like Yale, Columbia, MIT, Princeton, and Brown.

PUTTING YOUR MIND AT EASE

With a personal statement and a dozen or more supplement essays to write--from scratch--the college application process can be immensely daunting, for students and parents alike. If you work with me, my first priority is to put you at ease by explaining how I will:
(a) break the workload down into achievable pieces;
(b) support you as you tackle the challenges of each essay; and
(c) help you make meaningful progress in every session.
Our very first meeting will identify goals and topics for the Common App personal statement (the "main essay") so we can begin writing immediately. By our third meeting, we'll have a comprehensive action plan, including a strategy for saving time and effort with supplement essays without sacrificing quality.

KEEPING YOU IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT

My professional philosophy is that every essay you write needs to reflect *your* ideas and resonate with *your* own authentic voice. My job is to support you through each step of the writing process by:
- Strategizing with you to choose options and topics that effectively convey your most compelling strengths to admissions officers;
- Asking you detailed questions to guide your brainstorming and freewriting;
- Crafting a thorough outline (based on your freewriting) that breaks the work of drafting into manageable pieces;
- Offering expert guidance and specific feedback to assist you in revising, to make your writing as clear and meaningful as possible;
- Editing your draft, line by line, to ensure it is fluently readable; and
- Suggesting cuts to make your draft concise and powerful.

EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS

Over the past twenty-five years of my career in education, I have taught at leading public, Quaker, and international schools, as well as for two top-tier universities.

I acquired my zest for the craft of writing at Yale, where I graduated in the top five percent of my class. I subsequently apprenticed with Shady Hill School's Teacher Training Course, the nation's leading program, while earning a master's degree with a concentration in English from Tufts.

My primary focus as a teacher has been preparing students to write clear and compelling prose, whether it be for their AP exam essays, creative nonfiction pieces, or Lincoln-Douglas debate cases.

Over the years I have pursued many kinds of work and professional development in addition to my classroom teaching. For example, I am a Teacher Consultant for the National Writing Project. I also currently serve as a Mentor for the Fulbright Commission, a renowned non-profit established by international treaty, where my role is to help extremely bright British students from disadvantaged backgrounds apply to top-tier schools in the US. I have taught creative nonfiction writing courses over several years for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY), and I have served as an Academic Dean for CTY's Princeton site. For ten years I advised International Baccalaureate students on their Extended Essays, and I have completed the IBO advanced training for this work. I also have taught semester-long courses in assessment and differentiation for the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

MATRICULATIONS AT TOP-TIER UNIVERSITIES

Each year I provide full-service, one-to-one support to five or six rising seniors with their application essays, as well as to a few transfer and graduate-school applicants. Over the past five years students I have assisted have matriculated at top-tier colleges and universities, including:

- Amherst College
- Berklee College of Music
- Boston University - Kilachand Honors College
- Brown University
- California Institute of Technology
- Claremont McKenna College - Full Tuition Scholarship;
- Columbia University
- George Washington University
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Harvey Mudd College
- King's College London
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Full Tuition Scholarship
- New York University
- Notre Dame University
- Politecnico di Milano, School of Design
- Princeton University
- Scripps College
- Tufts University
- University of Edinburgh
- University of Southern California - Presidential Scholarship
- Vanderbilt University
- Washington & Lee - Full Tuition Scholarship
- Washington University, St Louis
- Wellesley College
- Yale University - Full Tuition Scholarship