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UCLA Ph.D. - Admissions Insider, Common App Essays & UC Applications
Lauryn S.

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About Lauryn

Bio

I am an Associate Professor at Tarleton State University and hold a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA. In more than a decade of university teaching, including eleven years at Texas Tech University, I have taught, graded, and coached academic writing at every level, from first-year essays to master's theses and doctoral dissertations, and I have served on multiple graduate admissions committees. I know what strong applications and strong academic prose look like from the inside, because I am...

I am an Associate Professor at Tarleton State University and hold a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA. In more than a decade of university teaching, including eleven years at Texas Tech University, I have taught, graded, and coached academic writing at every level, from first-year essays to master's theses and doctoral dissertations, and I have served on multiple graduate admissions committees. I know what strong applications and strong academic prose look like from the inside, because I am one of the people who reads them and decides.

Beyond the classroom, I served for five years as a cultural advisor on Disney Pixar's Academy Award–winning film Coco, was lead consultant for the United States Postal Service's Mariachi Forever stamp series, and perform as a harpist with the Grammy Award–winning Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea. My research has been featured by The Economist, Good Morning America, and the Library of Congress. Students I have mentored have gone on to professional performing careers and to graduate programs including UCLA's; my first Ph.D. student now holds a tenure-track faculty position.

My teaching style is structured, visual, and patient. I break complex material into clear steps, use color-coding to make abstract concepts concrete, and adapt to how each student actually learns. I have particular experience supporting students who learn differently. Much of my career has been spent at Hispanic-Serving Institutions working with first-generation, bilingual, and ESL students, and I specialize in helping multilingual writers find a clear, confident voice in academic English without erasing who they are. Whether you need a stronger research paper or a graduate application that stands out, I can help. I offer a free 15-minute introductory call so we can talk through your goals before you book a lesson.

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Education

Carleton College
Music, magna cum laude
University of California, Los Angeles
PhD

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Approved Subjects

Anthropology

Anthropology

My Ph.D. from UCLA is in ethnomusicology, a field trained through anthropological method, and my published research is ethnographic, built on extended fieldwork, participant observation, and interviewing. Teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, I guide students regularly through research design, the coding and interpretation of qualitative data, and the writing up of ethnographic material. My training lies in sociocultural anthropology and ethnographic method. Archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistic anthropology fall outside that scope, and I will say so rather than take on work I am not trained for. Bring the assignment or research question along with whatever notes or data you already have.
College Counseling

College Counseling

My work in the application process centers on two things: choosing where to apply and writing the application itself. I help students build a college list that fits their goals, including what to look for in a school and how to weigh one option against another, and then plan, draft, and revise the personal statement, the supplemental essays, the activities list, and the statement of purpose. Throughout, the aim is to teach students to revise their own drafts rather than depend on me for the next one. Questions of testing and financial aid are better handled by a school counselor or financial aid office. Over more than a decade as a professor at Texas Tech University and Tarleton State University, I have advised hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students, and I have served on multiple graduate admissions committees, reading and deciding on applications of the kind my students are writing. First-generation and international applicants are a regular part of my work, and by mid-fall the largest gains are usually in the supplemental essays and the activities list rather than the main personal statement, which is where most families stop looking.
Essay Writing

Essay Writing

I hold a Ph.D. from UCLA and have taught and graded undergraduate essays for more than a decade as a professor at Texas Tech University and Tarleton State University, where I write the assignments and the rubrics students are marked against, which means I can read a returned paper and show a student exactly where it lost points. My focus is structure rather than surface correction: thesis construction, paragraph logic, evidence handling, and the revision passes that turn a draft into an argument. Before a first session I ask for one graded essay and the assignment sheet it answered, because the gap between those two tells me more than any diagnostic exercise, and I work on essays for class, application and admissions essays, and graduate writing including theses and research papers. I work regularly with first-generation students and with students who have learning differences, and I adapt to how a particular writer actually thinks rather than teaching one formula.
General Music

General Music

I am an Associate Professor of Music at Tarleton State University, where I teach Music Education majors how to teach music — the people who go on to run K-12 general music, choir, and band classrooms. Training future teachers means my subject is how music is actually taught: how to introduce a concept so it sticks, how to sequence material for a student with gaps, how to adapt when the standard approach isn't working, and how to build a lesson around what a student can already do. I hold a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA and teach general musicianship, music appreciation, music history, and world music at the university level, working with students from absolute beginners through pre-professional musicians. I am also a professional harpist with the Grammy Award-winning Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea, served five years as a cultural advisor on Disney Pixar's Coco, and was lead consultant for the United States Postal Service's Mariachi Forever stamp series.
Interview Prep

Interview Prep

As a professor with a Ph.D. from UCLA, I have spent my career giving high stakes talks and preparing students to give them. The work covers graduate school interviews, academic and professional job interviews, and job talks. Sessions are built on practice out loud rather than scripts: we identify your three or four core answers, rehearse them aloud, and cut the opening filler that consumes your first thirty seconds. We also rehearse the question you did not prepare for, which is usually the one that worries people most. Should the program or posting arrive ahead of time, along with any questions you have been told to expect, the hour goes to rehearsal rather than guesswork.
Music History

Music History

I am an Associate Professor of Music at Tarleton State University, where I teach the two-semester Music History survey covering antiquity through the twenty-first century. I hold a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA and have taught music history and world music courses for more than a decade. I help students with listening identification, score study, essay writing, and exam preparation. I design my own university exams, so I know exactly how these courses are tested and graded.
Personal Statements

Personal Statements

I work on personal statements at every level: the Common App essay and supplemental essays for high school seniors, the statement of purpose for graduate school applicants, and the personal statement for medical, law, and Ph.D. programs. I have served on multiple graduate admissions committees and have read, evaluated, and voted on the same kind of statement my students are trying to write, so I can tell quickly whether a draft needs polish or a different center, and most drafts that feel flat are clean, correct, and interchangeable with every other applicant's, which line editing will not fix. My work is the writing itself: finding the one experience only that student could have written about, building the structure around it, cutting the warm-up paragraph that eats the word limit, and teaching the student to revise their own drafts. I work often with first-generation and international applicants, and I have coached students into programs including UCLA's Department of Ethnomusicology, where my first doctoral student went on to a tenure-track faculty position.
Public Speaking

Public Speaking

I lecture to university classes several times a week and have presented conference papers, invited talks, and public lectures throughout my academic career, including work as a cultural advisor and media consultant. I am also a professional performing harpist who has played with the Grammy Award–winning Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea, so I coach the physical side of presenting as well as the verbal one, including nerves, pacing, breath, and command of a room. I prepare students for conference presentations, thesis and dissertation defenses, job talks, class presentations, and interviews. My approach is rehearsal-based rather than script-based, because a talk that is read aloud never lands the way a talk that is genuinely delivered does.
Thesis Writing

Thesis Writing

Having completed my own doctoral dissertation at UCLA, I know how daunting it can be without guidance. As a professor, I have advised graduate students through master’s theses and doctoral dissertations at every stage, from proposal to defense. I am currently writing a book under contract with a university press and co-editing a scholarly handbook, so I am doing this work alongside the students I coach. Writing the prose is only one part of the process. I also help students scope a feasible project, plan and manage the research, and navigate the relationship between an advisor and their committee.
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Hourly Rate: $125
Response time: 33 minutes
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