The problem that is specific to here

Virginia's public universities draw an enormous share of their classes from these few counties. That is good news for admission odds and terrible news for essays, because it means the reader at Charlottesville or Williamsburg is working through a very large stack of applications from students who went to similar schools, took similar courses, did similar activities, and — this is the part nobody warns you about — wrote about them in similar ways.

When I read a draft from a student at Langley or Madison or TJ, the writing is usually competent. Competent is the problem. An admissions officer reading four hundred essays from Fairfax County is not looking for another well-organized paragraph about a service trip, a robotics team, or the season a shoulder injury ended. They are looking for the one applicant who sounds like a person.

So the first session is almost never about writing. It is about finding the story that only your student could tell, which is usually not the one they arrived with, and frequently not the one they thought was impressive.

Some of the schools I have worked with students from

Public: James Madison, George C. Marshall, McLean, Langley, Oakton, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, W.T. Woodson, Chantilly. Private: Flint Hill, Paul VI, Bishop O'Connell, Oakcrest.

The in-state supplement nobody takes seriously enough

Students spend months on the main personal statement and then write the "why this school" supplements in a weekend. That is backwards for Virginia applicants, because the supplements are where the reader finds out whether you actually know the place or whether you pasted its name into a paragraph that would work for any university with a lawn.

A supplement that could be sent to three schools with the name swapped is not an essay. It is a form. We fix those by finding the specific, checkable thing — a course, a professor's research, a building you have actually stood in — and building outward from it.

In person, if you want it

I am based in Vienna, so Northern Virginia is the one region where sitting down together is genuinely easy. Some students think better with a printed draft and a pen between them and the reader. Others would rather share a screen and never leave the house. Both work, and it makes no difference to the price.

Already have a draft? A written diagnostic is $150 — one page back within three days on whether this topic is worth the next six weeks, what it is actually about, and what would have to change. No session and no sales call, and it is credited in full toward any package within 14 days.

Send a draft

Serving Northern Virginia

Students and families in Vienna, Oakton, McLean, Tysons, Great Falls, Falls Church, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax and Reston — and online with families anywhere in the United States.

Full details on how the work runs, what it costs, and who I am are on the main page, along with reviews from families here and answers to the questions parents usually ask.