The trap DC students walk into

Growing up here means growing up around politics, policy, and adults with impressive job titles. So a very large number of essays from DC students are about an internship on the Hill, a march, a campaign, a model UN gavel, or the summer they learned that Change Is Slow.

Those essays are rarely bad. They are just indistinguishable. An admissions officer who reads the DC region has seen every version of the earnest policy awakening, and none of them tell her what the applicant is actually like at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday.

The interesting essay from a DC kid is usually the one they dismissed as too small — the Metro ride, the job at the ice cream place, the argument with a sibling that they still have not won. My whole method is getting that one out of them, which takes a conversation, not an editor.

Some of the schools I have worked with students from

Public and charter: Jackson-Reed, School Without Walls, Benjamin Banneker, McKinley Technology. Independent: Sidwell Friends, Georgetown Day, St. Albans, National Cathedral, Maret, Field, Gonzaga. Homeschooled applicants too, where the essay carries more weight than usual because there is no counselor letter doing that work.

DC has no state flagship, and that changes the whole essay workload

A student in Virginia or Maryland has an obvious in-state option and a short list. A DC student does not, so the list runs wider and further from home — and every additional school on it is another supplement to write.

DCTAG makes that concrete. The District's Tuition Assistance Grant pays the gap between in-state and out-of-state tuition at participating public universities, up to $10,000 a year, for students who have been domiciled in DC for at least twelve months. It is the reason a DC family's list often includes a dozen state flagships across the country, and it is the reason the supplements — not the personal statement — are usually where the real hours go.

Georgetown is its own case. It began accepting the Common Application in the fall 2026 cycle as part of a three-year pilot, alongside its own longstanding application, with neither route favored. What did not change is that Georgetown requires its own distinctive supplemental essays either way, and they are not the questions the rest of your list is asking.

How we work

Sessions run over video and a shared document, which is how nearly all of my students work, in DC and everywhere else. If meeting in person is easier, that can usually be arranged.

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 Washington, DC

Students and families in Capitol Hill, Georgetown, Cleveland Park, Chevy Chase DC, Petworth, Takoma, Brookland and Palisades — 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.