Your first session focuses on understanding your background, goals, and what makes your story unique. From there, you'll brainstorm essay topics with your tutor, draft your essay with guidance on structure and argumentation, and receive detailed feedback on multiple revisions. Most students benefit from 4-8 sessions spread across several weeks, allowing time to implement feedback and refine your writing between meetings.

Writer's block often stems from unclear thinking about your topic or pressure to sound "perfect." A tutor helps by asking targeted questions to uncover your authentic story, breaking the essay into smaller, manageable sections, and encouraging freewriting to get ideas flowing without judgment. Once you have raw material, organizing and refining it becomes much easier.

Your voice emerges when you write honestly about experiences that matter to you, rather than trying to sound like what you think admissions officers want to hear. A tutor helps you recognize your natural writing patterns, encourages specific details and examples from your life, and provides feedback on where your writing feels genuine versus forced. The goal is an essay that sounds like you—just the best version of you.

Revision transforms a rough draft into a compelling essay by clarifying your ideas, strengthening your arguments, and polishing your language. Most strong essays go through 3-5 rounds of revision, with each pass focusing on different elements—first on structure and content, then on clarity and flow, and finally on grammar and word choice. A tutor provides expert feedback at each stage so you're not revising in the dark.

With an average student-teacher ratio of 17.7:1 in Grand Rapids schools, getting personalized attention on your essay can be challenging during the school day. A tutor provides one-on-one feedback tailored specifically to your writing, your story, and your college goals—something that's difficult for teachers to offer when managing large class sizes. This personalized instruction makes a measurable difference in essay quality and your confidence as a writer.

Ideally, start in the summer before senior year or early fall, giving yourself several months to brainstorm, draft, and revise without rushing. If you're already in the thick of applications, don't worry—tutors can accelerate the process by providing intensive feedback and guidance. Even a few focused sessions can significantly strengthen your essay before the deadline.

Bring a list of potential essay topics or prompts you're considering, any drafts you've started, and information about the colleges you're applying to (since different schools sometimes have different essay requirements). If you're starting from scratch, just bring your thoughts about what experiences have shaped you. Your tutor will help you organize everything and develop a plan from there.