College essays is all we do.
You’ve worked hard. You’ve got the grades, the extra-curriculars, the volunteering, the test scores, the shining letters of recommendation. Now you’re supposed to sum yourself up in 650 words, while letting your top schools know about all your interests, dreams, and ambitions? You’re being asked to produce a piece of writing that could be the difference between a thick envelope or a thin one from the school you’ve been dreaming about since you were eleven. We think you deserve a little pity.
The good news is we’re here to help.
You don’t need a more extraordinary life. You just need some help to bring the one you have onto the page. We’re two fiction writers with decades of experience in writing, editing, teaching, and college admissions. We help applicants use the strategies of good fiction writing to tell their own stories in their own voices.
We use the techniques of fiction writing to help you do that: come up with revealing details, create texture and tension in a scene, find the shape and honesty that makes your story stand out.
Schuman has years of experience as a creative writing teacher and directed a top MFA program. He’s also spent time on admissions committees and understands what it takes for a piece of writing to shine among hundreds of others. There’s nothing he likes better than helping young writers find their own unique voices. His short stories and personal essays have been published in many magazines and anthologies.
Koch holds an MFA and founded an award-winning literary journal. He taught literature and writing at several colleges for over a decade before going to law school. At federal clerkships, he wrote decisions for judges; at white-shoe law firms, he wrote briefs for clients. Across those different forms, the work has always been writing. Dave’s unique approach to coaching helps students find material they didn’t realize they had.
College-essay prompts try to get you to focus on the big picture: overcoming adversity, dealing with loss, finding community. But fiction finds its way to the big things through small moments and details, things you might not know to look for since to you, they’re just the fabric of your life. We can help.
My grandfather taught me the importance of caring for others.
When my Grandma got terrible tremors from Parkinson’s, when there was nothing they could do, my Grandpa applied her lipstick every morning.
Writing a good essay is hard, as it should be. We’ll push you to work harder than you ever have on a piece of writing, and we’ll always be honest with you about what we think. When you’re done, you’ll not only have an essay that will give you the edge at your top schools, but also a piece of writing you’re truly proud of.
The Method developed over decades teaching writing workshops, working with editors and publishers, and sitting in on admissions meetings where the big decisions get made. Schuman and Koch participate in every part of every step.
Here’s what it looks like:
Applicants and their parents meet with us so that we can get a sense of who you are, what you’re interested in, and what you have to offer a college that no other kid does. We’ll also come up with a customized approach to our method that accommodates your schedule, capitalizes on your strengths, and addresses your anxieties.
Nobody leaves the Pity Party empty-handed. You’ll get a questionnaire, twenty incisive questions that will help you to discover essay topics. And we’ll discuss your answers together ad nauseam.
Once we’ve settled on a few potential topics, we bat around competing approaches, discuss fiction-writing techniques that will be helpful, map out ways to structure the essay, and thoroughly talk things through before we send you off to start drafting.
Pull up a chair. You’re going to spend a helluva lot of time in here with us. This is where you draft and redraft and draft again, and we’re with you throughout.
Once it starts to get good we help make it better. This step involves working sessions where we discuss what’s working and why, and talk about revisions and the direction of the final draft.
It took a lot, but here you are. The result of all your hard work. The piece of writing that could make all the difference. This is the version you’ll include in your application, but we won’t let you send it out into the world until we’re sure it’s the very best essay it can possibly be.
We help you find the subject, ask the questions, and work through the drafts. We never write the essay for you. The point is to bring your voice into focus, not replace it with ours.
Work with us on a single essay or the writing for a complete application season.
Write to us and tell us a little about the applicant, where things stand, and what feels stuck.