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14 Best College Essay Services for 2024 (40 Services Reviewed)

Research conducted by Emily Kierkegaard , PhD, and expert-reviewed by Kevin Wong, PrepMaven Co-founder

Not sure which college application essay coaching and editing service is the best? We compared the top 40 services, created in-depth reviews for 14 of them, and narrowed it down to the 4 best that will help guide you through the process of writing amazing college application essays.

What is the Best College Essay Service?

• PrepMaven  – best college application essay service overall
• College Essay Mentor  – best for individual consultants
• The College Essay Guy  – best for unlimited essay assistance
• College Vine  – best of the big platforms

The best of the rest:

Individual essay consultants:

• College Essay Editor  – small editing team
• Allison Karpf  – former English teacher helping students
• Your College Vision  – former journalist with more affordable rates
• The College Guru  – good on paper but unresponsive
• Sofia Zapiola – budget-friendly application assistance

Mid-size teams:

• Lotus Learning  – focus on health sciences

Large platforms:

• Study Point  – larger platform with mystery editors
• Ivy Select  – larger platform with mystery editors
• Empowerly  – larger platform with mystery editors
• BeMo  – expensive and aggressive with wrong expertise

Schedule a college essay consultation

Best College Application Essay Services in 2024

#1 – prepmaven.

Our Verdict — Best College Essay Assistance Overall Price: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package) PrepMaven’s one-on-one college essay assistance is the best option overall. Founded by brothers and Princeton grads Greg and Kevin, almost all of PrepMaven’s essay coaches have Ivy-League experience, primarily from Princeton and Harvard. All essay coaches also undergo a thorough training program in PrepMaven’s methods, developed by professional writers with deep understanding of the college admissions process, for helping students to discover the most compelling stories for their essays. Unlike other services, PrepMaven offers college essay assistance at several different price points. At the most accessible rate, students can work with current Ivy-League undergraduates who specialize in writing and have recently aced the college application process. At higher rates, students can work with coaches who are both Ivy-League grads and professional writers (screenwriters, journalists, editors) with many years of experience helping students to craft compelling essays. Interested students can even work directly with founders Greg and Kevin, who have over 15 years of experience helping students through the entire essay-writing process. PrepMaven’s services combine many of the best features of other good options into one, and it’s hard to beat their experience.

Sign up for PrepMaven’s college essay help now

Any student wanting college essay help, at any point in the process, with a range of budgets.

At a glance:

• Cost: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package)
• Writing coach qualifications: Princeton graduates and professional writers (or current Princeton students); all trained

What we like:

• Ivy League experience —most of their writing coaches are Princeton grads or current students, with some from Harvard and other Ivies
• Different pricing options to meet different families’ circumstances
• More flexible and greater capacity to take on new students compared to individual consultants

Sign up for PrepMaven’s college essay help

#2 – College Essay Mentor

Our Verdict — Best of the Individual Consultants Price: unknown but high Some college essay consulting services consist of just one expert. Of these individual essay consultants, Chris Hunt at College Essay Mentor is our favorite. He combines writing experience as a journalist for the Economist and the Wall Street Journal with personal experience as a graduate of Dartmouth. However, he only works with a small number of students each year, and students need to apply to work with him — he only accepts students with top grades and test scores who are already strong applicants for top schools. Chris offers the option for one-time written feedback, but this only gives big-picture generalizations. (And written-only feedback is always limited.) In order for help with the essay process, students need to purchase a complete essay package.

Students with top grades and test scores who want to work with a one-person business, who have a sizable budget, and who are ready to get started early.

• Cost: $210 for a one-time written essay feedback (big picture only), then $110 per draft feedback; pricing for essay process packages unknown
• Essay coach qualifications: professional journalist, Dartmouth grad
• Professional writing experience as a journalist
• Extensive experience working with college applicants
• Partners with Debra Felix, former Director of Admissions at Columbia, for full application review

What we don’t like:

• One-on-one work is limited to very high-achieving students, who need to apply with a resume : “I limit my one-on-one work to students who I believe will be strong applicants to elite universities. As a rule, this means having high grades in challenging classes, a test score of ACT 34+ or SAT 1500+, and substantial activities outside of the classroom.”
• Works with a limited number of students (60 per year), so often no availability
• All-or-nothing packages don’t allow students to work with Chris for just a few hours or for part of the essay-writing process
• Secretive about pricing (he’ll only give pricing details once he’s reviewed the student’s resume and agreed to work with them), but we expect the minimum cost of working one-on-one to be several thousand dollars

#3 – The College Essay Guy

Our Verdict — Best for Unlimited Essay Assistance Price: $4900 for application to 3 schools, $8050 for application for 10 schools We’re fans of Ethan Sawyer, the original “college essay guy”— his book, College Essay Essentials , is a great guide to the essay-writing process. Ethan doesn’t work directly with many students these days, but he now has a team of consultants who help students follow his principles. Their assistance is really all-or-nothing — they prefer to work with students from the very beginning of the process, and their minimum package is $4900, which includes assistance with essays for three schools. If students are applying to ten schools (a more realistic number for students aiming at competitive colleges), the fee is a hefty $7400.

Students who want unlimited help through the entire process, who have a sizable budget.

• Cost: $4900 (supplemental essays for 3 schools) – $7400 (supplemental essays for 10 schools)
• Essay coach qualifications: mix of Ivy grads and former teachers, some writers/screenwriters; all trained
• Great free resources about the essay-writing process
• Their Matchlighters Scholars Program gives back to the community by providing admissions consulting for select qualifying students
• All-or-nothing packages have a high minimum fee and don’t work for students who want just a few hours of feedback or help with just part of the process

#4 – College Vine

Our Verdict — Best of the Big Platforms Price: $140–180/hour There are plenty of large platforms with large stables of part-time tutors and coaches available to work with students. Of these big platforms, we think CollegeVine has the best offerings. Compared to other large companies, CollegeVine provides more information about their tutors, and students can pick individual tutors to work with from their roster. However, this model is really just a way of finding individual tutors to hire. Tutors don’t receive any training and don’t share a common approach, so it’s a mixed bag. Their rates are fairly high for part-time tutors who don’t have specific expertise and training in college essay consulting. Because CollegeVine is really just a marketplace where individual tutors can find students, the quality and price will vary widely.

Students who want to work with a big company, or those who want a quick session or two to go over their essays.

• Cost: Typically $140–180/hour
• Essay coach qualifications: no specific qualifications, but a few are Ivy League graduates
• Possible to select individual editors to work with from their roster.
• Easy to schedule ad-hoc sessions with a tutor through the website.
• No training or common approach for tutors
• Editors are part-time , with no option to work with full-time college admissions experts
• Relatively expensive for this level of expertise

College Essay Editing Alternatives (that Didn’t Make the Cut)

Individual essay consultants, #5 – college essay editor.

Our Verdict — Small Editing Team Price: Roughly $5,950 for applications to 10 schools College Essay Editor comprises two graduates of Stanford. This means that they have personal experience applying to highly competitive schools. One member of the team also has a college counseling certification, which is a good background for college essays. Based on their website, they appear to focus on the editing and proofreading phase of the essay-writing process. This can be helpful to students, but we recommend working with a service who can help students to uncover their values and brainstorm really great material that allows them to really shine—and if this doesn’t happen at the beginning of the process, it’s much harder to add in later on.

• Cost: $195/1000 words for proofreading, $495/1000 words for 3 rounds of editing and proofreading, or $595/1000 words for unlimited rounds of editing and proofreading; for the purposes of comparison, complete applications to 10 competitive colleges would be around 9,650 words, or $5950.
• Writing coach qualifications: Stanford graduates, one of whom has college counseling certification
• Editors are graduates of Stanford University , and one is a member of NACAC, the national association of college counselors
• They focus on editing and proofreading only , not on the crucial earlier steps of brainstorming and strategy
• Small team with very limited availability
• All asynchronous editing so you won’t be able to cultivate a real relationship with your essay coach.

#6 – Allison Karpf

Our Verdict — Former English Teacher Helping Students Price: $385/hour or $3850 package for application to one school Another option for students looking to hire an individual consultant is Allison Karpf. Allison is a former high school English teacher and a graduate of UC Berkeley who also holds a Masters of Education from Stanford. Her rates are definitely on the higher side, especially for someone who doesn’t have a professional writing background, but she does have extensive experience working with students to craft their essays.

• Cost:  $385/hour or $3850 unlimited counseling (includes supplemental essays for one college)
• Essay coach qualifications: former high school English teacher; Berkeley grad, Stanford MEd
• Lots of experience helping students improve their college essays
• Very quick to respond to client requests
• No professional writing experience or Ivy-Plus undergraduate experience
• High rates relative to other options
• Limited availability , since she works alone

#7 – Your College Vision

Our Verdict: Former Journalist with More Affordable Rates Price: $180/hour, or packages starting from $3500 Laurie Lande is another individual consultant who helps students through the essay-writing process. She comes recommended by other consultants like Chris from College Essay Mentor . Laurie did not herself attend a highly competitive school, so she doesn’t have that personal experience of going through the selective admissions process, but she does have a professional writing background as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong.

• Cost: $180/hour or packages starting at $3500
• Essay coach qualifications: journalism background
• Affordable pricing , relative to other options
• Not a graduate of a highly selective school

#8 – The College Guru

Our Verdict — Good on Paper but Unresponsive Price: unknown Yet another individual essay consultant is Geanine Thompson from The College Guru. Geanine attended Dartmouth as an undergraduate and also holds an MBA from Duke. She also has a professional writing background as an assistant book editor at Berkley Publishing Group. Like Greg and Kevin at PrepMaven , she combines experience in the business world and at Wall Street firms with experience in education.

• Cost: unknown
• Essay coach qualifications: former assistant book editor; Dartmouth grad, Duke MBA
• Dartmouth graduate and former book editor
• Not responsive to emails and client requests

#9 – Sofia Zapiola

Our Verdict — A budget-friendly, personal essay editor. Price: $80/hour Yet another individual essay consultant is Sofia Zapiola, who offers a mix of essay editing and college application counseling services.

• Cost: $80/hour
• Essay coach qualifications: M.A. from Harvard; certificate in College Counseling from UC San Diego.
• Individual approach, budget-friendly rates, commitment to working within families’ budgets.
• Very few testimonials, so it’s difficult to evaluate how effective she is.

Mid-size Teams

#10 – lotus learning.

Our Verdict — Expensive for Tutor Background Price: $165/hour Founded by a Harvard grad who is a former teacher and veteran of the publishing industry, Lotus learning offers college essay help in the Boston area. They have a small team of tutors, mostly recent grads from good but not Ivy-Plus colleges, and mostly with focus in health sciences.

• Cost: $165/hour (minimum 8 hours)
• Essay coach qualifications: tutors are recent grads, but not Ivy-Plus schools
• Reasonable pricing with flexible packages
• Essay editors aren’t graduates of Ivy-Plus schools and don’t have professional writing experience

Large platforms

#11 – study point.

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: Rates Between $60 and $120/hr Study Point is a larger essay editing service. They claim to have several decades of experience helping students to craft their college essays, but they do not give information about who their essay coaches are and what qualifications they might have.

• Cost: $60-120/hr, depending on tutor experience
• Essay coach qualifications: unknown
• Larger company with several decades of experience
• Unclear who the essay coaches are
• Lack of statistics about their results

#12 – Ivy Select

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: unknown Ivy Select makes a lot of big promises on their website about having the best college essay consultants in the business, but they offer no information on who these consultants are, or on their backgrounds. They also brag that each consultant “only” works 20 students in one application cycle, but in our experience, that’s quite high.

• Long list of impressive (but anonymous) testimonials
• Only work with “top students”
• No information on their website about who the editors are
• Each essay coach works with up to 20 students at one time

#13 – Empowerly

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: High, from $6000/year Empowerly has over 60 college counselors who each work with an average of 5 students per year, in order to have more time to devote to each student. Their counselors come from “different educational backgrounds,” and while they do not provide specific biographical details we can assume that most of their essay coaches did not attend highly selective schools.

• Cost: typically from $6000/year
• Essay coach qualifications: college counselors
• Counselors work with just a few students per year
• You have to upgrade to “Empowerly Elite” to guarantee a counselor with a more selective educational background
• No professional writing experience

#14 – Prepory

Our Verdict — Expensive but with Good Expertise Price: $325/hr Prepory is a college application and career counseling service that offers a comprehensive program for college applications at any stage of the process (including as early as 9th grade). They make a lot of impressive claims about the expertise of their coaches, but it’s quite difficult to actual find much information about their essay coach qualifications.

• Cost: $325/hr
• They have a comprehensive college application program that begins as early as 9th grade.
• Limited information about essay coaches
• High prices

Top 40 College Essay Services Considered

• College Essay Editor
• The College Essay Guy
• College Vine
• College Essay Mentor
• Study Point
• Allison Karpf
• The College Guru
• Lotus Learning
• Summit Prep
• Sofia Zapiola
• Ivy Global / New Summits
• College Essay Solutions
• Your College Vision
• Essay Edge*
• ServicEscape*
• PapersForge*
• QuickWriter*
• JustEditMyEssay*
• JustDoMyEsssay*
• ExpertWriting*
• SpeedyPaper*
• GradeMiners*

* A number of services will edit essays directly for students, or even write portions of the essay for students. We do not condone this. Admissions officers can tell when essays have been written or edited by adults and this can have severe consequences. We have excluded these services from our reviews.

Why are college application essays important?

Can a great college essay alone get you into Harvard?

No. You’ll need your grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities (as well as letters of recommendation and interview) to be outstanding.

But can a mediocre essay be the reason you didn’t get into Harvard?

Yes. There are thousands of amazingly-qualified students who graduate from high school each year. Great grades and test scores might be a prerequisite for admission to a competitive college, but they alone aren’t enough.

College essays are a key component of a student’s application . When done well, they transform a collection of numbers—GPA, class rank, SAT or ACT scores , number of AP classes taken, AP scores—into a glimpse of a real, individual person.

Essays do many things. Good college essays can highlight extracurricular achievements which otherwise would be overlooked in a sterile list. Strong essays often indicate the student’s future plans —how they plan to leave a mark on their college campus and on the world. They can shine a light on unique challenges that a student may have had to face on their journey.

College admissions officers only have a few minutes to spend on each application. College essays need to be original, interesting, and memorable . They need to grab the attention of the admissions officer and persuade them that this is the student out of hundreds or thousands of other similarly-qualified applicants who should be admitted.

College admissions essays are usually unlike any other kind of writing that students have done before. They’re a combination of memoir and marketing pitch, and they need to be creative but also highly strategic. That’s a tough assignment!

What’s more, students are left to figure this assignment out on their own. A thoughtful and generous high school English teacher may provide guidance or offer to read essays and give feedback, but these teachers are responsible for many students, and they’re (usually) not experts in admissions strategies.

There’s another reason college essays are especially important from 2024 on. After the recent Supreme Court decision, the application essay has become one of the main ways that you can communicate how your racial identity has affected your life.

In fact, the New York Times published an article about how important it can be for students to discuss race in their college application essays!

Why work with a college essay service?

You may want to consider a college essay service if:

• You have no idea where to start in order to write your college application essays
• You feel overwhelmed by all of the different ideas you have and don’t know what would be the most strategic for college admissions—and what topics to definitely avoid for college essays
• You don’t know how to craft a compelling stor y
• You’re not sure how to edit and refine what you’ve written
• You have a hard time keeping yourself on track and want an external structure to hold you accountable
• You’re tired of conflict between students and parents about college essays
• You’re aiming at a competitive college (not just the Ivy League!) and know that you need your essays to be outstanding
• Your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars aren’t exceptional, so you need your essay to make your essay stand out from the pack
• You’re unfamiliar with the US college admissions process (a common situation for international students and first-generation families in the US)

Any of these are strong reasons to consider working with a college essay service!

It’s also worth remembering that a lot of the free advice on college’s website isn’t always very clear. For example, NYU’s admissions Senior Assistant Director of Admissions says that “There is no right or wrong way to answer as long as your answer is genuine to you.”

While that’s true, that doesn’t offer much guidance on how to actually write the essay!

Though many college applicants might not mention it, more and more students are using professional college application consultants. Research at the University of Chicago has shown that over a quarter of high-achieving seniors employed private specialists to help with the college application process.

In fact, according to NPR , some companies are even offering college admissions counseling to their top employees as an incentive–that’s just how important professional help can be in the current landscape of college admissions.

It’s important to note that a good college essay service will not write your college application essays for you . This is unethical and illegal. That’s not just coming from us: take it from a school like Princeton, whose website insists on the importance of writing your own application essays.

A good college essay service will guide you through each step of the process , teaching you how to self-reflect and write well while sharing insider insight about admissions strategy .

What makes a good college essay service?

We strongly believe that students need to write their own college essays , and we do not condone plagiarism or “buying” a college essay.

However, writing college application essays requires a completely new set of skills that is rarely taught in high school!

Writing a personal essay is much more creative than simply writing a good paper for English class. It requires a compelling narrative and a great deal of writing craft . A good essay service will teach how to do this kind of writing.

There are many college essay services that will provide only written feedback to students, usually in the form of comments added to an essay draft. (Remember, it’s important that students write their own essays, so avoid any college essay service that will make edits directly to an essay document .)

Written comments can be an effective component of good essay coaching. However, writing college essays is a deeply personal process , and it’s incredibly difficult to guide a student through the process of self-reflection, brainstorming, and planning purely through written comments.

In addition, a great college essay coach will teach students how to do this entire process of brainstorming, planning, outlining, writing, and revising . It’s difficult to learn why an essay coach is advising certain changes through written comments alone.

For these reasons, look for a college essay service with live, one-on-one services , not just written feedback. These days, it’s easy to work with the best college essay consultants in the country over Zoom!

Students need to reflect on their goals, their passions, and what drives them to be the person they are. This requires a great deal of self-awareness and self-analysis . An experienced college essay coach can help draw these ideas out of students through tested introspection techniques and brainstorming exercises .

On top of all of that, students need to be cognizant of which traits and accomplishments will be most appealing to colleges , and which stories will be cliche and boring. Personal statements and supplementary essays need to fit together to tell a cohesive story, and they need to work together with the rest of the student’s application (extracurriculars, grades, and other accomplishments).

In other words, there’s a great deal of strategy here! An experienced college essay service can help students decide how to present themselves in the best possible light .

Furthermore, most students don’t know how to edit effectively . A really top-notch college essay service will also teach students how to edit their own writing —how to reorder sections for better flow, cut unnecessary words to meet a word count, eliminate passive verbs, and make their writing vivid and exciting. Our students are routinely amazed by how transformative this step can be, and how much they learn by doing it together with the essay coach.

Finally, the best college essay services can also help students to make a writing plan and keep them on track , so that parents don’t have to be involved directly.

Ready to work on your college essays? Schedule a free 15- to 30-minute consultation with Jessica or one of our founders.

Best overall: PrepMaven’s tutors offer the highest quality at the best price. With three tiers of tutors, they make it easy to work with an Ivy League undergraduate for as little as $79/hr. Or, families can work with education professionals or Ivy League graduates from $150/hr. PrepMaven’s track record means that you can be sure every hour is being spent productively, so that you can expect real results from the work.

Best for individual consultants: College Essay Mentor. In theory, College Essay Mentor would offer an unparalleled level of individual attention and guidance: his website boasts of some very impressive results. You might find it hard to actually schedule with him, however, since he’s very selective about his clients.

Best for unlimited essay assistance: The College Essay Guy might not offer that personalized attention you get from live, face to face essay coaching, but they do offer unlimited essay editing for up to 10 schools (if you’re comfortable paying a hefty package price).

Best of the big platforms: College Vine will always be a bit of a gamble. Because it’s a tutor marketplace, your results (and costs) will really depend on how lucky you get with your consultant. From our research, however, many of their essay coaches look to have solid track records.

Ready to work on college essays with one of our experienced writing coaches? Schedule a free test prep consultation with Jessica (Director of Tutoring) or one of our founders to see what would be the best fit for your family.

It’s always best to start early and not wait until the last minute to write your college essays! Remember that essays can be used to earn scholarships as well as college admission, so a few months of writing now can pay off with up to $300,000 in tuition saved later. 

We work with students at all stages of the writing process, from I-have-no-idea-what-to-write to final edits. To start working with an Ivy-League writing coach today, set up a quick free consultation with our team.

Schedule a free college essay consultation

Top College Essay Posts

• 14 Best College Essay Services for 2023 (40 Services Reviewed)
• Qualities of a Successful College Essay
• 11 College Essays That Worked
• How to Answer the UC Personal Insight Questions
• How Colleges Read your College Applications (A 4-Step Process)
• How to Write the Princeton Supplemental Essays
• The Diamond Strategy: How We Help Students Write College Essays that Get Them Into Princeton (And Other Ivy League Schools)
• What is the College Essay? Your Complete Guide for 202 4
• College Essay Brainstorming: Where to Start
• How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essays
• How to Format Your College Essay

Emily graduated  summa cum laude  from Princeton University and holds an MA from the University of Notre Dame. She was a National Merit Scholar and has won numerous academic prizes and fellowships. A veteran of the publishing industry, she has helped professors at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton revise their books and articles. Over the last decade, Emily has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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Gaining admission is only partly about your achievements and numbers. For top colleges, it is also strongly about who you are as a person, what you’ve experienced, how you think about the world, and what your goals are. The application should tell a cohesive story about you that makes sense. It is meant to be a package. You need to be more than just a lot of activities thrown together. You don’t want to have a collection of short films – you want a single cohesive movie. For this reason, your essays shouldn’t be just about your accomplishments. They aren’t looking for you to brag about yourself. The most effective essays talk about you as a person and what drives you – often they show vulnerability or weakness. This is counterintuitive for highly achieving students to understand but it’s what admissions committees love to see.

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This is why every PrepScholar admissions counseling service starts with our Student Profile Questionnaire, and an optional Parent Questionnaire for select packages. These help us recommend the best counselor from day one and provide our counselors with valuable insights to understand you better right from the beginning.

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Our aim is to facilitate understanding, as we believe that when families share common visions, the journey through college admissions becomes less turbulent, fostering a supportive, united front that leads to success.

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Meet Ellie and Pravan —two previous PrepScholar students. Ellie began working with PrepScholar as a 10th grader while Pravan connected with us in 12th grade when he was applying to colleges. Read their files, how they started when we first met them, what steps we advised to reach their goals, and how they got into Princeton and Dartmouth.

Ellie Grade 10

As a high-achieving student from Michigan with an interest in Computer Science and Dance, Ellie needed guidance on building a CS “spike” while staying true to her other passions. Read how she got into Princeton Restrictive Early Action.

Pravan Grade 12

As a student from Connecticut with “typical” pre-med extracurriculars and high grades, Pravan needed to stand out in a crowded and homogenous field of aspiring doctors. Learn how he got admitted to Dartmouth Early Decision.

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We personally and thoughtfully recommend the best consultant based on your profile.

We start our work by getting to know you in depth. With the help of our Student Profile Questionnaire, we ask relevant questions about your academic profile, challenges, and admissions goals. To gain a deeper understanding, we also ask thought-provoking questions to get your insights about your formative years, personal interests, hopes, and dreams.

Your questionnaire is personally reviewed by our Head of Admissions, a Harvard and Yale graduate with 10+ years of counseling experience. They have worked closely with all the consultants on our team and understand their areas of specialization and track record. Based on your answers, our Head of Admissions matches you with the best consultant to help you reach your goals.

Our matching process is carefully designed and consistently leads to successful consultant and student matches; as a result, reassignment is virtually never necessary. However, if the need for a reassignment arises, we are happy to accommodate such a request.

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Christopher Null

The Write Stuff: 4 College Admissions Essay Editing Services Reviewed

Looking for good news about the college admissions process these days? You won't find much of it. Not only has the cost of attending college doubled on average since the 1980s, but also it's gotten considerably harder to get in. The majority of colleges in America have witnessed a plummeting acceptance rate as the number of student applications has exploded. Fifty years ago you had a 20 percent shot at getting into Harvard (all things equal, of course). Now the Crimson's acceptance rate is about 5 percent. In the last 10 years alone, the acceptance rate at many major universities has been cut in half . It's almost enough to make a kid consider trying out for the rowing team .

As if applicants didn't have enough to stress about, colleges have been making it more onerous to apply—requiring additional interviews, recommendations, and SAT Subject Tests. But the most burdensome of them all is an old standby: the application essay.

Essay requirements vary widely from school to school. The 150-plus members of the Coalition for College (which includes Harvard and Vanderbilt) requires a single 500-word essay selected from prompts such as "Describe a time when you made a meaningful contribution to others in which the greater good was your focus. Discuss the challenges and rewards of making your contribution." Those with eyes on the University of California system must write a whopping four essays, with prompts such as "Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced."

Students can reuse essays with other colleges if the prompts are similar enough—or if the schools happen to be members of the same application partnership—but you'd be surprised how seldom this occurs. My daughter found that out the hard way, when she learned that she'd have to write 12 separate essays to cover just five schools.

What's a kid to do who doesn't have parents who both work full-time as writers and editors? Just run their essay through Microsoft grammar check and hope for the best? Good luck. The acceptance rate at the University of Chicago has dropped 81 percent in the last 12 years. It doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to know that if you don't put your best foot forward, you may as well not even bother.

All of this led me to the curious world of online editing services. While you can hire a consultant to help guide your child through this overwhelming maze, these consultants are expensive and much of their work involves managing the complex application process, figuring out which colleges are a good fit, and brainstorming essay topics. If you just need help whipping an already written essay into better shape, an online editor might be a better (and much cheaper) fit.

To be sure, some of these services are exorbitantly expensive. Services like EssayEdge and TopAdmit can run you close to $200 for editing a single essay of fewer than 400 words. I've seen prices as high as $379 after various upsells. Word for word, that's more than what my editor at WIRED makes. (Hi, Mike!)

The good news is there are plenty of more affordable options available. I tested four of them, all reasonably priced and seemingly legitimate. Most of these services charge based on a combination of the word count of the original essay and the turnaround time required. I used the same raw essay from my daughter as a test piece for each of the four services, and requested the slowest turnaround time each of them offered to minimize the cost. I submitted her 383-word raw essay at the same time to each of the services, on a Wednesday afternoon. I gave all the services minimal guidance with my submission, noting only (when prompted) that this was a college application essay. All four of the services allow you to upload a Microsoft Word document and receive a red-lined and comment-filled Word document in return.

Scott Gilbertson

Boone Ashworth

Gabrielle Caplan

Louryn Strampe

When I received the revised essays, I reviewed them along with my wife (also a professional writer) and my daughter, the author. The reviews were done blind, without indicating the source of any of the edits, and we all rated each essay on a 1 to 10 scale. I also threw in a copy that I roughly edited. For the sake of comparison, the raw essay scored an average of 4.8, while my edit garnered a 6.9.

Here's what the various services cost, and how well they performed.

Note: When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Read more about how this works.

Total price: $13.91, 48-hour turnaround promised. Edit received within 24 hours.

Scribendi offers seven different turnaround time tiers, but its 72-hour and one-week turnarounds were the same price as the 48-hour turnaround. A four-hour turnaround was quoted at $28.53. Scribendi returned both a changes-tracked version of the document and a "clean" version with all edits accepted. Scribendi's edit was not just the fastest, it was incredibly thorough—almost nitpicky—with 16 comments or prompts to the writer suggesting avenues for additional content or revisions that were beyond the scope of a simple edit. Oddly, the final edit didn't resonate with readers, who largely felt it was somewhat awkward and clunky in its overall flow. That said, the editor's notes and the service's overall speed were a big plusses.

Readers' rating: 5.0

Total price: $13.90, three-day turnaround promised. Edit received after two days.

Elite Editing has an Advanced Editing service for $40, but the $13.90 plan I chose offers only "basic editing," which doesn't include "suggested rewrites to eliminate awkward phrasing, repetition, passive voice, etc." and "taking into account your original assignment." Three days is the standard turnaround; one-day turnaround for the Basic Editing plan would have cost $19.90. The site crashed when I checked out, but my payment and submission both went through successfully. As promised, Elite's edit was indeed basic. Its editor made the fewest changes of any of the services and left only three comments, one of which was about whether the use of indentations and double-spacing was appropriate. While Elite's edits were correct, they weren't terribly deep—although that was enough to propel it to a second-place finish from the readers.

Readers' rating: 5.7

Total price: $15.32, five-day turnaround promised. Edit received after four days.

Wordvice has eight different pricing tiers, with rates as low as 4 cents per word for a seven-day turnaround, though that tier was limited to materials longer than 3,000 words. The five-day turnaround tier was only marginally more expensive. When I received Wordvice's edited document, I was offered an upsell for a "second look" (basically another edit) for 30 percent off. Wordvice's embedded commentary was nearly as thorough as Scribendi's, though Wordvice was less obsessive over grammar and more focused on overall clarity. Turns out that was the right move: Wordvice's edit was the overall favorite of the quartet, and the finished draft reads cleanly and clearly.

Readers' rating: 6.3

Total price: $31.33, seven-day turnaround promised. Edit received after four days.

Scribbr initially quoted a price of $25.36, but I shelled out an extra $6 for both the "structure check" and "clarity check" options, despite not really understanding what those were. Prices include a 2 percent surcharge for using a credit card. For those in a hurry, 24-hour turnaround doubles the price. Scribbr seems more focused on editing academic coursework essays than admissions essays, with a relatively formal structure applied to its edits (removing contractions completely, for example). Editor's commentary was sparse, though on target. This draft was the most divisive of the services, earning high marks from my wife but very low marks from my daughter, who thought it stripped the writing of her voice.

Readers' rating: 5.3

Any good college essay has to end with a conclusion, so here are a few takeaways. First, all of the services sent back essays that were, on average, felt to be an improvement over the original draft, with all of them catching numerous spelling and grammatical errors—so students with no professional editing help may do well to consider them, especially given how affordable these services are. That said, also remember that when you engage with an editing service, you're really engaging with a single (anonymous) editor who you won't ever meet or be able to interact with. That editor won't have any level of understanding of the writer's personality beyond what's on the page, and quality will necessarily vary from one editor to another, even within a given editing service.

Further still, remember that editing quality is always going to be subjective, just like any piece of writing. Except for this story, of course. It's amazing.

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Highly Recommend Peter Zimmerman

We highly recommend our college counselor, Peter Zimmerman. He developed a comprehensive positioning plan for our daughter and provided clear guidance at every step of the process. He meticulously reviewed each college application before submission. With his expert guidance, our daughter was accepted into several Ivy League and top-tier schools. We are extremely satisfied with our decision to choose Peter and look forward to working with him in the future.

Date of experience : May 03, 2024

College consulting

The team at Solomon is well versed in the competitive college application environment students must navigate. Our consultant, Carla provided invaluable insights, recommendations and guidance for our daughter. She was accepted to her top choice university and we are beyond grateful.

Date of experience : January 23, 2024

Excellent Results!!

I had Grace Chee as my counselor, and she was amazing! She provided extremely insightful and helpful advice, and was well organized and always on top of everything. She was kind and understanding of what my goals were, and did everything in her power to help me get accepted into my dream schools. I applied to many schools, and I got accepted into ALL of the schools that Grace assisted me with. This just further proved Solomon Admissions effectiveness and goes to show how they really make a difference.

Date of experience : April 17, 2024

excellent company and consultant

For any parents out there looking to help their high schoolers get into their dream colleges, I can't recommend Solomon Admissions enough. The earlier you start the process, the better. We've had an amazing experience with our consultant, Samantha Shepard-Guerinoni. She is very knowledgeable and is always responsive to any questions we may have had throughout the entire process. She worked with student very closely and gave step-by-step help and instructions throughout the entire preparation and application process over the past 3-4 years. She not only guided student but also encouraged them and was very helpful in every step of the application process. We can't thank her enough. Our experiences with Solomon's admissions over the past few years have been exceptionally positive, thanks to her invaluable advice. Our student was eventually accepted into dream college, an Ivy League school.

Date of experience : April 19, 2024

Highly Recommend Solomon and Delphine

We used Delphine Byrd starting the summer before my daughter’s junior year through her ED application to her first choice school. Delphine was knowledgeable, easy to work with, friendly, funny, kind and accessible. Our daughter was thrilled when she received her acceptance! I would highly recommend Delphine and her sound advice!

Date of experience : December 15, 2023

We had an amazing experience working…

We had an amazing experience working with Tim Bradley from Solomon. My daughter got into her dream boarding school! Tim not only has intensive knowledge about boarding school and the admission process, he works well with teenagers to bring the best out of them in a way that transforms their lives! I am forever grateful for the positive experience Tim created for my daughter. We actually hired two different consulting companies and the other one, unfortunately, didn't work. I am glad that I went with Tim and Solomon!

Date of experience : March 22, 2024

Excellent positioning and counseling…

Excellent positioning and counseling support. Our kid got accepted to his first choice Top 10 university! Big shoutout to Danielle Crowe - couldn’t have asked for a more engaged and involved counselor. Felt like she had a personal stake in our kid’s college admission process.

Date of experience : November 30, 2023

ANDREW WAS THE FREAKING BEST

ANDREW WAS THE FREAKING BEST! I had the best experience with Solomon Admissions (albeit email replies were slow), I felt like I was given significant time, preparation, and support. I really loved Andrew and I felt like as we were experiencing highs and lows in the college process, he was right there feeling them with us. Also, his interview prep was super helpful. I can’t recommend him enough, and hey — I got into an Ivy League!

Solomon Was Worth Every Penny!

After attending a free webinar that allowed us to learn about Solomon and their strategy, our minds were blown. We wouldn't have considered a service like this until we realized that there was so much we didn't know. Solomon's staff of experts keep up with current trends at top-notch colleges and they guided our daughter through so many activities and enhancements to her applicant profile that we wouldn't have known to do. She was accepted to her top choice university! We used Solomon for five colleges. She was accepted to three, deferred at one and didn't even have to submit the fifth. She is elated, and our family is so grateful!

Date of experience : January 24, 2024

Solomon showed us the way

Very pleased with our Solomon experience. We had no idea of the realities of todays application process. Our Solomon counselor laid out the process, guided us along the way, got to know our student, provided us a frank assessment of our student's application strengths, weakness and opportunities, and helped us develop a strategy to get her into the school of her choice. Solomon showed us the way. A significant investment but in our opinion worth every cent. We'll use Solomon again for our next student. Thanks Haley! Note to parents. It can be really hard but listen to Solomon!

Date of experience : January 22, 2024

Solomon really helped my daughter with…

Solomon really helped my daughter with her college essays. We kinda started late with them, towards the end of summer just before senior year started. I would encourage students to get started earlier and take full advantage of the services they offer. I plan to do that with my son. Even though we started late, my daughter still benefited greatly from the expertise of the Solomon consultants. They were very thorough, knowledgeable, and professional. I would highly recommend them.

Excellent Positiining

Our counselor, Peter Zimmerman, was amazing. Starting from positioning to detailing out each and every step of the process, he was extremely knowledgeable. My daughter got into an Ivy League, and I don’t think she could have done it without Peter’s guidance. We are extremely happy with our decision to choose Solomon.

Our experience with Solomon was Outstanding!!!!

Our experience with Solomon was excellent. The counselors were top notch and very involved and experienced. We used them 3 years ago for my daughter and this year for my son. Both were top students but Solomon made the difference in preparing them to apply to an Ivy League School. Both were accepted in highly competitive programs.

We took a full ride with Solomon

We took a full ride with Solomon from 10th grade. It was quite a journey. Ms. Meneide guided us each step of the way, including overall strategizing, fine positioning, progress monitoring, course selections, summer activities, essay proofreading, and applications review. Our son was ED'ed to his school of choice. We are very thankful for having Ms. Meneide's advice throughout the process. She is extremely knowledgeable about everything concerning college admissions. We cannot recommend her enough.

My College Application Experience

My experience with Solomon was amazing. They created a thorough, detailed plan that left no stone unturned in the process. The essay editing was also amazing. They helped me take my essays to levels I didn't know I could reach. They were constantly holding me accountable to the deadlines and at every step in what is a rather confusing process, I knew what to do because of Solomon. I highly recommend them, I was able to get in to an elite school because of them.

Our consulting coach was spectacular in…

Our consulting coach was spectacular in every way. She was honest while being supportive. She was incredibly responsive and phenomenally helpful throughout all phases (at all hours of the night!) I would say all of this even if our son had not gotten admitted to his top choice highly selective Ivy League school ED. The world of elite college admissions is wildly different than when I went to an Ivy League school 35 years ago and even as a long time professor involved in graduate admissions for 25 years, we would have been way out of our league in navigating all of this without our Solomon advisor. High end services that really delivered and we are forever grateful.

Accurate and Useful Advice

Solomon Admissions did an amazing job being very honest with where I stood and how to improve my chances. My admissions counselor, Matthew Tatelman, did an amazing job coaching me on how to improve my chances every step of the way and it paid off in the end when I got into Cornell. Thank you so much for all the help!

Don't bother with the other college counseling companies - Solomon delivers results.

Thanks to Solomon, our daughter got into her very competitive early decision school, which has a 6.5% acceptance rate. Solomon's strategic positioning and early guidance as to summer activities and extracurriculars made all the difference. Even at our private school, we were not given this high level of guidance. Our daughter got competitive internships and worked on a paper with a professor - and Carla led her through every step to getting these accolades. Carla also helped focus her on the things that mattered and gave her motivation to do her best. She was also always ahead of her classmates in terms of deadlines for writing the essays, resume, extracurricular lists, etc. We happily give our highest recommendation to Solomon Consulting. They are not cheap, but you get what you pay for.

We love Solomon's approach

We love Solomon's approach for guiding my son develop his research topic and for obtaining research opportunities with professors all on his own. This approach helped my son grow a lot during high school and is an approach that can be applied to future adventure as well. It is much better than just providing the students with solutions. Ms. Meneide, who is our consultant, is very experienced, professional and detail oriented that really provide excellent guidance in all aspects of college applications. We have a peace of mind knowing he is getting all the great support he needs and we trust Ms Meneide. Ms Meneide really makes this stressful process much easier for us.

Review of College Counseling Services

There was a lot of good and bad. The outlined guides for supplementals and essays paired with the back and forth edits were extremely helpful. However, the original “grading” of your application areas was very harsh and I was recommended to not even apply to my top school (which I got into).

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College Essay Review Services: Why You Need Them

Many students consider using college essay review services every year, but they aren't sure if their services are worth it. The short answer is yes; they are more than worth the cost. Whether you're trying to get into one of the  Ivy League Schools , a small college in your community, or one of the  best undergraduate business schools , you will likely be required to write at least one college admissions essay, and it will be an essential part of your application. This blog will talk about the different types of college essays, how important they are, and how college essay review services are your best bet for beating the competition and doing well with this application component. 

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Article Contents 7 min read

What exactly is a college essay.

There are several different types of college essays, but the most common college admissions essay is the personal statement or  common app essay . This is a short document that is supposed to tell the admissions board about who you are as a candidate and why you are a good fit for their college or university. 

Some schools provide a specific word count for the essays, but it should be between 400 and 650 words unless otherwise stated. It also doesn't follow the same structure as an academic essay. Even though it has an introduction, body, and conclusion, it is not about presenting and supporting an argument. Rather, it is supposed to tell a story that illustrates who you are as a person.

You can think of it as a cover letter for your college application. When you are applying for a job, your resume shows your work history and academic background in the same way that your school transcript and other application components show your GPA and grades for your college application. Your cover letter ( and personal statement) is a bit more personal. They communicate the soft skills and strengths that can't be easily quantified.

College essays also give you a chance to humanize your application and tell the admissions board about the person behind the grades and GPA. Many colleges, like  Columbia University  for example, have a holistic admissions process. This means that they care about your academic background and who are outside of your studies. Your personal statement allows them to learn more about your interests and what you could  contribute to your future campus community.  

College essays are an essential part of the college application process. According to the  National Association for college admission counseling , college essays are an important part of the decision-making process for most institutions in the united states. This information is not surprising considering the amount of information that the admission board can learn about a student from their personal statement and other supplemental essays.

Additionally, it is important to remember that college essays also give students an opportunity to talk to the admissions board. You get to share your story and tell the admissions board why you are a good fit for their school in your own words. You also get to address some of the weaker points of your overall application. For example, if you are trying to  get into college with a low GPA , you can use your college essay to explain the circumstances that led to your subpar grades and the steps you have taken to improve your grades.

College essay review services do a lot more than highlight grammatical inconsistencies in your writing (although this is one of the many things they can help with). They are actual human experts who can have a significant impact on the overall quality of applicants' college essays, thus increasing their chances of getting into college. College essay review services are typically offered by admission experts, such as  college essay advisors , who know the college application process inside and out. They review students' college essays and use their knowledge and training to provide personalized feedback and guidance to help students edit and polish their essays. The aim is to draft a final essay that will be more compelling, making the student a more attractive candidate to colleges.

Your college essays are a representation of you to the admission board. Except for college interviews, this is your only chance to talk to the admission board in your own words. This means that is also the first impression they will have of you. If you submit an essay with grammatical errors and typos, it tells the board that you either did not care enough to review your work or that you did not notice those errors when you did. Either way, it is not a good look for you.

This is where college essay review services come in. College essay advisors can thoroughly verify the grammatical syntax of your sentences, check that your essay is coherent and easy to follow and that it is free of grammatical or spelling errors. 

Highlighting relevant skills

Since college essay review services are run by admission experts, they have an in-depth understanding of the world of college admissions. These essay advisors have not only gone through the process themselves, but they have also helped other students go through it multiple times. Additionally, they are also trained to decipher all the "admissions talk" on college websites so they can actually help you figure out what values and traits specific colleges are looking for.

Furthermore, because they are an objective third party looking at the details of your academic background and experiences, they can easily see which activities and skills can make you a better candidate. For example, if you are applying for a philosophy major, you might think that your love for nature or hiking is irrelevant information to your application. College essay review services can help you understand how you can showcase your experience as a hiker in a way that will appeal to your chosen faculty.

Writing strategies

Writing college essays is not an easy task, and the truth is that most applicants aren't aware that their essay writing skills may be lacking. Unfortunately, high school classes rarely include lessons about writing academic admission essays or personal statements, so even gifted writers or A+ English students don't have the tools needed to write an essay that will impress the college admissions committee.

Without guidance, students often end up writing very generic essays that do not add to their overall application, or they simply go through the details of their high school resume without providing any new information. By working with college essay review services, students have someone at their disposal who can give them the tools and strategies necessary to brainstorm and write great, original college essays.

Developing skills

Most college students start improving their research and writing skills as they write essays in college. However, when you work with a college essay review service, you start with stronger skills than most in that department. Good college essay review services have advisors who will not write the students' essays for them. Instead, they will guide them through the entire process – from brainstorming to drafting and editing- and teach them how to research, write and edit. 

In other words, working with college essay review services allows students to not only improve the quality of their college essays, but also improve their research, writing, and critical thinking skills. All of which are skills that will serve them well during college and beyond.

Preparing college applications is a stressful process, and one of the most anxiety-inducing aspects of it for students is writing college essays. Not only is it time-consuming, but it can get quickly get overwhelming for applicants and those around them. Furthermore, because students do not have access to as much information about the college admissions process, they simply have to trust that the topic they chose and the tips they found online are not leading them astray. 

Working with a professional college essay review service can remove that extra layer of anxiety. Because you are working with an expert, you can rely on the tips and advice they give you because you know it comes from a good source.

Not sure where to start with your common app essay? This video can help:

College essays are a crucial part of the college application process, so if you want to maximize your chances of getting into a top college in this increasingly competitive climate, you need to do everything you can to ensure that you are submitting top-notch essays. The key to doing that is working with college essay review services. The college advisors who run these services can help you highlight your strengths and address any potential red flags in a way that still makes you look good. Furthermore, working with them will help you improve your research and writing skills, which you will definitely need when you get into college.

There are several types of college admission essays, and usually, at least one of them is compulsory. If you are applying to college through common app, for example, you will definitely need to write common app essay.

That will depend on the school you're applying to. Most colleges require one personal statement and one or more secondary essays. You should verify the admission requirements of the schools that you're interested in to find out how many college essays you will be required to write.

Not every Canadian university requires an admissions essay, but quite a few request one.  The University of Toronto , for example, is one of them.

You should stay away from advisors who will write your essay for you. This practice is unethical, and it can have severe consequences for both you, the applicant, and the person who wrote the essay for you.

We recommend that you spend at least six weeks on your college essay. That is enough time to brainstorm, write, review, edit and polish the essay before it is ready for submission.

These services are offered by admission experts who will review your essays and guide you through the process of editing and polishing them. The aim is for the essays you submit with your application to be as compelling as possible, thus increasing your chances of success.

Yes, there are. Not all college essay review services work with international students, but we here at BeMo certainly do. Schedule your free initial consultation to find out how our consultants can help you.

Good college essay review services have qualified advisors who care about helping students, good independent reviews, and a high success rate. Make sure you take the time to peruse the websites of the companies that you are considering.

Yes, they do. College essays are the only application component that tells the admissions committee how you see yourself. They give you a chance to show the admissions board the person behind the extracurriculars and the GPA and remind them that your application is a lot more than just a number.

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Differentiating yourself is more important than ever.

With more schools going test optional, college essays can help you stand out from the rest, and they can often make the difference between a rejection and acceptance.

Essays are 25% of your application

Grades alone won’t get you accepted to your dream school. The college essay is an extremely important piece of your college application. Essays help you stand out from the rest.

Show your personality

Admissions officers want to better understand who you are through your essays. Showcasing your unique view of the world and the experiences that have led you to where you are is pivotal.

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How to Find the Best College Essay Advising Services

Perhaps the most complex and time-consuming element of college applications is the essay-writing process, which now often includes personal statements, additional information essays, diversity statements, mountains of supplements, and other fun surprises. As a result, many parents and students are increasingly seeking the help of college essay tutors to help them organize, strategize, and execute an increasing amount of admissions-related assignments. You know this. That is why you’re here, right?

But how do you know which advising companies are the real deal? Or who has valid expertise and who is faking-it-till-they-make it (or exaggerating their credentials)? And what qualifications even matter when it comes to hiring someone for admissions essay advice?

We put together a handy checklist of skills to covet, questions to ask, and red flags to look out for when hiring an admissions essay expert.

First, here’s what not to do: 

1) don’t believe the ivy league hype..

A slew of essay advising services (and general college advisors) lead by promoting their Ivy League pedigree. While we recognize the value of an education from these top-tier institutions, we also have found that it is not synonymous with being qualified for and skilled at college essay advising. Just because someone was able to gain admission to Harvard or Yale or UPenn doesn’t mean they know how to help you get in. We employ experts based on their past essay advising experience, creativity, and ability to effectively guide a student through the essay-writing process. We don’t discriminate against those who don’t have Ivy League diplomas; and if we did, we would have missed out on hiring some of CEA’s most brilliant and beloved consultants. Success with your own application to an Ivy League university does not equal an innate ability to help others succeed with theirs. 

2) DON’T believe the former admissions officer hype.

The logic in this is very similar to our Ivy League advice above. We have the utmost respect for college admissions officers and their in-depth understanding of the evaluation process. But just because you can recognize an effective application essay doesn’t mean you can help a student create one. The ability to help a student identify their story and generate creative ideas that admissions officers will remember is what counts. That, plus ample experience helping students with a wide variety of assignments, is what makes for a truly stellar college essay tutor.

3) DON’T use an essay factory.

At least not if you want the personal attention and nuanced feedback that comes with hiring a true expert. Massive test prep companies have hopped on the college essay prep bandwagon and are known to employ staff with little-to-no college essay advising experience. And a “college essay editor” is not the same as a college essay advisor, consultant, or expert who helps a student think through strategy, content, and messaging. College essay consulting companies who try to grow too fast often have a similar issue with sloppy hiring and lack of personal attention. If you are looking for high-touch services, a small or mid-sized operation is likely better suited to your needs.

4) DON’T hire a college student.

Even if that student was successfully admitted to the school of their (and your) dreams. No one loves college students more than we do, but they’re not qualified to assist with a student’s college admissions essays. Most students, even at the graduate level, are mere years (sometimes months!) away from having written what was likely their first-ever attempt at college essay writing. Many competing firms hire college students because they are, frankly, inexpensive—especially compared to true experts with many years of professional writing, editing, and teaching experience. We don’t even consider it.

5) DON’T trust essay experts “reviewing” other essay experts.

This may sound bizarre, but we’ve seen this more than we care to think about. Since the college essay advising field has been flooded with self-purported “experts,” some services employ less-than-savory promotional tactics, including fake reviews of themselves and other companies. Lean on your media literacy and assess the validity of sources before you buy into the advice.

6) DON’T trust guarantees.

No one can guarantee a student’s admission to any given institution, unless something truly shady is going on behind the scenes. It’s just not possible. Any service that claims to be able to do so is not telling the truth and could be lying/exaggerating about other elements of their offerings.

7) DON’T hire someone who offers to write the essays themselves.

We don’t have to tell you why this is a terrible idea, right? We believe a student should be proud of the applications they submit. And the only way to ensure that is to uphold strong ethical standards and guide students in a way that best showcases their true abilities. Authenticity is key. Also, for what it’s worth, we’ve read some of these essays, and very few of them are detailed and unique enough to make an impression on admissions. Even fewer read like they were written by teenagers.

Now, to what you should do:

1) do  look for consultants with teaching experience..

Connecting with a student is essential to the advising process, and not all applicants are immediate open books. Consultants with teaching experience have an ace up their sleeve—they often have experience with coaxing students out of their shells. Our essay advising services are also not just geared toward the drafting of a winning final product. We offer extensive advice on ideation, content generation, narrative flow, story structure, and so much more. And we have taught these skills to teenagers in various contexts, including the classroom and private tutoring.

2) DO look for companies with a substantial track record.

We here at College Essay Advisors started mentoring students on how to write the college essay before this industry palpably existed. Truly. CEA’s Founder and Chief Advisor, Stacey Brook, has worked with students on thousands upon thousands of college essays and has spent two decades forging relationships with related experts in the field. You don’t want someone guessing how to help you stand out to admissions or hypothesizing what admissions might respond to. Our team has rigorous hiring qualifications, and everyone who works for us has at least 5+ years of experience in college essay advising. 

3) DO hire a coach with experience working on a wide range of applications, from top-tier and Ivy League schools to state schools and lesser-known liberal arts colleges.

It is impossible to hone your essay advising and editing chops without being aware of overarching trends in the industry—and Harvard isn’t the only school that sets the tone for application essay requirements and objectives. Experience with advising students on applications across the spectrum provides deep insight into and perspective on what admissions committees value.

4) DO ask about consultant training methods .

How did a purported essay expert acquire their expertise? Does everyone at the company you’re considering employ the same methodology? Is their training method legitimate and comprehensive? Do they have a training program at all?

5) DO ask about their process.

Is a consultant offering one-on-one help? Are the number of calls or sessions restricted? What about rounds of editing and feedback? Do they provide in-depth guidance during the writing process or do they leave students to struggle with an empty page? Make sure the company you’re entrusting with this process has standardized processes that feel approachable and attainable within the given time frame. And be mindful about how experts label themselves. A “college essay editor” who corrects grammatical inaccuracies is not the same as an advisor, consultant, or expert who helps a student think through strategy, content, and messaging.  

6) DO go with your gut.

Call the service in question and talk to the people who work there. Do you enjoy speaking to them? Will your kids like them? College essay advising—at least the way we do it at CEA—is an in-depth process, involving the building of a trusting relationship. It often requires a generous amount of back and forth (depending on student needs, of course). Find college essay tutors you warm to on a visceral level and who you believe a student will connect with as well.

An important note: We here at CEA pride ourselves on honest assessments of a student’s needs and goals. If potential clients don’t need our services or are better served elsewhere, we will always tell them the truth. We care about what’s best for all students. What’s best for you also happens to be best for us, because it means we can reliably meet your expectations and ensure you are satisfied with our services.

We hope the above information was helpful and wish you the best of luck in your search for the best college essay advising service. If, after reading the tips above, you believe that service is us, feel free to CONTACT US !

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Tags: admissions essay assistance , admissions essay help , college essay advising , college essay assistance , college essay coaches , college essay experts , college essay help , college essay mentors , college essay tutors

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“The Princeton Review was extremely helpful regarding my college essay and supplemental essays. ”

Columbia University, Class of 2025

“My coach helped me incredibly by firstly organizing my time and tasks, giving detailed comments (even on short notice!!) and having open discussions about my goals and ways to reach them. ”

Stanford University, Class of 2025

“The Princeton Review was essential to my college acceptances. My counselor and coach were very helpful during the process, and I did not feel lost while applying. The essay support was helpful as well because it allowed me to edit other essays I wrote too.”

Eric Jones.

Yale University, Class of 2024

“I found the program rather helpful in encouraging me to feel confident throughout my journey through the college application process. By prompting me to start researching early, I felt much more prepared later on when I wrote my essays and decided between which school I should attend after decisions were released.”

Duke University, Class of 2024

“As the first person in my family to go through the undergraduate application process in this country, the process seemed daunting. One of the major aspects of applications to top schools are the Common App essay and supplemental essays. Coach Alana and my counselor (Julia) spent time and effort reviewing my responses and editing them for months! ”

Brown University, Class of 2024

“Emily was fantastic and answered all of my questions even when the time for deadlines were approaching and things were crazy! I am so grateful to have had this resource and I believe it truly helped me get into my top school. ”

Cornell University, Class of 2025

“ It definitely helped me get organized and broke down the process into manageable steps. College admissions can be incredibly stressful, so a plan is absolutely essential to success.”

University of Illinois at Chicago, Class of 2024

“They were very supportive and got back to my emails quite quickly. I truly believe Julia and Alaynas help allowed me to get into the number of colleges that I did. They helped me spice up my resume by adding things I didn't even know counted as accomplishments, and Julia's guidance with my Common App essay made it way better than I could've written myself.”

University of Oxford, Class of 2024

“I had an amazing experience and the admissions counseling was so helpful to make sure I was keeping track of all the deadlines and little tasks that had to be done! I felt confident in all my applications and knew I was putting my best foot forward thanks to the program! ”

University of Richmond, Class of 2025

“They helped me manage my time and set a schedule that I could follow and know what I should be doing, which helped to reduce the stress and allow me to organize everything and know what needs to be done. They also helped me with choosing what colleges fit me and which ones I should apply to. Not only that they also helped me with my essays.”

University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2025

“ Awesome continual support! ”

Ohio State University, Class of 2025

“ The Princeton Review helped me a lot with my Common Application (especially the activity descriptions). It also helped me a lot with my primary college essay as well as the supplemental essays for specific schools.”

New York University, Class of 2025

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Georgia Tech, Class of 2025

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UCLA, Class of 2025

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University of Colorado Boulder, Class of 2025

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Isabella A.

Boston College, Class of 2025

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Villanova University, Class of 2023

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Michigan State, Class of 2023

“The common app program can be confusing so just having someone able to coach you through the application was soothing! …I had no knowledge on how to communicate to the admissions board that I had an immune deficiency explaining my poor attendance transcript in high school. However, the counselors provided by the Princeton Review gave us the tools to advocate for my health condition while still highlighting my strong grades and extra curricular activities. ”

Princeton University, Class of 2022

“My coach and counselor were absolutely amazing! Their expertise and knowledge gave me the confidence so much needed in that time of stress. Their feedback was always right to the point and motivated me to improve my essays and better articulate my EC list. [My coach] was always available to help and it was just an email away. I couldn’t have asked for a better Coach! Thank Princeton Review for having the best coaches and college counselors! ”

U Penn, Class of 2022

“It was a great experience and certainly worth every penny; I would recommend it to any friend or family member who is preparing to endure the college admission process.”

University of California, Class of 2022

“ It was simply an enriching experience. Apart from the interesting side conversations we had, the program itself really opened my eyes to the expectations of all admissions officers. Although I used the program for only one university, it helped me get some insight into essay writing etc. for the others."

Boston University, Class of 2021

“My coach and counselor were extremely helpful in putting together a balanced list of schools and refining my essay and extracurriculars to make them impactful. They helped keep me on track by providing manageable deadlines. The video conference was super helpful in talking through my areas of interests and strengths. I also appreciated their guidance in selecting senior year classes. Their support throughout this process really helped me fell ahead of my peers. "

University of San Diego, Class of 2022

"My coach did a fantastic job, very helpful and accessible whenever we needed advice. Her guidance was very insightful and helped me to find the right college for me. "

Clemson University, Class of 2022

" I felt that the program went above and beyond for me especially with my essay. I wasn't confident with the strength of my essay at the beginning, but after working through it with my coach I had an essay that I was proud of."

American University, Class of 2022

"If it wasnt for my counselors I wouldnt of known where to go to college or what to do with my life I’m very grateful for everything they’ve done. "

The Road to your Top-Choice School

We will have you covered from start to finish throughout each step of your child’s college admissions journey.

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Become a strong candidate for the programs you are applying for.

Want to major in computer science? You’ll need to show a deep interest in the subject by making sure you have related activities on your list. We can suggest:

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Step 2 - Start the college research process to find your dream school

We will help you create a list of best fit schools, increasing your chances of acceptance to one of your top choice picks!

Tips for building your college list:

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Step 3 – Finalize your college list and stay on top of your deadlines

Stay ahead of target due dates to avoid missing important deadlines. If you’re confident that you have found the school for you, consider applying early.

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Education: B.S. Hospitality Administration, Cornell University Ed.M. Higher Education, Harvard University Graduate School of Education Certificate in College Counseling, University of California—Los Angeles

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Education: B.A. Anthropology, Brandeis University M.A. Applied Psychology with a Counseling and Guidance Concentration, NYU Steinhardt School of Education

Admissions and College Counseling Experience: Brandeis University International Business School Columbia University/Barnard College/Jewish Theological Seminary Dual Degree Programs Rutgers University The Pingry School College and Career Counselor

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Admissions & College Counseling Experience: Senior Assistant Dean of Admission, Amherst College International College Counselor,The Princeton Review College Counselor, Harkness Institute, Mexico

Education: B.A. Economics, San Jose State University M.A. – Counselor Education with an emphasis in College Counseling/Student Personnel, San Jose State University

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*Based on an average 4.8 out of 5 star rating from U.S. high school admissions counseling students following each meeting. **Based on a 2023 Princeton Review survey. †Based on a 2023 Princeton Review survey. ††Based on an average 4.8 out of 5 star rating from U.S. high school admissions counseling students following each meeting.SAT and AP are trademarks registered and owned by the College Board, which is not affiliated with and does not endorse this product. ACT is a registered trademark of ACT, Inc. PSAT/NMSQT are registered trademarks of the College Board and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation which were not involved in the production of, and do not endorse, this product.

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We’ve launched our new book: The Empowerly Expert’s Handbook to College Admissions!

The Empowerly Expert’s Handbook to College Admissions is here to answer your burning questions about how to navigate and maximize your outcomes in the American higher education system. Data-driven, up-to-date, and packed with insights and case studies, this book is an easy-to-understand look into the complex and competitive college admissions landscape.

Empowerly navigates your journey to top colleges with a 98% success rate.

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During Empowerly’s free 30-minute consultation, an expert college admissions counselor will conduct a full review and offer you some valuable college application counseling. Then, they’ll show you a customized, designed-for-success college application consulting package that matches your goals and needs. It’s the risk-free way to see what our college admissions counselors can do for you.

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Overwhelmed by the college admissions process? Our team of experienced college admissions counselors make it easy, with personalized support that cuts through the confusion. From college search to application submission, you’ll have a dedicated college admission counselor keeping you on track.

We get results: Empowerly students are 11x more likely to get into their college of choice. Using data-driven technology and one-on-one consultation with former college Admissions Officers, our customized programs help you and your college application consulting stand out during the fiercely competitive U.S. college admissions process.

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98% of Empowerly's Class of 2022 got admitted into a top 100 U.S. college

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Discover your Empowerly Score®. Based on a comprehensive evaluation of your academic record, extracurriculars, and college essays, this proprietary data analysis helps our college application counselors customize a student’s path to college admissions success.

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Empowerly’s college admissions counselors analyze each aspect of a college application package to determine its impact. This analysis helps them assess a student’s competitiveness at top U.S. colleges, and highlights areas for improvement.

Our college application consulting includes an expert review of the subjective admission factors, including essays, extracurriculars, and personal statements. The result is a holistic, actionable, and proven plan that ensures Empowerly students stand out from the competition.

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To guide and empower students as they navigate the complex U.S. college application process. Empowerly’s college admissions counselors are passionate about helping applicants build confidence, stand out from the crowd, and gain access to their top colleges. We achieve this through our proprietary college application counseling that emphasizes data-driven success.

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Our customized college admissions counseling packages get results. 98% of Empowerly Students with a 3.6 GPA or higher get into a top 50 U.S. college and enjoy 25% more time with their college admissions counselor than students who use other application services.

Students often feel overwhelmed by the college admissions process. Cut through the college admissions counseling confusion, build confidence, and increase your chances of getting into your top schools by 11x when you team up with the college admissions counselors at Empowerly. From start to finish, you’ll have a dedicated college application consulting expert keeping you on the path to success.

WHAT FAMILIES ARE SAYING

Student, Columbia University

Empowerly helped me get accepted to MIT Launch summer program (<10% acceptance rate), start my own environmental nonprofit, and intern with Dr. June Flora at Stanford University. I worked with Empowerly on over 50 essays and finished all of them by November. I was accepted to Columbia, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, USC and more. I also have a deeper insight about my career and the impact I want to make in the world.

Parent, Harvard University

Thank you for helping SM over these last 2 years in his formative high school years, finding summer internships, and helping him get accepted to Harvard, UPenn, MIT, Yale, Johns Hopkins University (Hodson scholar), USC (full ride), and many others. With 70+ essays across 15+ college applications, SM wouldn’t have finished so many applications with such high quality without Empowerly.

Parent, UC Berkeley

I interviewed many college admission counselors and Empowerly stood out with its innovative, fresh approach. Our college admissions counselor was very helpful and a great fit, helping my son with the entire process. The AdCom Review was incredible, giving valuable brutally honest feedback. My son applied to competitive CS/EECS programs and he was accepted early to UC Berkeley (his top choice!) as a Regent’s and Chancellor’s Scholar.

Parent, Wash U St Louis

When my daughter started with Empowerly in 10th grade, she immediately connected with her counselor Brooke, who helped her build her resume for the pre-med track. We can’t say enough good things about Brooke! Additionally, the awesome Empowerly team helped immensely with finding a UCSF research internship and editing essays. If you’re a parent unsure which counselor to pick, look no further and contact Empowerly.

Student, UCLA

Empowerly counseling was a very personal experience where I was encouraged to pursue my interests. If you’re wondering about how effective the process is, I would say that I accomplished more than I expected and got into schools that would have been out of my reach otherwise.

TIPS FROM OUR BLOG

10 Tips for Finding an Independent College Counselor

For high schoolers and families, let’s review 10 key tips for finding an independent college counselor that will fit your needs.

May 18, 2024

10 Dos and Don’ts When Hiring an Admissions Coach

May 17, 2024

College Application Help: 15 Tips to Help You Succeed

May 16, 2024

40 Internships for High School Students

May 15, 2024

Harvard Requires Standardized Tests for Admission—Again

May 14, 2024

Empowerly’s College Admissions Counseling

We know that the U.S. college admissions counselor process can be complex, confusing, and even overwhelming. You need someone in your corner, to cut through the confusion and ensure success. That’s why Empowerly’s team of experienced college admissions counselors use proprietary data and genuine connection with applicants to give personalized college application counseling that gets results: 98% of Empowerly Students with a 3.6 GPA or higher get into a top 50 U.S. college.

Our #1 goal is to help students gain access to their top U.S. college choices. We achieve this through customized, designed-for-success college application consulting packages that match a student’s unique needs and goals. Ready to see what Empowerly’s college application consulting can do for you? Get started today with a free 30-minute consultation with a college admissions counselor. Stay on track with college admissions counseling, build confidence, and get into your top U.S. colleges with Empowerly.

College Essay Mentor

Admissions essay help from a published author.

Transform the Admissions Process

As a college essay consultant who specializes in helping self-motivated students gain admission to Ivy Plus universities, I want to transform the admissions experience. It is common for students to feel uncertain about college essays, which represent the last, best chance to differentiate themselves from other outstanding applicants. In a sequence of one-on-one meetings, I help students explore their personal values, identify meaningful themes, and write essays that will intrigue and impress admissions officers. As a personal guide for every draft of every essay, I create and manage a process that minimizes stress and maximizes success.

Get Exceptional Results

Students, parents and I share a goal: acceptances to top universities. Every year dozens of College Essay Mentor students defy low admissions rates and get accepted to the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT and other top schools. Credit belongs largely to my students' academic accomplishments and endeavors beyond the classroom. My contribution is to understand what "works" in the college admission context, to identify ideas that will make an impact and to elicit insights. I then to teach students how to craft essays that create compelling, personal portraits.

Total acceptances for College Essay Mentor students, 2020-2023

One-on-One Essay Packages

The hallmark of College Essay Mentor is providing guidance that is tailored to each student's the talents and goals. To provide full benefit of his knowledge and experience, Christopher Hunt works one-on-one with every one of his students, for every meeting, for every essay. His essay packages all include the personal essay, school-specific supplement essays, the activities list, and other counseling services.

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Does It Really Matter Where You Go To College? Financially, It Does

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Stanford University

High school students and their parents are nothing short of obsessed with college decisions—concerns over students’ higher education prospects prompt parents to spend thousands of dollars on private school, tutoring, private college admissions consulting, competitive summer programs, and more. Though many invest huge amounts of time, money, and energy into the process, others often wonder: Does it really matter whether your student attends an Ivy League school or a state university?

From large state schools to small liberal arts colleges, students can find research opportunities, rigorous curricula, and vibrant campus communities at a wide array of colleges. In choosing where to apply, and later, where to attend college, students should be diligent in their research and discern what kind of school will best suit them. An Ivy League school is not the right choice for every student—needless to say, many students would not thrive in such rigorous academic environments. Further, Ivy League schools’ small campus sizes, cultures and locations may not be the best fit for some students. When it comes to student satisfaction and the potential to flourish, an Ivy League may not be the best option.

However, when it comes to future earning potential and career success, where you go to college matters greatly.

First and foremost, the caliber of a student’s alma mater can impact their likelihood of securing a job after graduation. Princeton, Harvard, and Yale all rank in the top 10 in the Times Higher Education 2023-2024 Global Employability University Ranking, alongside other top schools such as MIT, CalTech, and Stanford. Not only are graduates of these schools more likely to get a job, but a report from Opportunity Insights indicated further that attending a college in the Ivy plus category rather than a highly selective public institution triples a graduate’s chances of working at a prestigious firm.

This is due in large part to the networking opportunities afforded to students at world-renowned universities. While excelling in the classroom during one’s college years is an impressive feat, few employers will look at students’ GPAs or transcripts after graduation. They will care instead about the quality of their resumes and professional experiences. Ivy League and other top schools provide networks that will follow students throughout their careers, as graduates connect with one another through organizations such as the Harvard Club of New York City.

The significance of attending a top college manifests not only in one’s likelihood of getting a job, but also their average earnings. Graduates from Ivy League schools are reported to have higher average annual earnings than their peers who graduate in the top 10% of other colleges. According to U.S. News & World Report , Ivy League graduates with approximately three years of professional experience earned a median annual salary of $86,025 in 2022, compared to graduates of other schools who earned $58,643. The gap widens as time goes on—by mid-career (20 years of experience), Ivy League grads earn $161,888 on average, compared to other graduates who average $101,777. Additionally, graduates of Ivy League and other top schools are 60% more likely to reach the top 1% of the earnings distribution. It is no surprise, then, that every Ivy League school except for Brown appears on Forbes’ 2022 list of The 11 Most Popular Colleges Among America’s Richest. University of Pennsylvania topped that list, with 17 graduates appearing on Forbes’ 400 wealthiest American rankings.

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These statistics are even more significant in light of Ivy League schools’ financial aid packages. For instance, in 2022, Princeton announced that they would offer free tuition, room, and board for most students whose families made less than $100,000 annually. Programs such as these bring the average annual cost of attending an Ivy League education down to $23,234 —less than the average cost of ranked colleges outside of the Ivy League. These financial incentives contribute to the ROI of top schools, placing Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth in the top 10 in The Princeton Review ’s ranking of best value colleges.

Ultimately, students should seek to attend a school that aligns with their goals and passions while recognizing that their college decision will have lasting effects on their career and income. Investing in the necessary support to maximize your student’s chances of admission to Ivy League and other top schools is a strategic choice—and one that could have a positive impact for years to come.

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Indigenous consultant accuses NHL’s Blackhawks of fraud, sexual harassment

FILE - The Chicago Blackhawks logo adorns a jersey in Raleigh, N.C., May 3, 2021. A consultant the Chicago Blackhawks hired to improve relationships with American Indian tribes filed a lawsuit Tuesday, May 14, 2024, accusing the team, its charity foundation and its CEO of fraud, breach of contract and sexual harassment. (AP Photo/Karl B DeBlaker, File)

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CHICAGO (AP) — A consultant the Chicago Blackhawks hired to improve relationships with American Indian tribes has filed a lawsuit accusing the team, its charity foundation and its CEO of fraud, breach of contract and sexual harassment.

Nina Sanders filed the civil action late Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court. She alleges in the lawsuit that the Blackhawks were facing intense public pressure to change their name and logo in 2020. The team’s CEO, Dan Wirtz, hired her that year to serve as a tribal liaison.

Wirtz promised that he would create positions for American Indians, buy land to give to the Sac and Fox Nation and change the team’s logo if she decided to accept the job, according to the lawsuit. She took the job based on those promises, but Wirtz never followed through on any of it, the lawsuit alleges.

Sanders goes on to allege that she told her immediate boss that an employee had been sexually harassing her and tried to force her into his hotel room in 2021. The harassment continued into 2022, but nothing was ever done about it, according to the lawsuit. Sanders also maintains that she reported two other incidents of male employees groping women, but nothing was done.

Wirtz ended Sanders’ contract last summer, according to the lawsuit.

A Blackhawks spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press on Wednesday afternoon seeking comment.

The team said in a statement to WBBM-TV that the organization noted “operational issues” in Sanders’ work, and external partners told the team that they didn’t want to work with her. The team still extended her a new contract in 2023, but Sanders chose not to renew it. The team said it investigated Sanders’ sexual harassment allegations and couldn’t find enough evidence to substantiate them.

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Trump Leads in 5 Key States, as Young and Nonwhite Voters Express Discontent With Biden

A new set of Times/Siena polls, including one with The Philadelphia Inquirer, reveal an erosion of support for the president among young and nonwhite voters upset about the economy and Gaza.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

SIENA COLLEGE POLL

April 28 to May 9

If the 2024 presidential election

were held today , who would you

vote for if the candidates were

Joe Biden and Donald Trump ?

Pennsylvania

Margin of error

If the 2024 presidential election were held today, who would you vote for if the candidates were Joe Biden and Donald Trump ?

By Nate Cohn

Donald J. Trump leads President Biden in five crucial battleground states, a new set of polls shows , as a yearning for change and discontent over the economy and the war in Gaza among young, Black and Hispanic voters threaten to unravel the president’s Democratic coalition.

The surveys by The New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer found that Mr. Trump was ahead among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup against Mr. Biden in five of six key states: Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden led among registered voters in only one battleground state, Wisconsin.

[You can find the full results of the polls, including the exact questions that were asked, here . You can see answers to common questions about our polling process here .]

The race was closer among likely voters. Mr. Trump led in five states as well, but Mr. Biden edged ahead in Michigan while trailing only narrowly in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. While Mr. Biden won all six of those states in 2020, victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would be enough for him to win re-election, provided he won everywhere else he did four years ago.

The results were similar in a hypothetical matchup that included minor-party candidates and the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who won an average of 10 percent of the vote across the six states and drew roughly equally from the two major-party candidates.

The findings are mostly unchanged since the last series of Times/Siena polls in battleground states in November. Since then, the stock market has gained 25 percent, Mr. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan has started, and the Biden campaign has unleashed tens of millions of dollars in advertisements across the battleground states.

The polls offer little indication that any of these developments have helped Mr. Biden, hurt Mr. Trump or quelled the electorate’s discontent. Instead, the surveys show that the cost of living, immigration, Israel’s war in Gaza and a desire for change continue to be a drag on the president’s standing. While Mr. Biden benefited from a burst of momentum in the wake of his State of the Union address in March, he continues to trail in the average of national and battleground state polls.

How support for the candidates differ

between registered and likely voters

The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country and serious doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life. A majority of voters still desire the return to normalcy promised by Mr. Biden in the last campaign, but voters in battleground states remain particularly anxious, unsettled and itching for change. Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely.

Only a sliver of Mr. Biden’s supporters — just 13 percent — believe that the president would bring major changes in his second term, while even many of those who dislike Mr. Trump grudgingly acknowledge that he would shake up an unsatisfying status quo.

The sense that Mr. Biden would do little to improve the nation’s fortunes has helped erode his standing among young, Black and Hispanic voters, who usually represent the foundation of any Democratic path to the presidency. The Times/Siena polls found that the three groups wanted fundamental changes to American society, not just a return to normalcy, and few believed that Mr. Biden would make even minor changes that would be good for the country.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden are essentially tied among 18-to-29-year-olds and Hispanic voters, even though each group gave Mr. Biden more than 60 percent of their vote in 2020. Mr. Trump also wins more than 20 percent of Black voters — a tally that would be the highest level of Black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The polls suggest that Mr. Trump’s strength among young and nonwhite voters has at least temporarily upended the electoral map, with Mr. Trump surging to a significant lead in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — relatively diverse Sun Belt states where Black and Hispanic voters propelled Mr. Biden to signature victories in the 2020 election.

Mr. Biden nonetheless remains within striking distance. He has maintained most of his support among older and white voters, who are much less likely to demand fundamental changes to the system and far likelier to say that democracy is the most important issue for their vote. As a result, Mr. Biden is more competitive in the three relatively white Northern swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The economy and the cost of living, however, remain the most important issues for one-quarter of voters — and a significant drag on Mr. Biden’s prospects. More than half of voters still believe that the economy is “poor,” down merely a single percentage point since November despite cooling inflation, an end to rate hikes and significant stock market gains.

Nearly 40 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters said that the economy or the cost of living was the most important issue in the election, among them Jennifer Wright, a registered nurse in Sterling Heights, Mich. She supported Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, and to her the election comes down to one question: “Who is the best candidate who is going to help me be in a financial situation to retire?”

“Even me, as a registered nurse, I’m buying Kroger brand or store brand. I’m not buying Jif. We’ve all had to cut back,” she said.

The Biden administration’s insistence that the economy is faring well has fallen flat for many voters, including Jacob Sprague, 32, who works as a systems engineer in Reno, Nev. He says that he voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but will not be doing so this time.

“It is concerning to me when I keep seeing press come out of the White House where they keep saying the economy is good,” Mr. Sprague said. “That’s really weird because I’m paying more on taxes and more on groceries and more on housing and more on fuel. So that doesn’t feel good.”

With less than six months to go until the election, there is still time for an improving economy to lift Mr. Biden’s standing. Historically, polls at this early stage have not been necessarily indicative of the outcome, and Mr. Trump’s breakthrough among traditionally Democratic young, Black and Hispanic voters may not rest on a solid foundation. His strength is concentrated among irregular, disengaged voters who do not pay close attention to politics and may not yet be tuned into the race. They may be prone to shift their views as the race gets underway.

In a finding that will frustrate Democrats, even as it presents opportunity for Mr. Biden, nearly 20 percent of voters blame him more than they do Mr. Trump for the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade. They may be the kind of voters that the Biden campaign hopes to persuade as the campaign heats up.

The polls showed that abortion loomed as one of Mr. Trump’s biggest vulnerabilities. On average, 64 percent of voters in battleground states said that abortion should be always or mostly legal, including 44 percent of Mr. Trump’s own supporters.

In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has sought to emphasize Mr. Trump’s support for the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. For now, though, voters preferred Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump to handle the issue of abortion by 11 points, 49 to 38 percent.

A bigger challenge for Mr. Biden than disengaged voters may ultimately be the disaffected and the disillusioned — those who desire fundamental changes to American society, or who believe that the political and economic systems need to be torn down altogether. Not long ago, these anti-system voters might have been reliably Democratic, but Mr. Trump’s anti-establishment populist brand of conservatism has flipped the usual political dynamic.

Seventy percent of voters believe that Mr. Trump will either bring major changes to the political or economic system or tear down the systems altogether, compared with 24 percent who expect the same from Mr. Biden. And while many voters express deep reservations about Mr. Trump personally, 43 percent of voters believe that he will bring good changes to the country, compared with 35 percent who think the changes will be bad.

Most Americans think the system

needs to change …

Which comes closest to your view about

the political and economic system in America,

even if none are exactly right?

The system needs ...

... no changes 2%

Don’t know/

declined to say 2%

… and they think that Donald Trump

would bring more change …

If [this candidate] won the election, do you think

nothing would change, there would be minor

changes to how things work, there would be

major changes to how things work, or he would

tear down the system completely?

would change

Minor changes

declined to say 4%

… but they are split on whether that

change would be good or bad.

Do you think the changes that [this candidate]

would make would be good for the country

or bad for the country, or neither good nor bad?

or very good

or very bad

declined to say 5%

Most Americans think the system needs to change …

Which comes closest to your view about the political and economic

system in America, even if none are exactly right?

... major changes

... minor changes

… and they think that Donald Trump would bring more change …

If [this candidate] won the election, do you think nothing would change,

there would be minor changes to how things work, there would be major

changes to how things work, or he would tear down the system completely?

… but they are split on whether that change would be good or bad.

Do you think the changes that [this candidate] would make would be good

for the country or bad for the country, or neither good nor bad?

Mr. Trump fares especially well among those who believe that the political and economic systems ought to be torn down, a group that represents about 15 percent of registered voters. He leads among these anti-system voters by 32 points, and the tear-it-down voters are especially likely to have defected from the president. In contrast, Mr. Biden retains nearly all of his 2020 supporters who believe only minor changes are necessary.

These change voters are not necessarily demanding a more ideologically progressive agenda. In the last Times/Siena poll of the same states, 11 percent of registered voters thought that Mr. Biden was not progressive or liberal enough. And while many liberal or progressive voters want major changes, relatively few of those voters are defecting from Mr. Biden.

Instead, Mr. Biden’s losses are concentrated among moderate and conservative Democratic-leaning voters, who nonetheless think that the system needs major changes or to be torn down altogether. Mr. Trump wins just 2 percent of Mr. Biden’s “very liberal” 2020 voters who think the system at least needs major changes, compared with 16 percent of those who are moderate or conservative.

One exception is Israel’s war in Gaza, an issue on which most of Mr. Biden’s challenge appears to come from his left. Around 13 percent of the voters who say they voted for Mr. Biden last time, but do not plan to do so again, said that his foreign policy or the war in Gaza was the most important issue to their vote. Just 17 percent of those voters reported sympathizing with Israel over the Palestinians.

Gerard Willingham, 30, works as a web administrator and lives in Riverdale, Ga. He voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, but he plans to vote for a third-party candidate in November because of the president’s response to the conflict in Gaza, the issue about which he cares most right now.

“I think it’s made quite a bit of difference in that it made me more heavily than in the past push toward voting for a third party, even if I feel that the candidates almost 100 percent won’t win,” Mr. Willingham said. “It’s starting to reach into my moral conscience, I guess.”

Mr. Trump’s trial in Manhattan, on charges that he falsified business records related to a hush-money payment to cover up an affair with the adult film star Stormy Daniels, was already underway when the polls began in late April. However, the survey offered little indication that the trial had damaged the former president’s political fortunes, at least so far. Just 29 percent of voters in battleground states said that they were paying “a lot” of attention to Mr. Trump’s legal woes, and 35 percent thought that the trial was likely to end in a conviction.

Alyce McFadden contributed reporting.

Here are the key things to know about how these polls were conducted:

We spoke with 4,097 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from April 28 to May 9, 2024.

Our polls are conducted by telephone, using live interviewers, in both English and Spanish. Nearly 95 percent of respondents were contacted on a cellphone for this poll. You can see the exact questions that were asked and the order in which they were asked here .

Voters are selected for the survey from a list of registered voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and region. For this set of polls, we placed nearly 500,000 calls to about 410,000 voters.

To further ensure that the results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to take a poll, we give more weight to respondents from demographic groups underrepresented among survey respondents, like people without a college degree. You can see more information about the characteristics of our respondents and the weighted sample on the methodology page , under “Composition of the Sample.”

When the states are joined together, the margin of sampling error among registered voters is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Each state poll has a margin of error ranging from plus or minus 3.6 points in Pennsylvania to plus or minus 4.6 points in Georgia. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the views of the overall population most of the time, though many other challenges create additional sources of error. When computing the difference between two values — such as a candidate’s lead in a race — the margin of error is twice as large.

You can see full results and a detailed methodology here . If you want to read more about how and why we conduct our polls, you can see answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here .

The New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll of Pennsylvania was funded by a grant from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. The poll was designed and conducted independently from the institute.

Nate Cohn is The Times’s chief political analyst. He covers elections, public opinion, demographics and polling. More about Nate Cohn