COLLEGE ESSAY COACHING
Your Kid Has a Story Worth Telling. They Just May Not Know What It Is Yet.
College essay coaching from a freelance journalist and longtime interviewer of teenagers.
Grades and test scores tell a school what a student has done. The essay is the only place they find out who did it — and that’s usually where kids get stuck.
“What am I supposed to write about?” “Nothing interesting has ever happened to me.” “I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it.”
I’ve heard all three more times than I can count. None of them are true.
"I've spent my career finding stories. Let me help your student find theirs."
- Grant Glickson
THREE WAYS I CAN HELP
Supplemental Essays — starting at $75
Coaching and review for the shorter, school-specific essays.
GRANT’S BACKGROUND
I’VE SPENT MY CAREER FINDING STORIES — TEENAGERS INCLUDED
I’m Grant Glickson, a freelance journalist, writer and editor. Over the years I’ve written for The New York Times, Newsday, Blitz, Hardball and Exercise & Health, plus columns, newsletters and other professional work.
But the part of my background that matters most here is this: I spent years covering high school sports for The Times, working as both reporter and editor, interviewing hundreds of student-athletes.
That meant getting kids to talk about a lot more than the final score — their nerves, their motivations, what actually mattered to them. You learn fast how to ask a real question and then just shut up and listen.
What that’s taught me: people, teenagers very much included, are almost always more interesting than they give themselves credit for. A great college essay doesn’t need a tragedy or a trophy. Sometimes it’s hiding inside a completely ordinary afternoon, and the job is noticing it’s there.
That’s what I help students do.
FROM “NO IDEA” TO “THAT’S MY STORY”
I start by talking to the student. Not interrogating them about their GPA — talking to them, the way I would in an interview. I’ve done this with teenagers hundreds of times.
What do you care about? What makes you laugh? What are you weirdly good at? What’s something people get wrong about you? When did you surprise yourself?
Then I listen. Somewhere in the answers is usually a moment or a detail that says something real about who that kid is. That’s what we build the essay around.
FIND YOUR STORY
For the student staring at a blank screen. One-on-one brainstorming to surface real ideas and land on a direction — so they’re not still stuck wondering what to write.
TURN AN IDEA INTO AN ESSAY
Have a direction but not a draft? I’ll help work through the opening, structure and pacing — and, more importantly, what the essay actually says about the student. Then they write it, and we work the draft together.
MAKE A GOOD ESSAY BETTER
Already have a draft? I’ll edit it the way I’d edit any professional writer’s copy: Does the opening earn attention? Does it sound like a teenager, not a committee? Could 50 words disappear and nobody would miss them? Is the real ending buried somewhere in the middle? We tighten it without losing the student’s voice.
WHAT I WORK ON
Common App Personal Statements Brainstorming through final polish.
Supplemental College Essays Specific, thoughtful responses to individual prompts.
Scholarship Essays Helping students describe their experiences and goals clearly.
Existing Essay Reviews A serious editorial look at a draft that’s already written.
ONE RULE I WON’T BEND: IT’S YOUR ESSAY
I won’t write an essay for a student to submit as their own. That matters to me, and it should matter to parents too.
What I will do: ask a lot of questions, call out the clichés, tell you when something’s flat, help find the real story, and push a draft through as many rounds as it needs.
But when an admissions officer reads it, the voice on the page has to belong to the kid. Not me.
WHY A FREELANCE JOURNALIST
Plenty of people know the admissions process better than I do — I’m not pretending otherwise, and I’m not selling a secret formula for getting anyone into Harvard.
What I know is how to find a story. Years of freelance writing taught me to listen for the detail that matters. Years covering high school sports for The Times taught me how to get that detail out of a teenager specifically. Usually it’s something a kid mentions almost as an afterthought — and that’s when you say, “Wait, go back. What happened there?”
That question is basically the whole job. It works just as well on a college essay as it did on a game story.
LET’S FIND THE STORY
If there’s a college essay looming over your house — blank page or fifth draft, doesn’t matter — let’s talk. I offer a free 15-minute call for parents and/or students to talk through where things stand and whether I’m the right fit.
EMAIL GRANT
Email: Grglickson@gmail.com Website: GrantGlickson.com
I’ve spent my career finding stories. Let me help your student find theirs.
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