Claudia Ann Seaman Award
College Essay Coaching
Personalized Coaching to Help You Write Your Best College Essay
Our approach to the college essay is founded on our beliefs about creative writing. We believe that when young writers put precise and powerful language to their lives it helps them better understand their value as human beings. It is a proven approach that will help you write your best personal narrative.
As writing instructors, we have a lot of tools and techniques to stretch the writer’s imagination and craft. We will help you brainstorm subjects and guide you to think about structure, imagery, and sound to build a story. We have a process that will take you - with minimal frustration - from brainstorm to drafts to a final polished piece.
Teen writing is our thing! Our staff has guided hundreds of students through the college essay process and we bet you just might enjoy the process!
College Essay Coaching Packages
START-TO-FINISH PACKAGE
Begin with proven creative techniques to pick an essay topic, then draft and revise to produce a final polished and well-crafted essay.
5.5 hours / $550
CRAFT & EDIT PACKAGE
For those who have a topic and a draft, we will work with you to produce a final polished and well-crafted essay.
3.5 hours / $350
How to Request Coaching
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Purchase your college essay package.
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Fill in the short survey you will receive after purchase to help us match you with the right coach.
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We will assign you a coach within 72 hours.
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Satisfaction Guarantee: If you are unsatisfied with your coach, you may request a reassignment to a new coach or a refund of hours not used.
Frequently Asked Questions
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What if I don't finish within the allocated time?
When should I start my essay?
As early as possible. Did you know that many private prep schools require juniors to submit a draft essay before they leave for summer? There is a reason they use that word “prep.” By finishing your essay early, you can put your attention to fall semester classes which is important because first-semester grades are reported to colleges.
Do coaches help write an essay?
Our coaches will NEVER write an essay for a student. All of our coaches have MFA degrees (graduate creative writing degrees) and are trained in techniques and exercises that generate creative imagination, bust ideas about “proper topics,” ask questions, understand intent, and examine the structure and cohesion of the essay as a whole.
What if I don’t finish within the allocated time?
Our coaches, all of whom have experience as high school and/or college teachers, have keen awareness of balance between pushing for a deadline and understanding if extensions of time will benefit the outcome. If after the allocated hours (5.5 or 3.5 hours depending on the package), the teacher and student agree that more time is warranted, additional coaching hours are available at a rate of $100/hour.
Will you help with supplemental essays?
If a coach and student wish to continue working together on the supplemental essays once the main essay is finished, the coaching relationship can continue at a rate of $100/hour.
Why use Polyphony Lit for college essays?
We are unusual as we are a nonprofit that is largely student-run. Our coaching services came about because of demand from our students. Since we are not profit-driven, we price our services in order to pay our staff fairly and at the same time try to be able to serve more students.
Our coaches are experienced in college essay coaching. Some of the colleges their students have been accepted to: Barnard, Bates, Bowdoin, Brown, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Colby, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Northwestern, Oberlin, Sarah Lawrence, Smith, Stanford, SUNY Albany, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Buffalo, Trinity, Tufts, Tulane, UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Chicago, University of Colorado, University of Georgia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Vermont, USC, Vassar, Wesleyan, Yale, Yeshiva University.
