College essay & application review
Your essay needs a reader, not another proofreader.
I read your essays — or your whole application, activities list and all — the way an admissions officer will, then tell you exactly what to fix first.
Notes back within 72 hours. One revision round included.
Ever since I was young, I have always been extremely passionate about the field of medicine. Helping people has always been my greatest dream.
In my junior year I joined the hospital volunteer program, where I learned a great deal about responsibility, teamwork, and the importance of hard work.
I will bring these same qualities to your university, where I hope to continue growing as a leader and make a difference in the world.
How it works
Three steps, no consultation call to book first.
No intake packet, no twelve-week program. Send the draft you actually have and get a real read on it.
Send the draft
Google Doc or PDF, plus the prompt, the word limit, and where you're applying. Rough is fine — rough is better, honestly.
I read it twice
Once at admissions speed, the way it will really be read. Then again slowly, line by line, as an editor.
Notes within 72 hours
In-line comments plus a written summary that ranks what to fix. Revise, send it back, and I'll read the new version too.
Pricing
One essay, or the whole file.
Pay once. No retainers, no packages that quietly renew. Most people come for an essay and take the full review once they realise the activities list is read just as closely.
Essay Review
One essay, read properly
- Full read of one essay up to 750 words
- In-line comments on structure, voice, and specifics
- A written summary ranking the three things to fix first
- One follow-up read of your revision
- Notes back within 72 hours
Full Application Review
Every part of the file, read as one
- Personal statement, reviewed as above
- Up to three supplemental essays
- Your activities list — all ten entries, rewritten line by line
- Honors and awards section
- A positioning read: what story the whole file tells, and where its parts contradict each other
- School-specific notes for your list
- One follow-up read of your revisions
Send the draft first. I'll confirm it's a fit and send an invoice before I start reading — if it isn't a fit, you pay nothing.
Why the full review
Your essays are one part of the file.
An admissions reader opens a single document — personal statement, supplements, activities, honors — and forms one impression from all of it. The $99 review covers the whole thing, including the ten activity entries almost nobody gets a second opinion on.
Member of Key Club. Participated in various service events and fundraisers throughout the school year.
104 of 150 charactersRan the fall food drive: 1,400 lbs collected, up from 300 the year before. Trained 12 new volunteers.
101 of 150 charactersSame activity, same student, nearly the same character count. One of these is evidence and the other is a job title. There are ten of these slots on the Common App, and most applicants spend their whole editing budget on the essay and write all ten in a single sitting the night before.
What comes back
Notes you can actually act on tonight.
Not a letter grade. Not "great start, keep going!" A ranked list of changes and the reasoning behind each one.
- The first-ten-seconds readWhat an admissions reader thinks your essay is about after the opening lines — and whether that's what you meant.
- Line-level commentsEvery place the writing goes vague, borrowed, or safe, marked where it happens.
- The cut listSpecific sentences to delete, with the word count you get back for something that matters.
- Fix this firstA ranked summary, so a late night on one revision goes where it counts.
- One more readSend the revision back. I'll tell you whether it landed.
Who reads it
One person, recently on the other side of this.
I'm Ammon. I'm a freshman at Wharton, which means I wrote these essays recently enough to still remember the 11 p.m. version of the draft — the one where you've read your own sentences so many times they've stopped meaning anything.
What helped me wasn't a long program. It was one person who would tell me the truth: this paragraph is impressive and boring, this one sounds like your parents, this throwaway line in the middle is the actual essay. That read is what I do here.
I work with a small number of students at a time, because the whole value is reading closely. If I'm booked, I'll say so rather than skim your draft.
- NowFreshman, the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
- High school GPA3.9
- HonorsAcademic All-State
- Turnaround72 hours
Straight talk
What this isn't.
I don't write it for you
No ghostwriting, no "here's a rewritten version to paste in." The voice has to be yours or the whole thing stops working — and schools can tell.
No one can promise admission
Anybody selling you a guarantee is selling you something else. A better essay improves your odds. That's the honest claim.
I'm not an ex-admissions officer
I'm a recent applicant who did well and who reads carefully. That's a different thing than twenty years inside an admissions office, and it costs accordingly.
Questions
Before you send anything.
How fast do I get notes back?
Within 72 hours of the draft landing. If you're up against a deadline sooner than that, say so when you write — if I can't make it, I'll tell you straight away instead of taking your money.
What do you need from me?
The draft, the exact prompt, the word limit, and the schools it's going to. If there's something you're unsure about — an anecdote that might be too personal, a topic you think is overdone — flag it and I'll give you a direct answer.
Is my draft too rough to send?
Almost certainly not. An outline and two paragraphs is a useful thing to react to, and it's much cheaper to change direction then than after you've polished the wrong essay for a week.
Do you fix grammar and punctuation?
Yes, but it's the least important thing I do. Essays rarely fail on commas. They fail on sounding like everyone else's.
Can you look at more than three supplementals?
Yes — extra essays beyond the Full Application Review are priced per essay. Tell me how many you have and I'll quote it before starting.
Who sees my essay?
Only me. I don't share drafts, publish excerpts, or use your essay as a sample without asking you first in writing.
What if the notes aren't useful?
Tell me, and you get your money back. I'd rather refund you than have you recommend me to nobody.
Get started
Send the draft you have right now.
Fill this in and it opens an email with the details filled out — attach your draft or paste a Doc link, and hit send. I'll confirm within a day.
Prefer plain email? hello@ivybridgereview.com