Draft It Before Senior Year
Finish the hardest essay before the hardest year begins.
The Common App personal statement is the essay every college sees. Most students write it under enormous pressure in the fall of 12th grade. This track flips that — your student finishes a complete, revised draft in 11th grade, so senior year is about refining, not starting.
What this track is for
Junior year is the right time to write the personal statement — not because it's required, but because the pressure is lower and the thinking time is longer. Students who arrive at senior year with a finished draft have a massive advantage: they can focus on supplements, scholarships, and deadlines instead of staring at a blank page. This track gets them there. Best run as a summer intensive (4 weeks, 2×/week) or a spring term (8 weeks, 1×/week).
Done before senior year
A complete draft finished in 11th grade
4–8 weeks
Summer intensive or spring term — your choice
Submission-ready
Not a rough draft — a polished, revised essay
Week by week
Prompt decoding + story-bank mining
We decode the Common App prompts and mine the student's story bank (10th-grade material plugs straight in). Students leave with a primary topic and a backup.
Structure workshop
Narrative arc for 650 words and the "start late" principle — dropping the reader into the moment instead of building up to it. Students complete a full rough draft.
Drafting sprints with live feedback
Intensive drafting sessions with real-time coach feedback. We identify the biggest opportunities for revision and restructure where needed.
Revision rounds
Voice, specificity, and the "could anyone else have written this?" test. We make sure the essay sounds unmistakably like the student — then confirm it's submission-ready.
What your student walks away with
A submission-ready 650-word personal statement
Polished, revised, and ready to submit — not a rough draft that still needs months of work.
A backup topic outline
A second essay direction, outlined and ready to develop if the primary topic needs to change.
Senior year breathing room
Your student enters 12th grade ahead of the curve — with the hardest essay already done.
How it works
4–8 sessions — summer intensive (2×/week) or spring term (1×/week)
Live on Zoom — no recordings, no modules
Written feedback between sessions on drafts
Sessions scheduled around your family's calendar
Don't wait until senior year.
The students who finish their personal statement in 11th grade are calmer, more confident, and better prepared. This is how you become one of them.
Virtual · 4–8 weeks · 11th Grade