The right College Essay Advisor can be a game-changer when it comes to crafting successful college essays—whether it’s the Common App personal statement, supplemental essays, letters of continued interest, scholarship essays, or other written application materials. But with so many free resources available, you might wonder: “Are college essay advisors worth it?”
In this article, we’ll explore the unique value essay advisors bring to college applicants and how their guidance can elevate your application.
Are College Essay Advisors Worth it?
The simple answer is, “Yes.”
It’s entirely possible to write a strong essay on your own, but a College Essay Advisor (sometimes called a College Essay Coach or simply an Essay Coach) offers expert guidance on organization, tone, clarity, and helping you write essays that reflect who you are.
To understand why a College Essay Advisor is worth the investment, we need to understand more about college essays and the role that an Essay Coach can play in helping a college applicant to craft effective essays.
A Note on College Essay Examples
Face it: You haven’t read many college essays. And if you have read many college essays, the college essays you read probably weren’t typical. Maybe you read an essay that was highlighted by a major news outlet (looking at you, Costco Essay Girl), or that went viral on TikTok, or that appears on Johns Hopkins’s Essays that Worked page. Here’s the thing about all of the essays listed above: They’re poor examples to follow.
That’s not to say that they’re bad essays. Quite the opposite: These are some of the best essays written by the best teenage writers on earth. And that’s exactly the problem. Most of us aren’t among the best writers on earth, and if we try to imitate the best writers on earth, well, it’s a little like someone showing you a Lebron James highlight reel, handing you a basketball, and telling you, “Go do that.”
Thing is, you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to write one of the six best-written essays to be submitted to Johns Hopkins in a given year. Heck, in 2024, Johns Hopkins accepted 2,604 applicants, meaning that 2,598 kids got into Johns Hopkins with essays that weren’t as well-written as you’ll find on their Essays that Worked page.
Those viral essays may reflect what college admissions officers wish they saw from applicants, but they only very poorly reflect what admissions officers actually see, even from successful applicants.
Why do People Hire College Essay Advisors?
Many people seek college essay coaching for expert guidance because:
College Essay Advisors Know the Genre
Most college essays succeed not because they employ some dramatic metaphor or feature a virtuosic prose style; rather, they succeed because they effectively and memorably communicate the student’s authentic identity within the conventions of the typical college essay.
And that requires knowing how typical college essays work, which is precisely College Essay Advisors and Coaches’ specialty.
Want to know what that expertise looks like? Just check out some of HelloCollege’s blog posts on the topic. From advice on choosing a topic that Admissions officers haven’t already seen a thousand times, to guidance on writing a good hook, to ending, or even editing a college essay, our Essay Coaches can help you at every step of the essay writing process.
They also know that, yeah, maybe your essay won’t ever spit like Kendrick, but, with their help, they can get you up to Playboi Carti standards. And, hey, that dude sells out arenas, too.
College Essay Advisors Know You
So, how can an Essay Coach help you to get arena-sized results for your essays?
By knowing you—and making sure your essays communicate who you are. College Essay advisors begin by just getting to know you: They learn your biography and background, your interests and obsessions, your dreams and aspirations. They also learn your voice, all the little personal idiosyncrasies that characterize your speech—and that help to define what makes you you.
They need to do this because one of an Essay Coach’s biggest roles is to make sure your essays sound like you. That may sound counter-intuitive, but many students begin the college essay process straining to write in a “grown-up” professional academic voice that, in the best-case scenario, has the unintended effect of making them sound as generic as possible.
More commonly, though, such student writing sounds like a bad imitation of bad academic prose, neither communicating with the rigor and precision of proper academese, nor with the personality and authenticity of their own voice.
But your Essay Coach, because they will have established a personal relationship with you, can help to ensure that your voice and your story reflect who you really are—not the imagined 45-year-old professor or CEO you aspire to be, but the bright, curious, inquisitive 17-year-old that Admissions Officers are hoping to hear from.
College Essay Advisors Know Admissions Offices
Speaking of what Admissions Officers hope to hear, Essay Coaches know that, too. They know the sorts of values and topics that most appeal to Admissions Officers around the country, and also—crucially—they know the priorities of admissions offices at specific colleges.
You’re applying to Notre Dame, so you figure you should just copy and paste from your Boston College essays about how you vibe with BC’s Jesuit values? Think again.
Your Essay Coach will be there to remind you that Notre Dame is not Jesuit but rather a Holy Cross institution, which means that, sure, they’ll be interested to hear about your interest the metaphysical implications of neo-Thomist theology (which set aflutter the hearts of BC’s Jesuit-trained admissions officers)—but they’ll be thrilled to hear about your service work setting up a food pantry in your local community or your time caring for your grandmother as she battled thyroid cancer, demonstrating your commitment to community and family—both major Holy Cross values.
You may not know the details of such college preferences, but your Essay Coach will. And, yes, they’ll even be able to help you figure out an approach to UChicago’s dreaded pick-your-poison essay prompt.
Conclusion
So, are college essay advisors worth it? Absolutely.
They can help you know about the genre of college essays; they can help you know about the desires of admissions officers; they can even, maybe, help you to know a little more about yourself. And if you ask real nice, they can even help you figure out where your commas go.
Are you ready to get started on your college essays? HelloCollege is ready to help! Contact us today to learn how our expert Essay Coaches can help you tell your best, most authentic story.
