College Admissions Essay Individualized Tutorial Support

Work one-on-one with a college application essay expert to write effective essays for college and university writing prompts and research specific colleges, universities and programs for supplemental essays.

Students will be exposed to the skills necessary for personal essay writing, and they will use those skills to draft, edit and complete essays for the UC Personal Insight questions, and based on student interest and need, the Common Application essay prompts. In addition, students will learn the research and writing skills necessary to complete supplementary essay questions for specific colleges, universities, and programs. Students can use these skills to write admissions essays for colleges and universities that do not use the Personal Insight Questions or Common Application prompts. Instruction will focus on college admissions essay writing as a process that includes reading the essay questions carefully, drafting and editing drafts of essays tailored to the essay questions, learning to self-edit final drafts for common grammar and usage issues, and acquiring skills necessary to perform research on college and university websites for supplementary questions.

What You Will Learn

• Learn the skills necessary to analyze and break down essay prompts before writing.
• Implement pre-writing strategies such as brainstorming and outlining.
• Apply the skills of personal essay writing to draft and assess their own essays for effectiveness and relevance to essay prompts.
• Use research skills necessary to write supplementary essays for specific programs, colleges, and universities.
• Edit final drafts for basic grammar and usage issues, including syntax (verb tense and comma splices) and diction (varying word choice).

Testimonials

Dr. Gudas's recent college essay students have been accepted to these colleges and universities: Stanford, Brown, Columbia, NYU, Yale, UCLA, Cornell, USC, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, UVA, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, Washington University in St. Louis, Georgia Tech, UIUC, University of Washington, and many other schools.

• I had a great experience taking this course! The instructor, Dr. Gudas was very helpful with helping me write my college essays. He helped provide me with specific ideas and feedback on how to improve my writing and brainstorm new ideas. This insight helped me to feel more confident when submitting my essays. -Reese C, UC Riverside, class of 2029.

• Taking this course helped me a lot with not only writing my essays but brainstorming and choosing the best of my experiences to include. I was able to better understand how to write according to what colleges want because I had guidelines to follow. I also was unsure how to refine and choose the most important parts to keep, so it was very helpful for me to keep my essays concise but still meaningful. Overall, it was a really good learning experience and definitely improved my essays by a lot. -Kenna O, University of Washington, class of 2028.

• I liked the honest feedback to make my essays sound more authentic but polished at the same time. -Riya M, John Hopkins University (Molecular Biology major), class of 2028.

• This course was incredibly useful for me personally to take the rough college essay drafts that I had created to a new level. I got to brainstorm and write with a college professor who showed me how to turn a personal anecdote into a well crafted story that hooks admission counselors. I would absolutely recommend this course whether you have nearly finished essays or haven't yet started. -Drew S, UC Berkeley, class of 2028.

How to Write an Essay: Podcast

ENROLLMENT INFORMATION

• Students enrolled in this course will recieve 4 hours of one on one individual tutorial support with the instructor. Cost of 4 hours is $450.

• Once enrolled, students will schedule sessions with the instructor. Sessions will be held via Zoom.

• Sessions must be completed before the end date of the course. Student can enroll at any time after the start date.

• Cancellation policy: Student's must provide 24 hours notice if they intend to cancel a session via email (egudas@ucsd.edu). Failure to do so will result in the session counting towards the number of sessions that have been prepaid for.