People who paid for essay tutors, do you reccommend it?
Yes. It removed the stress between me and my son and I was assured his essay would have proper grammar and punctuation, things he struggles with.
Totally depends on the kid and the tutor. Our daughter had a great first session with the tutor (recommended by a family friend who used to do essay “tutoring” and someone I totally trusted) but the second session wasn’t very helpful at all. We didn’t do any more. We did use a college counselor who read her essays and gave pretty general feedback - don’t waste space in the “why I want to go to xxx university” essay regurgitating their own marketing info back to them. She also encouraged reading the essays out loud which allowed us all to identify awkward phrases or transitions along with grammatical issues.
My s20’s was a godsend. I don’t think he has ever asked us for single thing his whole life, until faced with the terror of writing college admissions essays. From my vantage point, she didn’t so much influence the actual ‘writing’ as much as she gave him confidence that what he had to say was worthwhile. He has kind of a ‘why would anyone care about that?’ mentality, and once she helped him understand that the point was to reveal his true self, his blood pressure dropped 30 points and it rolled out of him. Our explaining that to him, 100 times, had zero impact. She got it into his stubborn head and then the process wasn’t so bad. I think they had 6 30 minute sessions. Worth every penny.
thanks everyone for their responses! I hope it isn’t too weird to ask but are there any particular groups/firms that you would recommend. or PM me people that you think were very helpful. my financial situation this would be a substantial expense
Word of mouth will find your the best tutors. Try to talk to kid’s parents who have already graduated and are now off at college. Ask who they have used and what their experience was.
Yes, this was extremely useful for our family as my daughter is a lot more sensitive to any criticism when it comes from me vs. a stranger. Also, she can stand her ground pretty well and I felt that she defended her voice against some of the coach’s suggestions, while absorbing some of the good ones. To sum up, for me it was worth every penny.
Imo, it depends on how savvy the helper is to what an admissions essay should be about and convey. This isn’t just a general writing tutor.
And when you get recommendations, consider whether where friends’ kids got in represents where yours is applying. I know a family that paid huge for support (times 3 kids) and they all ended up at colleges that aren’t that competitive and are rather lax about essays. Very happy with their colleges, very good kids. But a different targets.