I got into every college I applied to and earned $600,000 in scholarship offers, not because I was the most accomplished applicant, but because I knew how to write a great essay. Now I help students do exactly the same.
Acceptance rates are each school’s latest published figure. Sources
Hi, I'm Avigail Laing, and I got into every single college I applied to, including NYU, Rice, and Vanderbilt. And Vanderbilt gave me a full tuition scholarship that only goes to under 1% of applicants. In total, I earned over $600,000 in merit scholarship offers, and I was named a US presidential scholar, one of only 161 chosen annually in the country each year, but I didn't found a nonprofit or do any crazy extracurriculars. So how did I do it? Well, I figured out how to write really good college essays, the kind that make admissions officers actually read all the way through and then walk away knowing what value I bring to their college as a student.
Since then, I've taught that same strategy to over a thousand students, helping them write college essays that have gotten them into schools like Penn, Dartmouth, UC Berkeley with a Regents Scholarship, Cornell, NYU with a full ride twice, Georgetown, West Point, UCLA, USC, and so many more. In the class of 2026 alone, four of my students got full ride scholarships. One to NYU with housing included, one to NYU Shanghai for $71,000 a year, another to Rhodes College, and one who got full rides to both Virginia Tech and George Mason. And my other students have earned countless merit scholarships from schools like UCSD, TCU, U Miami, and so many others, which are all included in the results section of my website.
I know exactly how overwhelming the college essay process can be, and my job is taking the guesswork out of that process and making it easy and straightforward for you so that when you're done with your essays, you know for sure that you did them right, that they're going to move the needle in a positive direction for you, and that admissions officers are going to see that you're an asset to their school when they read those essays.
So how do you get my help? Well, there are three ways, depending on how much help you want. If you want live one-on-one support from me to get help writing your essay, brainstorming, figuring out how to do supplementals, I offer one-on-one coaching. You can either book a single session or I offer discounted packages with multiple sessions where I will walk you through the entire process of creating your Common App essay, your supplementals, or both. The packages are definitely my most popular option because they give you help throughout every single step of the process. I'll be there with you when you're brainstorming. I'll help you pick a good topic, write your outlines, and make sure that your essays include a level of detail that moves the needle in a positive direction for you. The packages include unlimited email support for me in between every call, and I run all the calls myself. I don't have a team. I give you all the feedback myself. And at the end of every call, you'll have a PDF and document with all of the recommendations that I gave you, edits, and everything that we worked on.
If scheduling is hard for you and you'd rather not do a call, I also offer asynchronous written edits on your essays. So whether you need me just to do like a one-time essay edit and send you back feedback within 48 hours and edits, I can do that, or I also have editing packages where I will give you multiple revisions of your Common App essay, supplementals, or both. This is a better option for you if you have like a really busy schedule and you are not sure if you'll be able to easily schedule calls with me. Because I can give you the same level of feedback and the same amount of edits just without you having the hassle of scheduling this way. I also have a hybrid option where if you need help just brainstorming your topic and then want written edits on it after that, we can just do one call and then four written edits, if that works better for you too.
And finally, if you want to work on this process on your own, I took literally everything that I do with my one-on-one students, the whole process of how to write a good college essay and turned it into a 36 document system with documents walking you through every single step of how to write a good college essay and your supplementals too. It includes documents on how to brainstorm, how to come up with a good topic, how to create an outline, how to include the right details in your outline, how to make sure your essay doesn't sound like AI, how to emulate the writing style of the best essays that I've read. And it includes supplemental packs for over 12 separate schools in it too. And finally, it also has a checklist that you can run your essay through before submission to make sure that it does everything right. It is literally the most helpful thing I've put together and has all the value you could possibly need, all the advice for writing your essays from start to finish, genuinely everything that you need. It's called the Yes Pile Method or my full college essay writing system. And you can find it here on my store. The best part of it is that it actually comes with a document with multiple sample essays from my students who have gotten into top schools like Dartmouth and even my own Common App Essay and my own supplementals so that you can see what winning essays did and then figure out how to replicate that. It literally goes through all seven Common App prompts and has a sample essay for each one so that you can see how to do what the winning students did.
Essay coaching is one of the best investments that you could possibly make because for such a small price, you could possibly win tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship money per year, which makes a life or death difference when it comes to being able to pay off your college loans. I've seen so many of my students get into schools that they said their GPA wasn't good enough for because of their essays. And I've also seen so many of my students get amazing scholarships that have really lightened the financial pressure on them. I would love to help you through this process and make it as easy and painless for you as I can. So you can read more on my website to figure out how to book with me. Pick whichever package works best for you. And if you have any questions, feel free to email avigaillaing@gmail.com and I would love to answer and work with you this season. Whichever way you're getting help, you are going to be getting the same strategy that got me into every single college I applied to. And I know it's going to make a difference for you. I can't wait to work together.
I was a high school student from Knoxville, Tennessee. I didn't found a nonprofit. I didn't win national STEM awards. By most conventional metrics, I wasn't the "perfect applicant." But I understood something most students miss: admissions officers are human beings reading thousands of essays, and the only ones they remember are the ones that feel like a real person wrote them.
So I wrote mine that way. And it changed everything.
Acceptance rates are each school’s most recently published figure for its entering class: Penn, Vanderbilt, NYU and Rice for fall 2025, Georgia Tech’s out-of-state rate for fall 2025, UC Berkeley and UCLA for fall 2026, and the UF Honors Program for fall 2026.
The letters themselves
Home address and student ID number blurred. Everything else is exactly as it arrived.
Grades and test scores got me considered. The essays are what separated me from everyone else with the same numbers.
The scholarship letters
Parents usually ask what happens on the calls, so here it is. If you want to write an essay that goes in the yes pile, you have to write with strategy, not just a story. I call this the Yes Pile System. It moves through five stages, and depending on the package we cover them across four sessions or eight, at whatever pace your student needs. It is the same process that got me into every school I applied to. Your student stays the author the whole way through. I will help shape a sentence when one is stuck, but the essay is theirs, in their voice, built out of their own memories.
We go through all seven Common App prompts out loud, no filtering and no judging, and I take notes live in a shared doc so your student never has to remember what they said. You cannot pick a topic from a list of topics. You pick it from a list of moments.
A story is not a thesis. This is where we find the one idea underneath your moment, the thing the essay is actually arguing about who you are.
Before you write a word, you know what every paragraph has to do and what it promises the next one. This is the step that stops the endless rewriting.
We go line by line and replace anything you have asserted with something you can prove. This is also the pass that makes an essay read like a person instead of a machine.
We read it one final time against the same questions an admissions officer is asking. Your student submits knowing it is done, rather than hoping.
Your student finishes with an essay that is done, and genuinely theirs.
And they keep the method, so the next essay, the supplements and the scholarship applications all get easier.Most students start the summer before senior year, and things get tight around the November 1 deadlines. Earlier is calmer, but I have taken students from a blank page to submitted in under two weeks.
Written edits or live 1:1 calls, whichever fits your schedule. No templates. No generic feedback. Just the exact strategy I used to earn $600K in scholarship offers, applied to you.
Same eye, no calendar. You send the draft, I send back written notes. This is the fastest way to work with me if your schedule is the problem, or if you are in a time zone that makes calls hard.
Eight written reviews to use across your Common App essay and up to 4 supplementals. Each review is one essay, read closely and sent back with written notes within 24 hours. Most students use 4 on their Common App essay and 1 on each supplemental, but you can split them however you need.
“I have a college advisor and she had told me all of my writing was good and ready to be submitted when in reality there were soo many edits to be made!”
“Thank you for all your edits on my multiple drafts! I truly appreciate your efforts to brainstorm and perfect my college personal statement with me.”
“Thank you so much for your help! I will make sure to recommend your help to my peers.”
“Thank you SO much for your help. I’ll def recommend my friends, I really appreciate this quick overview and rapid feedback!”
“Your notes helped a lot, and I made all the changes you suggested.”
“I loved your service so much that I referred two of my friends to you.”
“Thank you so much for your edits! They are very helpful.”
“Thank you so much for edits, suggestions, and recommendations for my college essay!”
“Thank you so much for taking the time to review my essay! I really appreciate your feedback.”
“These are such helpful notes, and I really appreciate you taking the time to look through my essay so far.”
“I was able to submit my application yesterday and it was way less stressful due to your help on my main essay.”
“Thank you so much for the notes! This is super helpful.”
“I will definitely be purchasing again for my actual personal essay once I’m done with this.”
“We really appreciate your expertise and assistance in making the essay flow better. Great suggestions on making it more expressive too!”
“Thank you so much! All the feedback was super helpful and I submitted it tonight.”
“Thank you so much for the quick turnaround!”
“I think the essay is so much stronger now, especially the new ending… You’re such an amazing editor, thank you so much.”
The middle option, for students who need help finding the topic but can take it from there on their own.
The hardest part is finding the topic, and that is the part worth doing live. We get on one call and land your idea and your outline together. After that you write, and I review it in writing up to four times, so there is nothing else to schedule around your week.
Your Common App essay. Your Why Us essays. Your Why This Major. Your diversity essays. All of it planned together from first brainstorm to final submission. Once your Common App essay is done, you get a blueprint for every school on your list, and we do line-by-line edits on as many supplementals as we have time for.
Most students spend months rewriting endlessly, second-guessing every word, still not confident at submission. This package changes that. Four sessions plus unlimited email support, idea to final draft.
Most students treat supplements as an afterthought and submit generic answers that could have been written by anyone. Admissions officers notice. This package tackles your supplementals school by school, so every Why Us feels like you were made for that campus.
One focused 30-minute call. Whether you have no idea what to write or have a draft that needs work, we cover it all. You leave with a clear direction and specific next steps.
Most students start the summer before senior year, and things get tight around the November 1 deadlines. Earlier is calmer, and it means we can sit with two or three ideas instead of committing to the first one. That said, I have taken students from a blank page to submitted in under two weeks, so if you are reading this in October it is not too late.
If your student does not know what to write about, book calls. Finding the story is the part that is genuinely hard alone, and it is the part I am best at.
If they know the topic and just need it to be good, take the one call then written edits. If they already have a draft, written edits on their own are enough. There is a chooser above the packages that sorts this in one click.
Everything books through my store, and you pick your own time on the calendar there. No consultation call, no form, no waiting for me to email you back a quote. If you are buying a package you choose the first session and we schedule the rest together on that call.
Yes. I coach students across a lot of time zones and every session is on video, so we just find a slot that works. If the time difference is genuinely brutal, the written edit options are built for exactly that, since there is nothing to schedule at all.
If your student does not have a topic yet, I ask about their life until they say something that surprises them, and by the end of the call they have a real idea and a full outline to write from. I take notes live in a shared document so they never have to remember what we said.
If they already have a draft, they send it over beforehand and we go through it together line by line, so they leave with it actually revised rather than just critiqued.
Every review is three passes over the same draft. First, is it answering the question and is the story actually the right one. Second, is it showing rather than claiming, which is where most of the work happens, and where I mark every sentence that tells me something instead of proving it. Third, the line pass: clarity, rhythm, opening and closing, and a check that it does not read as AI.
You get it back within 24 hours with comments in the document, not a summary email.
You are welcome to, and some parents do for the first one. I will say honestly that most students open up more when it is just us, and the whole method depends on them telling me things they have not told anyone. If you would rather not sit in, I will send you the notes after every call so you can see exactly what we covered.
The sessions are with your student, because they are the one writing. Scheduling, payment and anything you want to ask me comes to you. If you would like the notes after each call, say so at the start and I will copy you every time.
No. Never. If you buy a four session package in July and your student goes quiet until October, those sessions are still there. Applications do not run on a tidy schedule and I am not going to punish you for that.
Give me 24 hours notice and we move it, no problem. You can reschedule from the confirmation email or just message me.
A missed call without notice is not rescheduled, it moves you on to the next call in your package. I hold that slot open in an evening that was fully booked, so it is the one thing I have to be firm about. Nothing is lost though, since the remaining sessions never expire.
Yes, on every package. Between sessions you can email me quick questions, or send the one or two parts you are stuck on, like a paragraph or a new opening, and I will give you quick comments. Full reads and line-by-line edits happen on our calls. It is included in the price and it is genuinely one of the most used parts of working with me.
No, and I want to be specific about where the line is. Your student is the author. I ask about their life until they say something that surprises them, then hand their own sentence back and we build from there. Sometimes that means working on a sentence together when they are stuck on one, the way a writing tutor would, but the memories, the voice and the thinking are all theirs.
This is the thing students worry about most now and it is a fair worry. Essays get flagged when they are vague, when every sentence runs the same length, and when the writer states a lesson instead of showing the moment it came from. My process pushes hard the other way, into specific detail and real remembered moments in their own vocabulary. I also run a pass specifically for this.
Because I did this recently instead of decades ago. I know what the prompts look like right now, what the rules around AI are right now, and what a 17 year old will actually sit still for on a call. I have also coached more than 1,000 students since, which is more application essays than most people read in years.
Yes, and honestly it often matters more. Merit scholarships get decided on essays, and some of the largest awards my students earned came from schools that were never anyone's reach. A full ride to a school your child loves is worth more than a rejection from a famous one.
If your child's essay is already done, and it is specific, and three people you trust have read it and genuinely loved it, you do not need to book anything. I would rather tell you that than take the money.
Still have a question I didn't answer here? I read every email myself.
Email me →Not everyone wants calls, and some students would rather work through it themselves at 1am. So I put the entire system into documents: every worksheet I use on my paid 1:1 sessions, all seven prompt guides, and supplement packs for twelve schools. It is the same method above, minus me.
The Yes Pile Test is the first thing I hand a student. Ten questions, about five minutes, and at the end you know what your essay is actually doing right now instead of guessing. It is free, and it stays yours whether or not you ever buy anything else.
Get the Yes Pile Test, free →
After coaching 1,000+ students, I know this: it's not about being the most impressive applicant. It's about telling your story in a way that makes admissions officers remember you. That's exactly what I help you do.
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