College essay coaching
A guided process
The essay you need to write is closer than you think. It might be hiding in something you almost didn't mention. Unwritten Potential helps you find it.
The approach
The college essay is often approached as a writing problem: Fix the sentences, smooth the transitions, make it sound impressive. Done. But the essay is more than prose and punctuation. It's the part of your application where a college gets to know you as a person, beyond the transcript, activities, and scores.
It starts with finding the particular: the details, traits, and values that are distinctly you. Then you choose from what emerges to craft an authentic and compelling essay that lets a college see who you are and who you're becoming. The kind of essay that makes a reader glad they read it.
A guided process. You don't have to know where to start.
Your voice. And the reader slows down to hear you.
Your story, connected to what colleges value. Growth over perfection. Showing, not telling. Specificity over summary.
Responsive, purposeful feedback. In session and between.
An essay you're proud of.
Packages
Your essay is yours.
Plus ideas and tools for your next essay.
The full process, one-on-one.
Plus ideas and tools for your next essay.
A focused two-session experience for students who want to find their footing and see where it leads.
All about ideas and tools.
Have we already worked together? Explore sessions for returning students →
About
As an English teacher, I nudge students past reading online summaries and beyond being bound by the five-paragraph essay. They move with confidence toward developing and supporting their own analysis and expressing their insights with dynamic, cohesive writing. I bring that same approach to the college essay: respect for the fundamentals and room to find what's genuinely yours.
Any transcript. Any background. Any path forward.
The process
You don't have to know what to write about before we start. The Essay Intensive process is built to help you find your direction, so that by the time you sit down to draft, you already know what you want to say, why it matters, and how it all fits together.
Before session 1
Before we meet, you'll work through guided exercises, honed through years of teaching student writers. These aren't open-ended writing prompts. Each one is designed to draw out something specific: a value, a pattern, a moment, a way of seeing the world. Together they build a portrait. The goal isn't a draft. It's discovery.
You engage with the exercises that resonate most. There's no single right path through the material.
Brainstorming
I arrive having read everything, with observations, connections, and ideas forming. Together we draw out what's most alive in your prewriting: the specific, the surprising, the details that add up to something worth building on.
Outlining
Together we develop your outline further, weaving your threads together, creating cohesion, and refining the structure so you can draft with confidence and purpose.
Editing
With a full draft in hand, our focus shifts to what your essay is actually communicating, and whether each piece is doing the work it needs to do.
Refining
The final session is about craft: the finer details that make your essay stand out.
Most students have plenty to say. Some have too much and don't know where to start. Others aren't sure what to include. Finding it, shaping it, and trusting that it's working—that's what Unwritten Potential is here for.
Without support
With Unwritten Potential
Schedule a free fifteen-minute call to see how the process could work for you.
Packages
Each offering follows the same approach: focused sessions and feedback that move your work forward. The difference is in the format, the pacing, and the level of individual attention.
Full packages
Four sessions, prewriting materials, practical tools, and individual feedback: everything you need to go from blank page to a substantive draft.
Small group • 3–4 students
Total for the group.
Let's talk about this packageEach of you works through the full process, finding what connects your experiences and values, shaping your material, and leaving with a draft that's unmistakably yours.
What's included
This is a good fit if...
You work well with peers around, want the energy of a shared process, or are looking for the most accessible entry point. Groups often form naturally: friends, teammates, students from the same school.
Group sessions are structured so the personal nature of your essay is always protected. You workshop selected excerpts and apply feedback to your full essay independently.
One-on-one
The full process, entirely yours.
Let's talk about this packageThe same trusted process as The Essay Intensive group: finding what connects your experiences and values, shaping your material, and leaving with a draft that's unmistakably yours.
What's included
This is a good fit if...
You prefer working one-on-one, want sessions that flex to your pace and process, or have a story or application situation that benefits from undivided attention throughout.
Getting started
The Jumpstart is a complete, standalone two-session experience, taking you from blank page to a clear direction and an outline that's ready to draft.
What's included
This is a good fit if...
You want a strong direction and outline before you start drafting, or you want to experience the process before committing to the full intensive.
Want to keep going?
Your Jumpstart fee can be credited toward the Individual Intensive, allowing you to continue into sessions 3 and 4.
Returning students
These sessions are available to students who have completed The Essay Intensive or The Essay Intensive: Individual. You already know the language, the materials, and the process. These build directly on that foundation.
Structure
For a new essay prompt or school that needs its own structure. You bring existing material; we build a fresh outline together.
Supplements
Focused work on school-specific supplements: drafting, shaping, and refining, using material you've already generated.
Flexible
No set agenda. You bring what you need. Open Sessions don't include the structured materials or guided framework of the full intensive. This option is for returning students who know what they're working on.
Schedule a free fifteen-minute call, and we'll figure out together which kind of support makes the most sense.
About Jamie
When I taught high school English in Los Angeles, one of my favorite units was the college essay. Essay season is a time when students are invited to slow down and get real about who they are, what they want, and who they're becoming.
It wasn't easy for most students to trust the process without focusing on high-stakes outcomes. Students arrived with all sorts of circumstances, each with their own story to tell. And I saw the same thing again and again: every student I worked with had an authentic, standout essay that simply needed a nudge to emerge.
I have spent years developing materials to help make that happen and to make the process feel a little less painful along the way. Today I show up to each session as a guide and a steady presence, breaking it down and making it feel doable.
I now work remotely, bringing that same approach to students across the country. I stay current on college admissions, including the evolving conversation about AI, because the students I work with deserve guidance that's honest, informed, and genuinely theirs.
As a parent
I've been on the other side of this process, as a parent. I know what it feels like to want the best support for your student and wonder if it's within reach. It's why I built Unwritten Potential the way I did.
On authenticity
Students don't need to invent or obscure who they are to impress readers. They need help seeing what's already there: the values, patterns, and moments that add up to a genuinely compelling story.
On my role
I guide the process. Students write the essay. My feedback is focused and purposeful, responding to what will move the essay forward, not line-editing every sentence.
On outcomes
Students finish with an essay they're proud of, a stronger sense of themselves, and skills they can carry into other essays in their applications.
On access
Pricing is set deliberately to make my process accessible to students who need it.
On every student
Wherever a student is starting from, I help them show colleges who they are and why they're worthy of consideration.
On the process
The activities, the sessions, the scaffolding: none of it constrains the writing. It all gives students a way in to create something uniquely their own.
Schedule a free fifteen-minute call to talk through where you are and whether we're a good fit.
Get in touch
Have a question about a package, feeling unsure how to begin, or wondering if we'd work well together?
Call or text
Or send a message below.
No spam, ever. Your information stays between us.