Leveling the Playing Field: Empowering Every Student with a Standout College Essay

​​Over the past 20 years, I have developed a deep passion for ensuring that every senior who steps foot in my classroom leaves with a college essay they can be proud of, regardless of their background or future plans. I believe it is my ethical duty to equip my students with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed. Choices are a powerful advantage, and I don’t want any of my students to change their minds about applying to college—only to feel discouraged or disadvantaged because they lack a completed quality essay or the skills and support to do this at home.

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At the same time, I was being paid by families who could afford personalized college essay tutoring for their children. Many of these students came to me with drafts they had written in school, only to express frustration and dissatisfaction with their work. I became increasingly frustrated myself, realizing that I couldn’t provide the same level of personalized attention to my classroom students as I could to my private clients. I was also disheartened by the inconsistent approaches my colleagues, both within and outside of my district, took toward this critical task—some even choosing not to address it at all. It became clear that part of the problem was a lack of training and curriculum, as the college essay is the only unit we teach that doesn’t come with a structured guide.

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Determined to make a change, I decided to work on a consistent and rigorous curriculum for all students.

I began collaborating with my colleagues, sharing everything I knew about writing the college essay.

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The College Essay Easy System

Despite making progress, I still struggled to replicate the personalized attention I provided to my private clients in a classroom setting. That’s when I developed the College Essay Easy system. After days of conferencing with over 100 students, I realized that much of my advice was repetitive. This led me to wonder if there were a finite number of tropes within the teenage coming-of-age genre. I began to analyze the thousands of essays I had reviewed over the years, eventually categorizing them into 100 distinct groups. From there, I discovered natural connections between these categories and the Common App questions.

In an unexpected turn of events—and despite not being a math expert—I created an algorithm that removes the stress and guesswork from determining what a student should write about in their college essay. The College Essay Easy system was born.

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Taking It on the Road

After introducing my creation to Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School and beta-testing it with over 750 students, it became clear to my colleagues and me that I was onto something significant. Overwhelmingly, students began producing higher-quality essays in less class time. Even better, we achieved this consistency across the grade, regardless of course level.

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It is my dream to level the playing field for students who aspire to attend college and to make the application process less daunting for those who may lack a strong support system at home. I take pride in knowing that my system arms students with a standout essay that will help them shine in their college applications. What they choose to do with that is up to them, but isn’t that the purpose of a high school education? In every classroom, across every subject, we teach a variety of skills that only some students will need or use after graduation. So why shouldn’t we support all students in writing the most important essay of their lives?

Join Me

I invite you to join me in my mission to ensure that ALL high school seniors complete the first semester of their senior year with the best possible college essay, empowering them to compete in the world of college admissions. Together, let's create equity in the college admissions evaluation process, ensuring that every student is judged not by how much they paid for private counseling but by the true merit of their character.

Allison Weigel, President & Founder