Gwen Harper, Writing Coach
Community SubscriberI’m a writer with a knack for helping young adults through the college essay process.
A bit about me: I studied English at Yale and Literary Arts (MFA) at Brown. My first book just won the 2024 National Book Critics' Circle Barrios Prize.
Beyond applications, my aim is to empower students as they grow more skillful, confident, and creative in their writing. I'm warm and highly individualized in my approach. Students come away with improved humanities grades across the board and better prepared for college.
I take about ten students per year. My students' acceptance record includes MIT, Yale, Berkeley, UCLA, Georgetown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Williams, Penn, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Howard, Tufts, University of Wisconsin, Mount Holyoke, Bucknell, and NYU.
Definitely hire Gwen to work with your son or daughter on their college essay and applications! Gwen worked with my daughter, and knew when to push her and when to ease off. She helped with clarity and she helped with the nuance of getting her story across. She met with my daughter via zoom over many weeks, and always seemed available/flexible to coordinate her schedule with my daughter's packed schedule. Gwen is patient, articulate, and knows the academic and admissions world well. What a relief. We're so thankful for the amount of support Gwen provided our daughter and so proud of what she has achieved. She was accepted to 4 schools, waitlisted at 1, and denied acceptance at 1. We would have never thought to select the stretch school our daughter ultimately got into, believing it to be too expensive, and really, too selective. Forever grateful to Gwen!
My daughter worked with Gwen to produce her college essays this year. Throughout the process Gwen gently and patiently helped her tackle a wide variety of essays. Our daughter was a reluctant writer when she started the process and with Gwen's coaching she not only helped her complete the writing assignments, but she helped her gain confidence and skill as a writer. Gwen was able to quickly evaluate her skills, and developed a plan to to lead her through the process that was extremely effective and fun. She looked forward to every class! Our daughter not only learned how to write a personal essay, but with Gwen's help the writing process was an opportunity for a tremendous exercise in self-reflection. Her essays were incredibly personal which I am sure played a huge role in the success of her college applications. She will head to college with stronger skills and confidence as a writer that she didn't have before their work together. Gwen is an amazing writer, teacher and mentor and we can't recommend her highly enough!
My son used Gwen for college application writing assistance last year. She was great for him to work with and he raved about her to me - she was diligent, punctual and turned a stressful process into manageable pieces for him. She also had a good sense of strategy - pushing him on where he needed to put lots of effort and where he could do less. He felt like she did a good job both helping him define his essays and then making them better. He (and I) would highly recommend Gwen to anyone.
My daughter worked with Gwen on her college essays last year and Gwen was actually able to make the process less stressful and even enjoyable (no exaggeration.) Gwen is incredibly patient and kind and is able to make a deep connection with teenagers, quickly engaging them in conversation. In working through the various essays, Gwen never told my daughter what to say but rather helped her figure out what she wanted to say and the best way to express it. My daughter claims that she became a better writer overall because of the work she did with Gwen. We couldn’t recommend her more highly.
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