Tina Boyer Writer Coaching

Community Subscriber
Berkeley
Owner:
Tina Boyer
Phone:
847.814.4813
Email:
tina [at] boyercoaching.com

Since 2013, we've guided hundreds of students through thousands of college application essays. 

We show clients how they can break down the bigger project into smaller, more manageable pieces. We emphasize working well ahead of application deadlines so there's plenty of time for careful reflection, thorough work and a significant time cushion for the unexpected. The idea is to lower the intensity. This leads to stronger, polished essays and calm families. Clients even tell us they had fun! This good rapport comes from the fact that we really get to know our clients by meeting with them on a regular basis.

High school seniors sign up for “the season” (summer/fall) and work through their personal statement and supplements with us. Spots for seniors and transfers fill early.

Parent Reviews

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We feel very fortunate that we found Tina and her team.  My oldest daughter worked with Kevin Richardson this past year to prepare her college essays.  Kevin kept her engaged and organized.  My daughter tends to be a bit of a procrastinator and she had considerable anxiety going into this process.  Kevin kept her on track and my daughter especially enjoyed his sense of humor which helped alleviate her anxieties.  She had all her essays completed by the end of summer which was priceless in instilling confidence (and bragging rights) in her. We are using Tina and team again this year for my younger daughter and won't hesitate to engage their services again when it's time for our youngest.  (our oldest will be going to one of her top UC choices this fall and she was accepted to all but one of the out of state schools she applied to)

I am so thrilled that Tina was recommended to us. Tina made the whole college application process so much less stressful and intimidating. I’ve heard that there are students who spend months and months rewriting/revising their essays. Working with Tina helped my son streamline the whole process, encouraged him to learn about himself and write strong honest essays. Tina kept him on track and was so easy to work with. After our sessions ended, Tina would follow up with us…just to check in to see how things were going. I feel that she is more than a coach who just works with the students during the writing process. She truly wants the students to do well and have them be proud of their work. My daughter who was only a freshman in high school when my son started with Tina has her spot already in 2024! I can’t wait to have my daughter meet Tina!. 

We sincerely concur with the positive reviews of Tina Boyer as a college essay writing coach. Our daughter was self-driven in her college application process but Tina's role was invaluable. Tina was extremely positive and optimistic about the entire college essay process which our daughter expressed "allowed a lot of stress to be lifted off my shoulders as she step-by-step outlined what needed to get done". Tina's calm style and exceptional feedback was a tremendous benefit to our daughter who acknowledged that writing about herself was quite different than her school work and could be difficult. 

Tina was very accommodating with her busy senior year schedule, prompt to answer calls and emails, and helped her navigate the nuances of the public and private schools to which she was applying. We are very grateful for having been introduced to Tina and our daughter is excited about her choices!  We would highly recommend Tina!

My 17-year old worked with Tina in 2017-18 on their college application essays. I highly recommend Tina, I think she is a rare person that has the emotional and intellectual intelligence and skills that are perfectly suited to her job. She is knowledgeable, professional, reliable and flexible, and immediately established a strong and caring relationship with my teen.  Without Tina, I don’t think my teen would have been able to complete the essays and the application process (and acceptance with a merit scholorship!) to the only school they really want to attend.

We met only once with Tina in person, and then met on Skype.  My teen felt understood and respected and trusted Tina’s recommendations, while also feeling comfortable pushing back. My teen has good test scores and grades but has depression and anxiety that has affected their academic and personal life.  They are also non-binary. Tina saw my child’s persuasive “story” and helped my teen to see their strengths and personal story and to feel comfortable writing it. My child hates writing about themselves, but almost always completed their assignments with Tina on-time. I completely trusted Tina and only minimally reviewed the essays, so that the writing process would be fully my child’s.

I feel very grateful to have found Tina.  I was able to communicate with Tina privately, to provide some "back story" and Tina was always perceptive about my observations.  I felt like the three of us were a team, working towards my teen's goal. I would imagine that Tina would do well working with any student, as Tina seems so committed to in bringing out each student's unique story to its best advantage.

Elaine Lotus Chan would be an excellent choice to help narrow his list and work on his applications.  She has worked with all types of students.  She can tell you which schools you might want to apply to based on your son's ACT/SAT scores along with other factors. I know she helps with the essays as well.   www.elainechancollegeadvising.com.  Tina Boyer is a fantastic writing coach.  She works with kids on their essays and personal statements.  She was amazing and really helped my son take ownership!  https://www.boyercoaching.com.  James Eno Tutorials down on Milvia helped my son decide whether to focus on the SAT or the ACT and then helped him improve his score by a ton!  http://www.jamesenotutorials.com.  Good luck.  We have just finished the process and now wait to hear back! 

Tina was a wonderful support for my son as he wrote his college application essays. He has ADD, so he has a lot of ideas but has always had trouble choosing one and sticking with it to develop it into a cohesive narrative. Tina was accessible, patient and I think my son felt a genuine sense of caring from her that helped him open up and write about things that were vulnerable and in the end, made for some great essays. He says he feels like he became a stronger writer by getting the individualized support, he now has more confidence and skill to bang out other writing assignments that used to be agonizing for him. I HIGHLY recommend Tina. We couldn't have made it through that passage without her. (Plus he got into all 8 colleges! I believe in his case, it was very connected to his essays.) Thank you Tina!

My high school senior worked with Tina on her essays for UCs and a lot of privates schools.  Tina was amazing. My daughter, and I, really connected with her and she provided exactly what my daughter needed. In our case that did not include a lot of planning because my daughter is pretty organized and had ideas of what she wanted to write on for a number of essays but I have the sense that Tina would be great at the planning too.  We wanted to work with someone who would really bring our daughter's ideas to light, not make her sound like a different person and that's exactly what Tina did. All of her essays were stronger after Tina helped her fine tune them.  In addition, and this was huge for someone applying to a lot of schools, Tina helped her see how a lot of essays were versions on a theme, showed her what it really meant to right some of the standard "why us?" essays, and helped her find strong themes when she didn't already have them. While I don't think that the judgement of an essay coach should be how many schools someone gets into (since that's a function of a lot of things), my daughter did very well on the private schools she applied to and got into some that were reaches for her and I am sure that was on the strength of her essays as her grades were very good but not over the top and her test scores were just ok. Tina as also super responsive and easy to work with. We highly recommend Tina!

Archived Q&A and Reviews


May 2016

RE: College Admissions Essays Help

I've worked with Tina Boyer to prepare essay-writing workshops. She is a Berkeley-based college essay coach with several years experience (and a successful track record) helping students improve their personal statements and supplemental essays. She can assist students at any stage of the essay process, be it developing a timeline for completing their work to brainstorming topics to drafting and ultimately polishing their writing. She has worked with several respected independent counselors and was mentored by a long-time UC admissions reader. Here’s her LinkedIn profile: www.linkedin.com/in/tinaboyer. Tina can be reached at: tinaboyer [at] mac.com (tinaboyer[at]mac[dot]com). Karen G