The Approach

Above all, my approach is pragmatic. I want to help my students get into a program they’re excited to attend, with as little stress as possible. That means two things: we spend time efficiently, and we start early.

The college process usually gets handled as a series of separate tasks: testing, grades, activities, applications, essays. Each one gets its own person, its own timeline, and eventually its own crisis.

I think it’s really all one process. Picking the right course in ninth grade can open doors in eleventh. An activity a student sticks with for three years often ends up at the center of their essay. And planning for testing early makes a big difference in stress levels and in scores.

I don’t believe in rushing things or in putting college admissions pressure on the early years of high school. But I’ve found that a few decisions made with applications in mind can save a lot of time and effort later, and help make a more competitive application when the time comes.

Working across the whole stretch means decisions get made with the other decisions in mind. What I’m after is a student who understands the process and can move through it without panicking, and an application that represents them well.

The Early Years

Freshman and sophomore years shouldn’t carry the weight of college applications. They’re for adjusting, exploring, learning, and growing. But it helps to know about a few areas that will shape applications later: which courses actually build toward something, which activities are worth staying with, how to use a summer, and especially what the student is curious about.

I think this is the most valuable stretch of the whole process. We make a lot of small choices here that eventually add up to a record that serves the student well when they apply.

Testing

For better or worse, testing is probably the best lever students have to improve their chances of admission. In my experience, hour for hour, test prep does more for a student’s chances than almost anything else they could spend that time on. Testing starts when a student is ready for it, but on the early side.

Two things about how I handle it. The first is timing. I try to get testing substantially finished before application season, ideally by the spring of junior year, so it isn’t competing with essays in the fall. The second is method. Testing is really an optimization problem, and my students spend their time on the most valuable practice available to them at any given moment. I work out what’s actually costing a student points, whether that’s a concept gap, a strategy problem, or one of the particular traps these tests are built around, and then we work on that.

The Application Phase

Application work begins in February of junior year. Most families expect it to start in the summer, and I think that’s usually too late. Summers get eaten by other things, and good essays need room: time to write a draft, put it down for two weeks, and come back to it with fresh eyes.

It’s a mistake to think a great college essay has to be a great piece of writing. It has a specific job in the application, which is to show the reader something about the student that the rest of the file can’t. When we focus on that job, the essays get stronger and the writing gets easier.

During the summer the work picks up. We settle the school list and application strategy, develop the essays, and map out every deadline. My part is strategy, structure, and feedback. The student writes their own essays and owns their own process. If something is slipping I’ll say so, but I won’t chase, and I’ve come to think that boundary is part of why this works.

Continuity

The advantage of working with one person over several years is that nothing gets decided in isolation and nothing falls through the cracks.

By the time we get to applications, I know how the student thinks, what they care about, what they’ll avoid, and what they can do when someone expects more of them.

If this sounds like it might be a fit, I’d be glad to talk about where your student is now and what the next few years could look like.

“Working with Mike for the past year has been one of the most impactful parts of my high school journey.

From the end of sophomore year through junior year, we met weekly... and in that time he helped me raise my SAT score by 370 points and significantly improve my academic performance. But his guidance went far beyond academics.

He helped me navigate every stage of the college application process, developing a thoughtful long-term strategy that ultimately led me to attend my top-choice school.

What stood out most was the consistency and mentorship throughout the process. Sessions always felt personal and motivating, and he genuinely cared about how I was doing both academically and personally. He was ... someone I genuinely looked forward to meeting with each week."

--KC

In ninth grade, most of what we talk about is what the student actually enjoys.

“He helped me raise my SAT score by 370 points.” --KC

Readiness usually means having started Algebra 2, though it varies a lot by school

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