college essay advisors uc

University of California Essay Guide 2019-2020 (From a Berkeley Perspective)

University of California, Berkeley, is part of the 10 campuses of the UC system and has been ranked consistently as one of the top public universities in the world. It is a renowned research institution and boasts of numerous Nobel laureates among its faculty and alumni. Per its website, UC Berkeley had a 16.8% acceptance rate of incoming freshmen and a 25.3% acceptance rate of transfer students in 2019. There are more than 40,000 students with over 100 undergraduate programs to choose from. These programs are split between six colleges and schools: the College of Letters & Science, College of Chemistry, College of Engineering, College of Environmental Design, College of Natural Resources, and Haas School of Business. Haas School of Business is the only school that requires a separate application and interview process which takes place after the necessary course requirements have been met.

Situated in the Bay Area, UC Berkeley is closely connected with tech hubs such as San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Perhaps what makes Berkeley most unique, however, is its culture. The Free Speech Movement that took place on campus during 1964-65 made lasting impacts on the university and its students and the sentiments which inspired the protest continues to strongly influence student culture today. The more recent student protests in 2017 regarding conservative speakers Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos, while controversial, has sparked new debates across campus regarding the meaning and significance of free speech.

Since its founding in 1868, UC Berkeley continues to attract motivated and bright students. The application process for Cal is the same as any other UC campus . In 2016 the UC system changed the required essay format from two personal statements to four short essays with eight prompts to choose from, with a limit of 350 words each. In this essay guide I have not only listed the prompts but also included my own recommendations for how to best respond to them. For more help with writing your college application essays, schedule a session with a CollegeAdvisor.com Admissions Expert .

University of California Essay Prompts

1. describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time..

For obvious reasons, a long-term experience would work better than a shorter one for this prompt. It can be hard to come up with an example of a leadership role if you are more introverted; however, besides the typical sports team captain and club presidents, leadership can be demonstrated in a lot of different experiences. For example, have you ever tutored a group of students, or took the lead in a class project?

The main thing to focus on is how your efforts have influenced other people. You can definitely talk about the challenges you faced during your experience and how you worked to overcome them, but the main goal should be to convey the positive impact you were able to create.

2. Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

Answering this question can definitely be difficult especially because of how vague it is. But like the topic of this prompt, get creative!

A good way to approach this prompt might be to reflect on an instance in which you had to use your creativity to achieve something. Giving a concrete example is a great way of demonstrating your creative process and how you approach the world around you. You don’t have to win an essay contest or an art competition to be creative — your creativity can be reflected even in the most mundane activities.

3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

This is the time to showcase your hobbies. Think about something you’re passionate about and how you have developed that passion over time. This can range from playing an instrument to speech and debate.

It can be a good idea to think about the kinds of clubs and activities you have participated in. How have these extracurriculars honed a particular skill set? Did you become a better communicator through mentoring others? Did you take your coding to the next level through an internship? Don’t be afraid to think outside the box for this one!

4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

Maybe you are a first-generation college student. Maybe your first language isn’t English. How did you push yourself to go beyond the cards you were dealt with?

Academics at Cal can be vigorous, so admission officers are looking for students who continually challenge themselves. As you answer this question, keep in mind that you want to demonstrate yourself as someone who goes above and beyond in your studies.

5. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

If your grades ever took a dip, this is the time to defend yourself. Of course, you definitely don’t have to choose a challenge that affected your grade negatively; it can also be a challenge that might have inspired you to do better academically.

If you do choose to talk about a time where your hardships detracted from your academic achievement, however, make sure you can spin it in a positive way. For example, what did you learn about yourself? Did the experience motivate you in some way? The focus should be on what you’ve gained from your experience.

6. Describe your favorite academic subject and explain how it has influenced you.

This is a chance for the admission officers to see what kind of student you are. How do you approach your classes and how do you learn? What interests you intellectually? What excites you? How do you let your academics influence you or broaden your way of thinking?

Accordingly, it can be helpful to reflect on what you are passionate about. The most important part of this prompt, however, is how your academic subject has influenced you. Did your thinking change because of the subject? Did it inspire you? Did it challenge you to do something differently? These are all good questions to start your brainstorming as you write your answer.

7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

Now is the time to talk about your achievements! As you write your answers, though, keep in mind that you want to convey what you accomplished without coming across as bragging.

What the admission officers want to see here is the type of connections you have made with the community around you. It can be a good idea to talk about what you learned from your experiences as well, or other personal growth you made throughout your efforts.

8. What is the one thing that you think sets you apart from other candidates applying to the University of California?

There are over 40,000 students at Cal. The school probably receives over 10,000 applications each year. Do you really possess something that you won’t be able to find in another Berkeley applicant? Unlikely.

But answer the question you must. Of course, nobody is expecting you to come up with something completely unique to you. But here is a chance to reveal your quirky side (as long as you can spin it positively) . If you find yourself stuck and starting to circle around bland answers such as being hardworking, being a first-generation college student, etc., it might be better to choose another prompt.

General tips:

• Admission officers read through A LOT of applications every day. You want to write something that can grab their attention within the first sentence . Always keep the prompts in mind. You only have 350 words, so answer the question!
• It can be a good idea to ask someone who might not know you very well to read your essays . Ask them if they feel that they have gained a better understanding of who you are based on what they read.

This essay guide was written by Anglea Gao , UC Berkeley Class of 2019. If you want to get more help writing your Cal application essays from Angela or other CollegeAdvisor.com Admissions Experts, click here to schedule a free call .

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The Ultimate UC Strategy and Essay Guide

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14 Best College Essay Services for 2024 (40 Services Reviewed)

Research conducted by Emily Kierkegaard , PhD, and expert-reviewed by Kevin Wong, PrepMaven Co-founder

Not sure which college application essay coaching and editing service is the best? We compared the top 40 services, created in-depth reviews for 14 of them, and narrowed it down to the 4 best that will help guide you through the process of writing amazing college application essays.

What is the Best College Essay Service?

• PrepMaven  – best college application essay service overall
• College Essay Mentor  – best for individual consultants
• The College Essay Guy  – best for unlimited essay assistance
• College Vine  – best of the big platforms

The best of the rest:

Individual essay consultants:

• College Essay Editor  – small editing team
• Allison Karpf  – former English teacher helping students
• Your College Vision  – former journalist with more affordable rates
• The College Guru  – good on paper but unresponsive
• Sofia Zapiola – budget-friendly application assistance

Mid-size teams:

• Lotus Learning  – focus on health sciences

Large platforms:

• Study Point  – larger platform with mystery editors
• Ivy Select  – larger platform with mystery editors
• Empowerly  – larger platform with mystery editors
• BeMo  – expensive and aggressive with wrong expertise

Schedule a college essay consultation

Best College Application Essay Services in 2024

#1 – prepmaven.

Our Verdict — Best College Essay Assistance Overall Price: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package) PrepMaven’s one-on-one college essay assistance is the best option overall. Founded by brothers and Princeton grads Greg and Kevin, almost all of PrepMaven’s essay coaches have Ivy-League experience, primarily from Princeton and Harvard. All essay coaches also undergo a thorough training program in PrepMaven’s methods, developed by professional writers with deep understanding of the college admissions process, for helping students to discover the most compelling stories for their essays. Unlike other services, PrepMaven offers college essay assistance at several different price points. At the most accessible rate, students can work with current Ivy-League undergraduates who specialize in writing and have recently aced the college application process. At higher rates, students can work with coaches who are both Ivy-League grads and professional writers (screenwriters, journalists, editors) with many years of experience helping students to craft compelling essays. Interested students can even work directly with founders Greg and Kevin, who have over 15 years of experience helping students through the entire essay-writing process. PrepMaven’s services combine many of the best features of other good options into one, and it’s hard to beat their experience.

Sign up for PrepMaven’s college essay help now

Any student wanting college essay help, at any point in the process, with a range of budgets.

At a glance:

• Cost: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package)
• Writing coach qualifications: Princeton graduates and professional writers (or current Princeton students); all trained

What we like:

• Ivy League experience —most of their writing coaches are Princeton grads or current students, with some from Harvard and other Ivies
• Different pricing options to meet different families’ circumstances
• More flexible and greater capacity to take on new students compared to individual consultants

Sign up for PrepMaven’s college essay help

#2 – College Essay Mentor

Our Verdict — Best of the Individual Consultants Price: unknown but high Some college essay consulting services consist of just one expert. Of these individual essay consultants, Chris Hunt at College Essay Mentor is our favorite. He combines writing experience as a journalist for the Economist and the Wall Street Journal with personal experience as a graduate of Dartmouth. However, he only works with a small number of students each year, and students need to apply to work with him — he only accepts students with top grades and test scores who are already strong applicants for top schools. Chris offers the option for one-time written feedback, but this only gives big-picture generalizations. (And written-only feedback is always limited.) In order for help with the essay process, students need to purchase a complete essay package.

Students with top grades and test scores who want to work with a one-person business, who have a sizable budget, and who are ready to get started early.

• Cost: $210 for a one-time written essay feedback (big picture only), then $110 per draft feedback; pricing for essay process packages unknown
• Essay coach qualifications: professional journalist, Dartmouth grad
• Professional writing experience as a journalist
• Extensive experience working with college applicants
• Partners with Debra Felix, former Director of Admissions at Columbia, for full application review

What we don’t like:

• One-on-one work is limited to very high-achieving students, who need to apply with a resume : “I limit my one-on-one work to students who I believe will be strong applicants to elite universities. As a rule, this means having high grades in challenging classes, a test score of ACT 34+ or SAT 1500+, and substantial activities outside of the classroom.”
• Works with a limited number of students (60 per year), so often no availability
• All-or-nothing packages don’t allow students to work with Chris for just a few hours or for part of the essay-writing process
• Secretive about pricing (he’ll only give pricing details once he’s reviewed the student’s resume and agreed to work with them), but we expect the minimum cost of working one-on-one to be several thousand dollars

#3 – The College Essay Guy

Our Verdict — Best for Unlimited Essay Assistance Price: $4900 for application to 3 schools, $8050 for application for 10 schools We’re fans of Ethan Sawyer, the original “college essay guy”— his book, College Essay Essentials , is a great guide to the essay-writing process. Ethan doesn’t work directly with many students these days, but he now has a team of consultants who help students follow his principles. Their assistance is really all-or-nothing — they prefer to work with students from the very beginning of the process, and their minimum package is $4900, which includes assistance with essays for three schools. If students are applying to ten schools (a more realistic number for students aiming at competitive colleges), the fee is a hefty $7400.

Students who want unlimited help through the entire process, who have a sizable budget.

• Cost: $4900 (supplemental essays for 3 schools) – $7400 (supplemental essays for 10 schools)
• Essay coach qualifications: mix of Ivy grads and former teachers, some writers/screenwriters; all trained
• Great free resources about the essay-writing process
• Their Matchlighters Scholars Program gives back to the community by providing admissions consulting for select qualifying students
• All-or-nothing packages have a high minimum fee and don’t work for students who want just a few hours of feedback or help with just part of the process

#4 – College Vine

Our Verdict — Best of the Big Platforms Price: $140–180/hour There are plenty of large platforms with large stables of part-time tutors and coaches available to work with students. Of these big platforms, we think CollegeVine has the best offerings. Compared to other large companies, CollegeVine provides more information about their tutors, and students can pick individual tutors to work with from their roster. However, this model is really just a way of finding individual tutors to hire. Tutors don’t receive any training and don’t share a common approach, so it’s a mixed bag. Their rates are fairly high for part-time tutors who don’t have specific expertise and training in college essay consulting. Because CollegeVine is really just a marketplace where individual tutors can find students, the quality and price will vary widely.

Students who want to work with a big company, or those who want a quick session or two to go over their essays.

• Cost: Typically $140–180/hour
• Essay coach qualifications: no specific qualifications, but a few are Ivy League graduates
• Possible to select individual editors to work with from their roster.
• Easy to schedule ad-hoc sessions with a tutor through the website.
• No training or common approach for tutors
• Editors are part-time , with no option to work with full-time college admissions experts
• Relatively expensive for this level of expertise

College Essay Editing Alternatives (that Didn’t Make the Cut)

Individual essay consultants, #5 – college essay editor.

Our Verdict — Small Editing Team Price: Roughly $5,950 for applications to 10 schools College Essay Editor comprises two graduates of Stanford. This means that they have personal experience applying to highly competitive schools. One member of the team also has a college counseling certification, which is a good background for college essays. Based on their website, they appear to focus on the editing and proofreading phase of the essay-writing process. This can be helpful to students, but we recommend working with a service who can help students to uncover their values and brainstorm really great material that allows them to really shine—and if this doesn’t happen at the beginning of the process, it’s much harder to add in later on.

• Cost: $195/1000 words for proofreading, $495/1000 words for 3 rounds of editing and proofreading, or $595/1000 words for unlimited rounds of editing and proofreading; for the purposes of comparison, complete applications to 10 competitive colleges would be around 9,650 words, or $5950.
• Writing coach qualifications: Stanford graduates, one of whom has college counseling certification
• Editors are graduates of Stanford University , and one is a member of NACAC, the national association of college counselors
• They focus on editing and proofreading only , not on the crucial earlier steps of brainstorming and strategy
• Small team with very limited availability
• All asynchronous editing so you won’t be able to cultivate a real relationship with your essay coach.

#6 – Allison Karpf

Our Verdict — Former English Teacher Helping Students Price: $385/hour or $3850 package for application to one school Another option for students looking to hire an individual consultant is Allison Karpf. Allison is a former high school English teacher and a graduate of UC Berkeley who also holds a Masters of Education from Stanford. Her rates are definitely on the higher side, especially for someone who doesn’t have a professional writing background, but she does have extensive experience working with students to craft their essays.

• Cost:  $385/hour or $3850 unlimited counseling (includes supplemental essays for one college)
• Essay coach qualifications: former high school English teacher; Berkeley grad, Stanford MEd
• Lots of experience helping students improve their college essays
• Very quick to respond to client requests
• No professional writing experience or Ivy-Plus undergraduate experience
• High rates relative to other options
• Limited availability , since she works alone

#7 – Your College Vision

Our Verdict: Former Journalist with More Affordable Rates Price: $180/hour, or packages starting from $3500 Laurie Lande is another individual consultant who helps students through the essay-writing process. She comes recommended by other consultants like Chris from College Essay Mentor . Laurie did not herself attend a highly competitive school, so she doesn’t have that personal experience of going through the selective admissions process, but she does have a professional writing background as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong.

• Cost: $180/hour or packages starting at $3500
• Essay coach qualifications: journalism background
• Affordable pricing , relative to other options
• Not a graduate of a highly selective school

#8 – The College Guru

Our Verdict — Good on Paper but Unresponsive Price: unknown Yet another individual essay consultant is Geanine Thompson from The College Guru. Geanine attended Dartmouth as an undergraduate and also holds an MBA from Duke. She also has a professional writing background as an assistant book editor at Berkley Publishing Group. Like Greg and Kevin at PrepMaven , she combines experience in the business world and at Wall Street firms with experience in education.

• Cost: unknown
• Essay coach qualifications: former assistant book editor; Dartmouth grad, Duke MBA
• Dartmouth graduate and former book editor
• Not responsive to emails and client requests

#9 – Sofia Zapiola

Our Verdict — A budget-friendly, personal essay editor. Price: $80/hour Yet another individual essay consultant is Sofia Zapiola, who offers a mix of essay editing and college application counseling services.

• Cost: $80/hour
• Essay coach qualifications: M.A. from Harvard; certificate in College Counseling from UC San Diego.
• Individual approach, budget-friendly rates, commitment to working within families’ budgets.
• Very few testimonials, so it’s difficult to evaluate how effective she is.

Mid-size Teams

#10 – lotus learning.

Our Verdict — Expensive for Tutor Background Price: $165/hour Founded by a Harvard grad who is a former teacher and veteran of the publishing industry, Lotus learning offers college essay help in the Boston area. They have a small team of tutors, mostly recent grads from good but not Ivy-Plus colleges, and mostly with focus in health sciences.

• Cost: $165/hour (minimum 8 hours)
• Essay coach qualifications: tutors are recent grads, but not Ivy-Plus schools
• Reasonable pricing with flexible packages
• Essay editors aren’t graduates of Ivy-Plus schools and don’t have professional writing experience

Large platforms

#11 – study point.

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: Rates Between $60 and $120/hr Study Point is a larger essay editing service. They claim to have several decades of experience helping students to craft their college essays, but they do not give information about who their essay coaches are and what qualifications they might have.

• Cost: $60-120/hr, depending on tutor experience
• Essay coach qualifications: unknown
• Larger company with several decades of experience
• Unclear who the essay coaches are
• Lack of statistics about their results

#12 – Ivy Select

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: unknown Ivy Select makes a lot of big promises on their website about having the best college essay consultants in the business, but they offer no information on who these consultants are, or on their backgrounds. They also brag that each consultant “only” works 20 students in one application cycle, but in our experience, that’s quite high.

• Long list of impressive (but anonymous) testimonials
• Only work with “top students”
• No information on their website about who the editors are
• Each essay coach works with up to 20 students at one time

#13 – Empowerly

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: High, from $6000/year Empowerly has over 60 college counselors who each work with an average of 5 students per year, in order to have more time to devote to each student. Their counselors come from “different educational backgrounds,” and while they do not provide specific biographical details we can assume that most of their essay coaches did not attend highly selective schools.

• Cost: typically from $6000/year
• Essay coach qualifications: college counselors
• Counselors work with just a few students per year
• You have to upgrade to “Empowerly Elite” to guarantee a counselor with a more selective educational background
• No professional writing experience

#14 – Prepory

Our Verdict — Expensive but with Good Expertise Price: $325/hr Prepory is a college application and career counseling service that offers a comprehensive program for college applications at any stage of the process (including as early as 9th grade). They make a lot of impressive claims about the expertise of their coaches, but it’s quite difficult to actual find much information about their essay coach qualifications.

• Cost: $325/hr
• They have a comprehensive college application program that begins as early as 9th grade.
• Limited information about essay coaches
• High prices

Top 40 College Essay Services Considered

• College Essay Editor
• The College Essay Guy
• College Vine
• College Essay Mentor
• Study Point
• Allison Karpf
• The College Guru
• Lotus Learning
• Summit Prep
• Sofia Zapiola
• Ivy Global / New Summits
• College Essay Solutions
• Your College Vision
• Essay Edge*
• ServicEscape*
• PapersForge*
• QuickWriter*
• JustEditMyEssay*
• JustDoMyEsssay*
• ExpertWriting*
• SpeedyPaper*
• GradeMiners*

* A number of services will edit essays directly for students, or even write portions of the essay for students. We do not condone this. Admissions officers can tell when essays have been written or edited by adults and this can have severe consequences. We have excluded these services from our reviews.

Why are college application essays important?

Can a great college essay alone get you into Harvard?

No. You’ll need your grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities (as well as letters of recommendation and interview) to be outstanding.

But can a mediocre essay be the reason you didn’t get into Harvard?

Yes. There are thousands of amazingly-qualified students who graduate from high school each year. Great grades and test scores might be a prerequisite for admission to a competitive college, but they alone aren’t enough.

College essays are a key component of a student’s application . When done well, they transform a collection of numbers—GPA, class rank, SAT or ACT scores , number of AP classes taken, AP scores—into a glimpse of a real, individual person.

Essays do many things. Good college essays can highlight extracurricular achievements which otherwise would be overlooked in a sterile list. Strong essays often indicate the student’s future plans —how they plan to leave a mark on their college campus and on the world. They can shine a light on unique challenges that a student may have had to face on their journey.

College admissions officers only have a few minutes to spend on each application. College essays need to be original, interesting, and memorable . They need to grab the attention of the admissions officer and persuade them that this is the student out of hundreds or thousands of other similarly-qualified applicants who should be admitted.

College admissions essays are usually unlike any other kind of writing that students have done before. They’re a combination of memoir and marketing pitch, and they need to be creative but also highly strategic. That’s a tough assignment!

What’s more, students are left to figure this assignment out on their own. A thoughtful and generous high school English teacher may provide guidance or offer to read essays and give feedback, but these teachers are responsible for many students, and they’re (usually) not experts in admissions strategies.

There’s another reason college essays are especially important from 2024 on. After the recent Supreme Court decision, the application essay has become one of the main ways that you can communicate how your racial identity has affected your life.

In fact, the New York Times published an article about how important it can be for students to discuss race in their college application essays!

Why work with a college essay service?

You may want to consider a college essay service if:

• You have no idea where to start in order to write your college application essays
• You feel overwhelmed by all of the different ideas you have and don’t know what would be the most strategic for college admissions—and what topics to definitely avoid for college essays
• You don’t know how to craft a compelling stor y
• You’re not sure how to edit and refine what you’ve written
• You have a hard time keeping yourself on track and want an external structure to hold you accountable
• You’re tired of conflict between students and parents about college essays
• You’re aiming at a competitive college (not just the Ivy League!) and know that you need your essays to be outstanding
• Your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars aren’t exceptional, so you need your essay to make your essay stand out from the pack
• You’re unfamiliar with the US college admissions process (a common situation for international students and first-generation families in the US)

Any of these are strong reasons to consider working with a college essay service!

It’s also worth remembering that a lot of the free advice on college’s website isn’t always very clear. For example, NYU’s admissions Senior Assistant Director of Admissions says that “There is no right or wrong way to answer as long as your answer is genuine to you.”

While that’s true, that doesn’t offer much guidance on how to actually write the essay!

Though many college applicants might not mention it, more and more students are using professional college application consultants. Research at the University of Chicago has shown that over a quarter of high-achieving seniors employed private specialists to help with the college application process.

In fact, according to NPR , some companies are even offering college admissions counseling to their top employees as an incentive–that’s just how important professional help can be in the current landscape of college admissions.

It’s important to note that a good college essay service will not write your college application essays for you . This is unethical and illegal. That’s not just coming from us: take it from a school like Princeton, whose website insists on the importance of writing your own application essays.

A good college essay service will guide you through each step of the process , teaching you how to self-reflect and write well while sharing insider insight about admissions strategy .

What makes a good college essay service?

We strongly believe that students need to write their own college essays , and we do not condone plagiarism or “buying” a college essay.

However, writing college application essays requires a completely new set of skills that is rarely taught in high school!

Writing a personal essay is much more creative than simply writing a good paper for English class. It requires a compelling narrative and a great deal of writing craft . A good essay service will teach how to do this kind of writing.

There are many college essay services that will provide only written feedback to students, usually in the form of comments added to an essay draft. (Remember, it’s important that students write their own essays, so avoid any college essay service that will make edits directly to an essay document .)

Written comments can be an effective component of good essay coaching. However, writing college essays is a deeply personal process , and it’s incredibly difficult to guide a student through the process of self-reflection, brainstorming, and planning purely through written comments.

In addition, a great college essay coach will teach students how to do this entire process of brainstorming, planning, outlining, writing, and revising . It’s difficult to learn why an essay coach is advising certain changes through written comments alone.

For these reasons, look for a college essay service with live, one-on-one services , not just written feedback. These days, it’s easy to work with the best college essay consultants in the country over Zoom!

Students need to reflect on their goals, their passions, and what drives them to be the person they are. This requires a great deal of self-awareness and self-analysis . An experienced college essay coach can help draw these ideas out of students through tested introspection techniques and brainstorming exercises .

On top of all of that, students need to be cognizant of which traits and accomplishments will be most appealing to colleges , and which stories will be cliche and boring. Personal statements and supplementary essays need to fit together to tell a cohesive story, and they need to work together with the rest of the student’s application (extracurriculars, grades, and other accomplishments).

In other words, there’s a great deal of strategy here! An experienced college essay service can help students decide how to present themselves in the best possible light .

Furthermore, most students don’t know how to edit effectively . A really top-notch college essay service will also teach students how to edit their own writing —how to reorder sections for better flow, cut unnecessary words to meet a word count, eliminate passive verbs, and make their writing vivid and exciting. Our students are routinely amazed by how transformative this step can be, and how much they learn by doing it together with the essay coach.

Finally, the best college essay services can also help students to make a writing plan and keep them on track , so that parents don’t have to be involved directly.

Ready to work on your college essays? Schedule a free 15- to 30-minute consultation with Jessica or one of our founders.

Best overall: PrepMaven’s tutors offer the highest quality at the best price. With three tiers of tutors, they make it easy to work with an Ivy League undergraduate for as little as $79/hr. Or, families can work with education professionals or Ivy League graduates from $150/hr. PrepMaven’s track record means that you can be sure every hour is being spent productively, so that you can expect real results from the work.

Best for individual consultants: College Essay Mentor. In theory, College Essay Mentor would offer an unparalleled level of individual attention and guidance: his website boasts of some very impressive results. You might find it hard to actually schedule with him, however, since he’s very selective about his clients.

Best for unlimited essay assistance: The College Essay Guy might not offer that personalized attention you get from live, face to face essay coaching, but they do offer unlimited essay editing for up to 10 schools (if you’re comfortable paying a hefty package price).

Best of the big platforms: College Vine will always be a bit of a gamble. Because it’s a tutor marketplace, your results (and costs) will really depend on how lucky you get with your consultant. From our research, however, many of their essay coaches look to have solid track records.

Ready to work on college essays with one of our experienced writing coaches? Schedule a free test prep consultation with Jessica (Director of Tutoring) or one of our founders to see what would be the best fit for your family.

It’s always best to start early and not wait until the last minute to write your college essays! Remember that essays can be used to earn scholarships as well as college admission, so a few months of writing now can pay off with up to $300,000 in tuition saved later. 

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Emily graduated  summa cum laude  from Princeton University and holds an MA from the University of Notre Dame. She was a National Merit Scholar and has won numerous academic prizes and fellowships. A veteran of the publishing industry, she has helped professors at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton revise their books and articles. Over the last decade, Emily has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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Your advisor is there to help you with anything related to your academic program at UC. While it is not always clear which questions or concerns your advisor can help you with, know that your advisor is able to refer you to the right place. Advisors are typically available via email or by appointment. You can find your advisor's email address in Catalyst . Most advisors are available for appointment scheduling in My Bearcat Network .

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• Location: French Hall West 2510 (second floor)
• Phone: 513.556.6540
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• Phone: 513.556.9922
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• Location: University Pavilion, 1st Floor
• Phone: 513.556.2166
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• Location: Richard E. Lindner Center 580
• Phone: 513.556.0554
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Last updated July 2021

College of Biological Sciences

Exploring the inner lives of primates, birds and whales.

Postdoc Josephine Hubbard has followed the daily routines of lemurs, explored how macaques and birds solve problems, and even “conversed” with a whale

• by Douglas Fox
• June 06, 2024

The day that Josephine Hubbard met Twain, she didn’t realize at first how unusual the encounter was. 

Hubbard, who earned a Ph.D. in animal behavior in the College of Biological Sciences, is now a post-doctoral researcher at UC Davis. She is 33, five foot seven, has kind, serious eyes, and grew up in upstate New York. She’s animated as she describes the afternoon, three summers ago in Alaska, when she met Twain. Yes, it was a stilted conversation — that’s often the case when there’s a language barrier — but she’ll remember it for the rest of her life.

Twain is 41 or so. She is 50 feet long and weighs around 35 tons — a typical middle-aged humpback whale. A migratory creature, Twain splits her time between Alaska, British Columbia, and Hawaii, making the 2800-mile trek twice per year. She’s easy to identify because of the two patches of gleaming barnacles that stand out like glittery toenails on either tip of her tail. 

On August 19, 2021, Hubbard stood on the top deck of the Glacier Seal , a research vessel, in Frederick Sound — a fjord flanked by mountains covered in conifer forests, 60 miles south of Juneau. Her job was to capture video of any whale approaching the vessel. During her week aboard the ship, she filmed a dozen or so other whales that passed near the boat – all of them brief encounters, like ships passing in the night. But Twain was different.

She circled the ship lazily for 20 minutes, pausing several times at the surface to breathe. 

”It was overwhelming watching this enormous creature swim laps around our boat,” says Hubbard. But only later did the full implications become clear.

When Hubbard went below deck, she learned that the researchers down there had been playing and replaying a recorded whale call to Twain, giving the whale an opportunity to reply to each call. And for 20 minutes, Twain lingered there, responding to each one. The team had also played calls to each of the other whales that week – only Twain answered them.

Hubbard couldn’t hear those throaty whups rippling through the water — but as the team celebrated around her, the potential implications were breathtaking: “We matched her calls and she matched ours, which is pretty remarkable,” she says. “It suggests she was engaging in a conversation.” 

Human linguists are picky about what they consider a true conversation – and Hubbard uses the term cautiously, with the mild caveat of implied quote marks. But she points out that Twain’s behavior, as well as her calls, suggested that it really was a back-and-forth communication of some sort. 

Hubbard was helping with that project as a graduate student. Although she enjoyed her time with the whales, she’s spent most of her career working with primates. Currently she works at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) under Melissa Bauman, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology, and director of the Women in Medicine and Health Sciences program in the UC Davis School of Medicine, with affiliations in the Center for Neuroscience, and the MIND Institute. 

But the experience with Twain was a meaningful step in Hubbard’s long-term pursuit: studying the inner lives of animals, probing how they adapt to new challenges, how they form social networks, and how they make decisions when humans encroach.

“I absolutely love doing field research,” she says. “Whether it’s studying monkeys or birds or whales.”

From Madagascar to Malaysia

Hubbard grew up in a small ski town in the Catskill Mountains. Her dad did carpentry and taught skiing, while her mom waitressed and bartended. 

Long hikes and camping trips with her father in the local forests imbued her with an interest in the natural world. After reading a book about jaguar research, she excitedly told her high school counselor that the wanted to be a field biologist; the counselor advised her to consider teaching or nursing instead. 

It was a painful moment. Hubbard wondered whether the counselor was seeing her through the lens of gender roles. But she now looks back on it with more generosity. “I think she truly did not know that field biology was a job,” she says. “She was trying to give me the best advice she could.” 

By the time Hubbard enrolled in State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook, she’d grown interested in ecology, animal behavior, and human impact on the natural world. Having grown up in a small, insular mountain town, she craved an opportunity to travel and expand her worldview. So she jumped at the chance to do a semester abroad in Madagascar. 

Working under Patricia Wright, a prominent primatologist at Stony Brook, Hubbard spent 10 weeks in Ranomafana National Park — a fragment of intact rainforest that is still inhabited by lemurs. She spent long days in the forest, struggling to keep up with her guide as he bounded up and down the steep slopes, dodging through vines and undergrowth. After locating the lemurs, Hubbard spent hours documenting them as they swung and hopped through the crisscrossing branches overhead. 

Comparing lemurs in two areas — one frequented by tourists, the other not — she found that lemurs near tourists spent more time traveling, moving frequently to avoid contact with the intruding humans. And perhaps because they were constantly on the move, they spent less time engaged in grooming and other social interactions. These effects were strongest when tourists approached the lemurs in large groups or startled them with flash photography. 

By the end of that trip, Hubbard felt inspired by Dr. Wright’s role model as a woman in science; she realized that whatever her high school counselor might have implied, a career in field biology was not only possible, but potentially fulfilling.

After graduating with a dual degree in biology and anthropology in 2012, she worked as a field assistant on two other projects, studying capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica and bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo, before taking a laboratory assistant job with Brenda McCowan, a professor of ethology — that is, behavior — in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

Working with McCowan at the CNPRC, she mapped out the development of infant macaque social networks— who they huddled with, and who they groomed. She also worked closely with a postdoc in the lab to profile bacterial DNA in macaque feces and found that gut bacteria travel from monkey to monkey through these same contacts. “It’s important,” she says, “because it could shed light on the way that social networks influence health and disease transmission.”

By 2017, Hubbard joined the animal behavior graduate group and began her Ph.D. under McCowan. In 2018, she visited Malaysia to study the problem-solving acumen of macaques at Templer Park, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Tourists flock to this lushly forested park to walk along a path past several waterfalls. Macaques gather from the surrounding forest, hoping to grab an unattended drink, or unzip a backpack stuffed with sandwiches. 

Hubbard presented the thieving macaques with two food-getting problems. One was a clear plastic bottle filled with juice — a familiar task that all of the monkeys solved. The other problem was unfamiliar: a plexiglass box containing several peanuts that could be seen from the outside. Opening it required unfastening a set of latches.

She anticipated that macaques who interacted more frequently with humans and received more food handouts would solve this puzzle most easily. After all, they were probably better-nourished than their peers, since they could get more calorie-laden human food. But to Hubbard’s surprise, macaques who fed more on human food were less exploratory with these novel puzzles, suggesting that interaction with urban landscapes alters how macaques’ approach newly introduced objects into their environment. 

Looking forward and giving back

Hubbard completed her Ph.D. in December of 2023, and began working with Bauman in January of 2024, studying how young macaques gain cognitive abilities and problem-solving flexibility as they mature.

She takes into that new job the broad experience gained while earning her Ph.D. During that time, she began writing stories about her work for lay readers, publishing them in The Ethogram , the official blog of the Animal Behavior Graduate Group. She co-chaired the group’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, and helped establish a food pantry for grad students — a demographic well known for living on a shoestring budget.

As part of these DEI efforts, she helped develop online educational materials to guide prospective Ph.D. candidates through the process of applying to grad school. Mindful of her own beginnings, of being nudged away from her goal of becoming a scientist, she believes that getting into grad school depends on a lot more than simply earning a bachelor’s degree.

”There is a hidden curriculum in academia,” she says. “If you are first-generation and you don’t have a parent who knows how to apply to graduate school, it can be challenging.”

During graduate school, Hubbard also pursued opportunities to dabble in research outside the focus of her Ph.D. She helped on a project to study the problem-solving skills of great-tailed grackles. The goal was to understand whether these birds’ behavioral flexibility – that is, their ability to opportunistically eat insects, stolen French-fries, or many other foods, each collected in different ways – has helped them expand rapidly across urban areas in North America. The experiments found that grackles living in newly settled areas were more flexible in their approaches to finding food than those that had inhabited the same area for a long time. 

And of course, Hubbard helped with the whales in Alaska. That project is co-led by McCowan, her former Ph.D. advisor, and by Laurance Doyle, an astrophysicist at the SETI Institute who is using mathematical analysis to detect complexity, grammar, and intelligence in non-human animals. The eventual hope is to apply their findings to the search for signals from intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.  

Humpback whales are thought to have at least 50 distinguishable calls. The recorded “whup” that was repeatedly broadcast to Twain is thought to serve as a contact call — something along the lines of, “I’m here, is anyone else around?”

“The jury is still out on why Twain was so engaged,” says Hubbard. It could have been a conversation, or something more mundane, like excitement at hearing a familiar voice. After all, the broadcasted call had been recorded one day prior in a pod of whales where Twain was present. Or maybe for Twain it was something stranger: an awkward exchange with an odd visitor, who kept inexplicably repeating, “Hi, I’m here.”

But for Hubbard, it was transcendent — very different from monkeys or birds. “The whales are very stoic,” she says. “When they come up to breathe, it feels like an ancient experience.”

Media Resources

• Douglas Fox is a freelance science writer based in the Bay Area.
• theethogram.com
• Interactive bioacoustics playback as a tool for detecting and exploring nonhuman intelligence: “conversing” with an Alaskan humpback whale ( PeerJ 2023)
• https://www.interspecies.io/lectures/conversing-with-whales  
• Implementing a rapid geographic range expansion – the role of behavior changes ( Peer Community Journal 2023)
• Affiliation and disease risk: social networks mediate gut microbial transmission among rhesus macaques ( Animal Behavior 2019)
• Lemurs and tourism in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar: economic boom and other consequences ( Primate tourism: a tool for conservation 2014)

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PLASMA Demo Day Spotlights Student Startups

• by Molly Bechtel
• June 03, 2024

The Student Startup Center at the University of California, Davis, shined a spotlight on student-led startups at PLASMA Demo Day, the culminating experience of their  12-week early-stage cohort accelerator program .

Ten teams of undergraduate student entrepreneurs pitched their companies to industry experts in front of a packed California Hall on May 2. Of them, five were awarded more than $25,000 in prizes.

The top prize was awarded to  EpiSense , a discrete, wearable device that aims to prevent injuries from seizures. Undergraduate student co-founders Simran Lallian and Jaya Athuluru will use the $10,000 award earned at Demo Day to prototype the hardware, software and app for an electroencephalogram, or EEG, headband.

“Winning first place at PLASMA's Demo Day was an incredible accomplishment for our team,” Lallian and Athuluru said in an email. “PLASMA has helped us to dive deeper into building our startup, and we will use these tools to look into FDA approval, apply for grants and continue to develop our business model.” 

PLASMA facilitates networking with mentors and educational lessons with industry leaders, two opportunities for which the EpiSense team is especially appreciative.

“The amazing people we have met throughout this process have been the highlight for us,” they explained. “From industry professionals to mentors and those at the Student Startup Center, we are immensely grateful for the support we have received.”

Second place went to  The Make Box , led by electrical engineering major Kavya Khare and computer science major Natasha Parker. The Make Box provides creative, hands-on DIY robotics kits with online educational programs and mentorship opportunities for middle school students and parents interested in innovative STEM education.

Tallyrus , led by Gautham Pandian and Ashwin Chembu in the Department of Computer Science, won third place. The AI-powered essay grading tool offers time-strapped educators rapid, detailed and tailored feedback on student writing.

The Mentor’s Choice Award went to  WaveLength , a dating app that uses musical compatibility to match users. It was selected based on mentor feedback to the team that best exemplified tenacity and teamwork.

Fit Candy , a healthy, low-calorie and all-natural candy alternative made from upcycled watermelon rinds led by undergraduate food scientist Dion Skaria, was selected for two prizes: Audience Choice and the Karim Abou Najm Research and Innovation Memorial, or KARIM, Award.

While the Audience Choice Award was identified based on ranked choice voting from more than 600 attendees, the KARIM Award was selected by the parents of Karim Abou Najm. Established  in honor of Karim Abou Najm , who established his company, Cornische, and participated in PLASMA, the award recognizes the team that best utilized university research and mentorship resources through meaningful relationships with faculty.

“Karim's award means a lot to us. It carries our son's name and his passion for innovation and research,” said Nadine Yehya, Karim Abou Najm’s mother. “While all the teams did a very impressive job pitching their wonderful products and solutions, Fit Candy was distinguished in the close collaboration with the faculty on researching and testing the product. Also, the product itself has great market potential as a healthy and tasty fruit-based candy, which could be extended to other varieties. We hope the KARIM Award will give Dion and all PLASMA participants a bigger incentive to succeed and make a difference in this world.”

The PLASMA program is an opportunity for undergraduate student entrepreneurs to learn modern job skills and solve big problems, explained  Aaron Anderson , director of the Student Startup Center.

"At the Student Startup Center, we're all about helping student founders solve some of the biggest problems on the planet," said Anderson.

Next year’s PLASMA program applications go live in the fall quarter.

Meet the PLASMA 2024 Cohort

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As you’re studying for your LSAT, assembling your transcripts, securing letters of recommendation, and saving for your application fees, you may relegate your law school personal statement to the bottom of your list. After all, how hard can it be? Ask some law school applicants, and they’ll tell you: pretty hard!  While LSAT scores and […]

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