When I posted my first flyer on Nantucket’s Main Street, I unknowingly carved out a niche for myself. It’s a niche that has allowed me to bill $300 an hour for helping rich kids find creative ways to say they’ve been traumatized—officially known as “admissions consulting.”
While there are plenty of for-hire college counselors whose job it is to cite the same ominous statistics over and over (tremble at Harvard’s 3.4 percent acceptance rate), hand-hold neurotic parents, and rehash Hayden’s List for the millionth time, this is not my realm. I don’t talk students through early-decision strategy or delineate reach, target, and safety schools. I’m strictly essays.
