Noah Grossman

What do you want to say? When students arrive with a college essay filled with what other people want to hear, my job is to put them back in the driver’s seat. In five years of guiding students towards admissions success at schools like Stanford, Williams, Cornell, New York University, Rice, Washington University, and Johns Hopkins, my mission has evolved, yet also stayed steadfast: helping students figure out what’s true to them.

The college admissions process can lead students to over-emphasize where they want to be. But in order to write a compelling college essay and craft a compelling college application, a student must know where he or she is now. A good college essay, above all else, must capitalize on the present tense. For readers to resonate with a student’s story, they need to feel as though the student is there with them. So, I encourage students to find their flow, and write generously in early drafts, and then – reduce reduce reduce! In the end, it’s just as much about what you don’t say.

My own love for writing started in the pages of books, in the city that practically invented them. Although I am originally from Boston and have always been inspired by its charm, when considering college I gravitated towards another mecca of the written word: Los Angeles, California. Forfeiting a family legacy at both MIT and Harvard to pursue storytelling, I studied animation at California Institute of the Arts. I also interned for production companies like StudioCanal (Basic Instinct, Mulholland Drive, JFK) and Valhalla Entertainment (The Terminator, The Walking Dead) before graduating to pursue indie filmmaking. Though I am also an active screenwriter and songwriter, I feel my story has come full circle. I’m still dedicated to the same pursuit that makes my hometown known around the world: asking young people to define what matters most to them and help them move towards the most meaningful path.