Your Essay Coaches
Wendy Phillips
Wendy has been an educator for 15 years and a college counselor for seven of those. She is currently the Director of College Counseling at a high school in San Francisco. She loves helping students find a dynamic voice in their essays, and she has guided many an anxious writer from messy first draft to eloquent final product. Wendy has a BA in English Literature and a Masters in Education from Brown University.
Ben Cullen
Ben has been an English teacher and college essay coach in the Bay Area’s independent school landscape since 2012. Before that, he was a graduate-student instructor and lecturer at UC Berkeley, where he advanced to PhD candidacy in English. He loves helping students find and sharpen their written voice.
Our Approach
With 20 years of combined experience helping students write the essays that help them be noticed by their dream colleges, Wendy and Ben emphasize self-awareness, rapid prototyping, and creative writing prompts to help students unlock the story they want to tell about themselves during such a deeply significant transitional moment in their lives. Ben is a cat person. Wendy is a dog person.