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Quick links to my most helpful tools
Most college essays describe the kid. Mine show how the kid thinks.
I'm Kristie Schmidt.
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I write literary memoir, and I've spent twenty-plus years thinking about how language reveals a person. That's the eye I bring to your kid's draft.
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My coaching is the literary work, applied to the college application.
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I have a B.A. from Smith (with high honors) and an M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Human Development and Psychology, the part of Harvard that studies how teenagers actually think.
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I'm also a National Writing Project Fellow through SUNY Stony Brook.
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For eighteen years I taught AP English Language and Composition in a public high school,
plus nine overlapping years teaching college Academic Writing through UConn's Early College Experience program.Â
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I was trained as an Essay Specialist by College Essay Guy and have been mentored by a former admission director at Cornell.Â
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My essay "Molasses Brain" won the 2025 International Amy MacRae Award. The judge, novelist Sharon Butala, called it "sheer strength of writing" and "admirably delicate touch."Â Â
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You can read it here.
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