Available Counseling and Editing Services
Note: I will be ready to take on consultations for the 2026 season starting on February 1st.
Packages are intended for current United States high school juniors who are applying to schools this upcoming summer and fall and will be graduating high school in 2027. Prices and package deals are non-negotiable. I also do not offer any form of piecemeal or individualized work. All payments are receivable via either PayPal, Zelle, or check. Payments for application packages are accepted one-third before our first meeting and two-thirds on November 10th.
To register for a service or for more information, use the Free Consultation form. You will receive a Calendly invite to set up a free Zoom consultation with me to discuss what you’re looking to accomplish this fall and to hear how I think I can help. I look forward to hearing from you.
2026 College Application Services
Yo let’s go let’s get into college!!! Here are the perks I can guarantee I will offer: – UNLIMITED SCHOOLS. This is a time-based setup, not a school-based one. I expect that ~17 schools is a perfectly reasonable target. But I want that smoke. Students will find that they get out of this agreement what they put into it. I believe students who give their all could easily reach 20 or even 25 applications, all with my assistance. – That includes the University of California Application. I actually have all my students complete at least the UC Essay portion as part of my overall workflow system. – UNLIMITED WHATEVER. Do you want honors colleges? Scholarships? Really need to get an A on your history paper? Because this is a time-based package, I do not terribly care what we work on. If it involves writing, let me know, and we will get on it. – Weekly hour-long Zoom meetings between the student and me running mid-June to New Year’s. This is where the majority of our outlining and editing will take place. Within these meetings, you will receive: – Brainstorming and outlining assistance for every single application essay. This includes but is not limited to the Common App Personal Statement, Coalition Personal Statement, and every individual school supplemental essay. – Full content and copy-editing from a professional writer with 15+ years of experience (me!). I do not write essays for students, but I do plan and edit them to the best of my ability. My take on the situation is if I were an editor at a “getting into college” factory, and I received a piece of work, what would I do before I sent it to be published? – It’s worth emphasizing again. What you are paying for is an hourly weekly meeting with me, every week until every application is submitted. This isn’t some “pass essays back and forth through Email” thing. You get a weekly hour slot on my Google Calendar, and then we meet and work together for the full hour every week. I am extremely hands-on with my work and do everything I can ahead of time to make that hour together each week as productive and enjoyable as possible. If you’re interested in me because of my blogs, understand that I feel I am significantly better working 1-on-1 than I am at summarizing everything in 3,000 words. – I also handle every aspect of the work. If you chat with other consultants, ask them who will be doing the actual essay editing. If it is not the person you are chatting with, demand to speak to the person you will actually be trusting with your application. 80% of the college application work is essays. The easiest way to scale in this industry is to do the fun, easy parts like school lists and resumes for like 40 students. Then you quietly hand off the actual hard writing work that matters most to English majors making $27 an hour. I refuse to do that, which is why I can only take ~15 students per year. You are getting the real deal. – While I believe that my assistance on application essays is the key value I provide, I want to make it clear that as part of this package, I can and will also assist on every other aspect of the overall application. Schools review applications “holistically,” meaning every aspect of the application needs to be as polished and harmonious as possible. – If you are looking for exactly what will get done it our time together, here is a list: Common App Personal Statement essay, Common App/Coalition Extracurricular list, any school supplements of your choosing, and anything else we need to do to submit a full application for each school. If it is related to college and your question is, “Will Mattie handle that?” The answer is yes. – 6-Day Email support. I take Sundays off and watch football with my cat. The other six, I’m around to help you. I also stay up super late, so I’ll get back to you weirdly fast when something happens at like 3 AM. – Full support to reach Early Action/Early Decision/Restrictive Early Action deadlines. Early Decision, in particular, I am a big fan of as a noted way to increase your chances at top universities. I also will go to my grave insisting that it’s easier to get into large state schools during the Early Action round because they’re less concerned with balancing their budget and student-major load at that point. But no matter which applications you wish to have finished and submitted by the 11/1 early deadline, I plan to get us there. If nothing else, I find having that added time pressure earlier in the process is an important way to keep us motivated in getting through the essay gauntlet in time. – General feedback and advice related to the admissions process. This includes everything from teacher recs to ensuring your test scores are submitted on time. This is a major benefit of having me live every week. I have thoughts and suggestions about every aspect of getting into college. I also talk a lot. You will hear my thoughts and suggestions. – Access to my full system regarding college admissions. I do have a system. If you read all my blog posts, you should get a decent idea of what colleges want to see. But there are many, many ideas, tips, and strategies for this process that I either haven’t written about or don’t plan to write about until I can do so as a sold program. I am constantly modifying my strategy to give you the best chance for success I possibly can. I call the system “FLL.” Feel free to ask me what FLL stands for during our consultation. – Become a stronger writer. If I weren’t doing this job, I would be teaching creative writing classes. You can see from my blog that I’m good at explaining complex writing concepts in a way that’s easy to understand. I make an attempt to explain all the editing decisions I make, with the goal of you not making those same mistakes again. Even for those applying STEM, an ability to write clean, understandable prose is essential in both college and the corporate world. – Guidance and moral support from someone who gets it. Applying to college is hard. I’ve seen the mental, physical and emotional toll it takes on students and parents alike. I’m not a wizard or a therapist, but I’m easy to talk to, know what I’m doing, and will at least tell you what’s going on. I fancy myself some mad scientist, cracking the college admissions process lever by lever. But the #1 piece of positive feedback I get from former students is that I managed to reduce their stress levels during this intense process in a way they truly appreciate. They describe me as “chill” a lot. – If there is ever a problem, Email me and I will do whatever I can to fix it. If some school or company is making mistakes, tell me and I’ll call and speak on your behalf. I work with many families in which neither or only one parent speaks fluent English. I’ve seen how overwhelming it can be to get important bureaucratic college tasks done when a language barrier makes them even harder. I’ll bridge that barrier. – Continued support during and past acceptance day. Most notably, two optional meetings in April for assistance with Letters of Continued Interest for wait-listed schools, as well as continued Email support Jan-Aug of next year regarding what to do or where to go. I feel like a lot of consultants get you to New Year’s and then flee. I don’t consider my work done with a student until the day they place their deposit for their school, and I buy us matching shirts. – My personal guarantee that everything will get done and that it will be good. In my entire life, I have never missed a deadline. I don’t plan to start this year. But wait…there’s more! – Bonus Meeting! In addition to your meeting with me, you will also receive a weekly hour-long Zoom meeting with my associate consultant, Michelle Martinez, running from mid-June to New Year’s. You will have the chance to meet Michelle during the consultation process, but she handles the “bureaucratic” part of the application cycle. That includes activity lists, honors lists, interview prep, and LOR “brag sheets.” Michelle also handles the vast majority of “Why School” essay content research and editing. Michelle’s the best, you’ll see.
Ongoing Highschool Counseling
– While I still solely offer my senior application work as packages, I am now offering all other forms of high school consulting at a pay-as-you-go rate! Yay!
Note: This service is available to students at any point in their schooling before Dec 1st of their junior year. Students past that point should look into my overall application packages. I do not offer hourly essay work for older students because doing so is a poor financial and energy-spending decision on my end. That is unless you really want it, to the point you’re reading this, in which case HMU and I’ll do what I can.
Also Note: To set a meeting, either use the contact form and specifically ask for high school counseling while explaining your background. Also note if you want an hour, half-hour or aren’t sure. For first-time students, I recommend the hour.
Note 3: I do not offer a free consultation for this service and will have my assistant bill you the listed price after we meet. However, I happily offer a money-back guarantee for anyone unsure of my value. Simply say the word before you pay that my assistance wasn’t what you were hoping for, and I’ll cover the cost. I’ll also almost certainly write back asking for clarification on what I screwed up so that I may obsessively work on never letting it happen again with future families, but you won’t owe me anything.
You may also directly EMail me a request to chat at Mattie@CollegeWithMattie.com. And while I usually prefer students themselves to contact me for application work, I am perfectly fine with parents reaching out to me initially. The more info the better!
Fourth note! Parents are fully invited to attend but are not required for these sessions. I highly prefer the student to be involved in the meeting unless there is a notable reason why they can not.
I am purposely flexible with this service. You get an hour of my undivided time. And I will explain to, plan with, and support you as much as I possibly can for the duration of it. Students who best take advantage of our meeting will come knowing what they want me to help them with. I recommend you bring a list of topics and questions you want me to address. I also recommend you take notes of what I say because I know I won’t.
Every year of the high school journey holds different challenges and requires different support. I will custom-tailor my advice and guidance to best prepare you for the remainder of your time in middle/high school. This service is available year-round and as often as you choose. Most families join with a ton of questions and then check back in 1-2 times a year after, mostly at or near the start of new school semesters with a lot of new options to explore.
There is no right or wrong time to reach out. And there sure as hell isn’t a “too soon.” College admissions are complicated, difficult, and weird; they also encompass the entirety of your four years in high school in a way that makes squandering the potential of a strong freshman or sophomore year has very real negative impacts on your overall chances at top schools. Kids following credible consultants’ advice beat out kids who don’t. Full stop.
I’ve worked with students as young as ten years old. 8th and 9th grade is the most common. After that are late sophomores who are honestly checking me out ahead of time to see if I’m the right guy to hire for essay stuff a year after. All totally fine! If I didn’t leave the meetings with different age groups always knowing I’d put them on a better path to end up successful in their application journey, I promise I wouldn’t be offering this service, nor promoting it with such gusto.
While I encourage students and their families to get the very most out of my time however they so choose, here is a list of topics that I’m notably familiar with and will be happy to cover:
– Overall application strength review: I’ll chance you so hard your head will spin by reviewing all your ECs, stats, and interests, and then give my best judgment call on where you stand, application strength-wise. I’ll similarly give you my best percentage chance of admission to any school in the country and offer additional schools to consider based on your strength and interests.
– Extracurricular support and advice: By far the most common student who comes to me looking for help is concerned about their Extracurricular involvement. Generally, the Grades/Test Scores are tracking as they need to be, and they’re certainly doing…stuff. But the student/their parents have a general sense of unease that whatever they’re doing somehow isn’t enough or isn’t what colleges want to see. The harsh truth is that those students/parents are usually right. Top colleges have specific, often peculiar ideas on what they wish to see on a student’s Activity List. I will break down those proclivities and help you develop a plan to do what you need to satisfy them.
– Application brand support: What makes me different from most consultants is that I’m a storyteller. More practically, I have thousands of hours of experience working with students on their actual college essays and overall application. What that means is I work from your dramatic conclusion backward. I “teach to the test” in that my theory on overall application building is in service to the essays and overall brand image you will present to schools via your actual application. I can explain not just what you should be doing but the storyline logic behind why.
– I’ll tell you that your SAT between 1480-1540 is fine and that you should focus your time on other stuff.
– OK if it’s a 1480, I’ll ask what the splits are and kinda make a whistling sound while I grit my teeth because a 1520 would be betterrrrrrrr. But mostly, it’s fine.
– I’ll also tell you that there isn’t actually that much strategy regarding class selection. You need to take Calc-BC, as well as every AP in any way related to your future major choice. Oh, and get all or nearly all As. The reason is no one in the history of high school has taken Calc-BC, gotten all or near-all As, and not also taken the other hard classes that all the other high-achieving students they are in Calc-BC with are doing. You want like 9APs. Schools don’t have the time/energy to pick through your work and see if you completed Spanish 3 unless you’re applying Spanish. But they do want Calc-BC. That’s pretty much all I got on class prep. OK so if you self-study for like 25 APs then you might qualify for a Harvard 1 academic score. You’d also have like 9 more APs than anyone else at your school. But then you’d have to take 25 APs. I legit think it might work except I can not in good faith doom a teenager to such a life…but I think it would work…
Okay, that’s all I got.
– Did something weird happen? Something bad? Certain mistakes or oversights made during high school can and do have lasting negative impacts on future admission chances. The earlier I can fully understand the situation, the earlier I can work to mitigate the damage. And don’t worry about getting any more shame-stick from me. I’m no Saint, and my job is getting you into college. I’ll also note here that I make extreme effort to make younger students feel as welcome and empowered in this process as humanly possible. There will be zero blame or judgment from me at any point. Just support. The more open and honest you can be with me about your situation, the better I’ll be able to help you out of it.
– Figure out if you want me to help you apply as a senior: I welcome this opportunity to meet students earlier in the process and help guide their high school progress so that everything is just how we like it come application season. Again, I structure applications with the full intent of your eventual application in mind. It’s really helpful as a storyteller to have a hand in guiding the real-life version ahead of time.
– If you just feel lost, or confused, or like you aren’t doing it right, hit me up: I guarantee that after an hour with me, you’ll feel better and have a plan going forward. I try to be nice to every student. This stuff is hard and stressful. But I’m extra sensitive to the fact that while four years does not feel like a long time to an old person like me, to a high schooler, it’s literally a quarter of their life. I want to respect and celebrate that period, while simultaneously guiding you to one-day access schools you want to go to. I’m looking forward to meeting some new Zoomer Jr.s.