When Adrienne was seven years old, she published her first book, "The Pretty Girl Who Was Smart and the Beautiful Girl Who Was Stupid," and she hasn't stopped writing since.  Adrienne attended Princeton, majoring in English and creative writing; she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa...

Alix is a writer, playwright and performer born and raised in New York. After graduating from Brown University with her BA in the performing arts, she wrote, performed, and produced five solo shows which she toured throughout North America. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she followed love north,...

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Alyssa is happy to once again call Brooklyn home.  Alyssa attended Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn Heights and then Williams College, where she majored in English and wrote a collection of short stories for her Honors Thesis, one of which won the Wainwright Award for best...

Born and raised in Hawaii, Amelia was excited to experience the snowy winters of rural Vermont when she started her undergrad degree at Middlebury College. Along with gradually figuring out how to layer, she fell in love with the Italian language. After spending a year abroad at the Università...

Amy first became interested in studying law when she took a constitutional law class in high school.  She attended Brown University, where she graduated with a B.A. with Honors in “Law and Society.”  Amy received a J.D. from NYU School of Law and spent a year clerking for a federal district...

Andrew recently earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, majoring in Marketing and Operations, and an M.A. in International Studies from the Lauder Institute.  At Wharton, Andrew published an article on Russian grocery chains, served as Lauder Student Advisory Board...

Andy is a Brooklynite by way of Kansas City and Marseille, France. A passionate language teacher, writing coach, and UX designer, he earned his PhD in French literature from NYU while also helping to create a language teaching chatbot for the wildly popular app Duolingo. Andy currently works as...

Anna grew up right outside of Boston, where she spent the better part of her childhood obsessed with learning foreign languages. She continued to develop her passion for language while attending Harvard College, and graduated magna cum laude with an BA in linguistics. Anna is currently pursuing...

Anna is a Harvard-educated linguist and historian and has taught Humanities at Boston College, Brown, Phillips Andover, Harvard, and MIT. She has tutored privately
for many years. While in college, Anna tutored middle-schoolers in remedial English and composition. After entering a graduate...

As an undergraduate at Wellesley College, Anne’s love of language and reading led her to double major in Linguistics and French. After a year studying abroad in the south of France, she was determined to spend many more years living à la française after she graduated. She taught English in two...

Ayana first fell in love with writing in her childhood diary--creating the life stories of imaginary characters, toys, and the strangers of New York City. Following her visions of the future, Ayana left the hustle and bustle of the city to attend Northfield Mount Hermon School, a college prep...

Ben is a doctoral student in Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Ben graduated Magna cum Laude with Highest Honors and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard with an AB in Applied Mathematics in 2014. Ben’s senior thesis was awarded the...

Betty grew up in Minnesota but found her way to New England, where she’s lived for most of her adult life.  She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, earning the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize for her senior thesis in the History of Science.  After two years teaching high school...

In 2008, Brent graduated from NYU, double-majoring in Literature and Music. He made the Dean’s List and was awarded the Dean’s Grant for Creative Writing. After graduating, and living briefly in France, he became an English and History tutor, helping students improve their grades and craft...

Bryan fell in love with literature and writing in high school, when he also felt his calling to help people grow through mentoring relationships. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, where he majored in English and Creative Writing and won three prizes for his...

Caroline Dell is a Senior Associate Consultant in Bain & Company’s New York office. She joined Bain full-time in September 2013, after an internship during the summer of 2012.

Caroline graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Economics and Public Policy. While at Brown, she was...

Born and raised in South Florida, Cassie moved to Massachusetts to attend Williams College, where she braved the cold weather and received her Bachelor of Arts degrees in Art History and Spanish Literature. While at Williams, Cassie studied abroad through Colby College at the University of...

Charlotte was born in Utah, grew up in England, and has lived in Mexico, Peru, and Chile. She holds a B.A. with first class honors and distinction in English and Spanish from Oxford University, an M.A. in Hispanic Studies from Brown, and a postgraduate certificate in translation from the...

Chris graduated from Princeton, in 2009, with an AB in German Literature and a Certificate in Creative Writing (Poetry). His junior papers, on a short story of Robert Musil’s and a novella of Samuel Beckett’s, won the German Department’s Junior Independent Work Prize, and his thesis on Musil won...

Chris was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He stayed local for college, attending Brown University and graduating with a dual degree in history and mathematics. After an extensive amount of teaching and tutoring, Chris wanted the opportunity to have a bigger impact. To pursue his...

Claire graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and honors in nonfiction writing. She now holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the New York Academy of Art.

Claire has taught English literature at a high school in Athens, Greece, and...

Colleen is a historian by training and a passionate tutor of exam prep. She holds a BA from the University of Notre Dame, Master's degrees from the University of St Andrews (UK) and Harvard University, and a PhD from Harvard University. She currently is a researcher at Johns Hopkins, having...

Courtney attended Carnegie Mellon University, completing a specialized interdisciplinary degree in anthropology and studio art. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with University, Inter-college, College of Fine Arts, and Dietrich College Honors, and was named as an Andrew Carnegie Society Scholar....

Daniel is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and the author of five books of literary nonfiction.  He specializes in coaching students on their personal statements and other application essays, whether the goal is getting into a great college, grad school, or medical...

David grew up in Acton, MA, former home to Steve Carell and Big Bird (really—look it up!), where he also teaches. He’s a passionate parent, runner, musician, learner, reader, and writer. David has been a freelance writer for 15 years, interviewing people like Sia, Elvis Costello, and “Weird Al”...

Dilyn is originally from a cute mountain town – Golden, Colorado – that still thinks of itself as being “the Wild West.” She left her hometown to attend New York University, where she majored in English, minored in Spanish and studio art, and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Dilyn...

Elise grew up in a school run by her parents on a small farm in northern Vermont. With that background, it was inevitable that she would go into education herself one day. Elise went to Williams College, majoring in Political Philosophy, graduating Cum Laude. After taking a few years to...

Elizabeth was born in the boonies of Appalachia. She attended the University of North Carolina, double-majoring in dramatic art and English and graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She was awarded the Joseph Adler Award in Dramatic Art and the Whitfield Award for her work in...

Originally from Connecticut, Elizabeth graduated cum laude from Harvard College with a BA in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and a language citation in German. While at Harvard, she participated extensively in the performing arts scene, earning the David McCord Prize for Unusual...

An ESL-learner, Ellen taught herself how to write in cursive when she was seven years old after asking her teacher to bring her a computer printout of several different cursive fonts. Ever since then, she has been interested in words and the act of writing them down. She majored in English at...

A Midwest transplant, before coming to Cambridge, Emily attended Carleton College where she spent many hours exploring the college’s arboretum and majored in French and Francophone Studies. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and with distinction in her major and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Having...

Born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, Emily has spent most of her academic career on the East Coast, earning her B.A. in Slavic Studies from Columbia University in 2013 and her M.A. in Russian Literature from Harvard University in 2019. Emily has received numerous awards for her academic work,...

Emily was born in Louisiana, and raised in Mississippi and Pennsylvania. She attended Tulane University in New Orleans, where she triple-majored in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics, and double-minored in English and French. In her senior year, Emily served as president of her college's...

Emily graduated from Yale University, where she majored in English. While at Yale, Emily was a varsity athlete (lacrosse), a freshman outdoor orientation trip leader, and researcher in the Yale Office of Sustainability. She also studied French throughout college, studied abroad in Avignon, and...

When Emma was fifteen, she started her own watercolor portrait business. Her favorite clients were the dogs. Always interested in life’s big questions, she spent her undergraduate years at Yale majoring in Religious Studies, contributing to a student-run journal that focused on the subject of...

Emma graduated from Dartmouth in 2014, Yale Law in 2019, and is currently a PhD candidate in Psychology at Harvard. In addition to the SAT, LSAT and GRE, she has taught and tutored a wide variety of subjects, from high school constitutional law to college level statistics.

She loves the...

Emmy did not learn how to read until third grade, many long months after her twin sister; and she has been making up for lost time ever since. An avid reader and book-worm (more like the Hungry Caterpillar of books), Emmy studied literature and the visual arts at Yale College, where she...

Born and raised in Washington, DC, Erica also lived in Brussels, Paris, and Massachusetts before coming to New York in 2005. Salutatorian of her high school class, she graduated a year early from Smith College, with high honors and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. During her time at Smith, Erica...

Evan’s enthusiasm for helping others with their writing began in the second grade, when he coached his friend Michael through the writing and illustration of a short book about a society of friendly rodents who lived beneath the stairs of a house. Evan attended The Evergreen State College in...

Farris is originally from Mukilteo, WA – a ferry port town about 45 minutes outside of Seattle – and discovered a passion for advocacy and politics knocking doors in the Pacific Northwest rain as a 13-year-old campaign volunteer. Farris attended Harvard, majoring in Social Studies and Government...

Determined to fully appreciate the experience of being a Roman soldier stationed at the edge of the world, Glenn once hiked the length of Hadrian’s Wall during a hurricane. Glenn earned his undergraduate degree in history from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he discovered his love...

Hana Goldstone was born and raised in Southern California. She moved to New York City to attend Columbia University and has lived here ever since. As an undergraduate at Columbia, Hana double majored in sociology and dance. She graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and her...

Hanul is a designer, artist, and storyteller. Writing is the common foundation that unites these different aspects of her life: it furnishes the narratives that ground each project. As both a mindset and practice, writing has been formative in her belief that the mission of design is to...

Helena was born in New York City and then raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Raised by parents who are both teachers (at the high school she attended, no less), she has been engaged with reading, writing, and education quite literally since she can remember. She studied at Columbia University...

Originally from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Isaac has jumped up and down the northeast. After finishing high school at Saint Albans in Washington, D.C., Isaac completed his undergraduate work at Yale University, graduating cum laude with a degree in Russian and east European...

After living all around the world—Southern China, Texas, Paris, upstate New York, and Morocco—Ivy finds herself at home in Boston. She graduated with a BFA in fine arts and BAs in comparative literature, anthropology, and French from Cornell University (summa cum laude, with distinction). She...

Jackie is a first-year medical student at NYU School of Medicine and hails from the sunny state of Florida. There, she earned her Bachelor’s degrees in neuroscience and English at the University of Miami, where she graduated magna cum laude and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. While in college...

Born and raised in South Boston, Jacob attended Princeton, where he developed long-abiding interests in Franco-Russian literary exchange, and concentrated in Comparative Literature, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in June 2013. After Princeton, Jacob completed an M.Phil in Modern...

Jay Ben has always had extremely varied interests. At various points in his childhood, he determined that he would become a cartographer, a professional skier, a fantasy novelist, an architect, and an award-winning poet. Ultimately he would become an actor, which allowed him to pretend to be...

Jenna grew up outside of Philadelphia, spending most of her childhood with her fingers glued to a fantasy novel or a video game controller. She attended Tufts University, where she majored in English and fostered a passion for fantasies written in the middle ages. At Tufts, she graduated summa...

Jingyu completed her undergraduate work in mainland China in Chinese language and literature. She holds an MA from Harvard University in Regional Studies of East Asia and an MPhil from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Chinese Studies. She is currently a PhD candidate at Harvard University...

Originally from the midwest, John learned to teach and tutor while earning his doctorate in Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin. In his graduate program, he studied race and the slave trade in the literature of the Europe and the Americas, with an emphasis on Brazil. He...

A graduate of Amherst College, Johnathan has worked as a private tutor, classroom teacher, editor, and writer since his junior year of high school. He has worked with students of vastly different ages in several schools around New York City, a university in China, two public schools in Taiwan,...

Jon realized that he wanted to study literature and writing while working his first (and so far only) office job, when he found himself often hiding to read Dover Thrift Editions of the works of Shakespeare and Blake.  So, he got a BA in English at The George Washington University, writing a...

Joseph may be the biggest Ethiopian you will ever meet, but don’t let that intimidate you. He is fun, enthusiastic, and is excited about teaching! He started out as a young class clown but has now evolved into a science enthusiast.  Serendipity proved to be Joe’s strongest ally at UC Berkeley as...

Julia grew up in New York City and attended Princeton University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude in 2008. After college, she worked in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve access to healthcare in rural communities. She went on to Harvard Medical School and is currently...

Julia may have left England at the tender age of 5, but she has never gotten over her first loves – good English tea and great English literature. In fact, she holds a B.A. from Princeton University in the subject (English, not tea), with certificates in Theater and Music Theater. At Princeton,...

For the last three years of elementary school, Kannan fell asleep to a book-on-tape about a barn owl named Plop; maybe that explains how prose got inside his subconscious.  Kannan did his B.A. at the University of Chicago, where he studied the history of science, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and...

Katherine obtained her undergraduate degree in Classics and Molecular Biology, Summa cum Laude, from Harvard University. Awarded a Harvard Knox Fellowship to study in the United Kingdom for one year, she earned a Master’s degree in Classical Art and Archaeology with Distinction (equivalent of...

When she was ten years old, Katherine’s dad took her to her first poetry reading, where she read a poem about a pine tree and another poem about a bully at school. She has been writing ever since, and she still enjoys giving poetry readings.

Katherine studied English at Macalester College...

Keri is from a farm town in Southern New Hampshire. Although she originally attended Stonehill College on the pre-med track, primarily taking classes in biology and chemistry, she made a quick switch to become a psychology major in her senior year and never looked back. In an attempt to live at...

Kevin went to high school in a midwestern cornfield far from the nearest SAT administration, but managed to score 800s on his SAT Verbal, SAT Writing, and U.S. History tests, buttressing his self-esteem sufficiently to withstand a 690 SAT Math score. At Stanford University he took a BA with...

Kristen splits her time between central Connecticut and Princeton, New Jersey. After graduating from Colby College as salutatorian in 2014, with Honors in English and distinction in Sociology, Kristen decided to pursue a Ph.D. in English at Princeton, where she is currently working on a...

Laura is currently a doctoral student and Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. Prior to undertaking her doctoral work, she completed an MPhil in British and European History at Oxford, and graduated summa cum laude from Duke University as an undergraduate. During her time at Duke...

In third grade, Lucina taught long division crouched on the tiles of her school’s hallway; as her peers gained confidence, she sent them to teach others. She has seen teaching and learning as inextricable ever since, which is why she coaches students to become their own best teachers.

As...

Mallory grew up in New Jersey, which means she grew up listening to Bruce Springsteen and eating pizza on Long Beach Island. She carried her Jersey pride with her to Connecticut, where she attended The Hotchkiss School. There, she wrote and directed her first play, “A Slice of Life”. She gave...

Margaret graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a BA in human biology. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa upon graduation and honored with a Firestone Medal for a distinguished undergraduate thesis in the social sciences. She then spent two years at the University of Oxford...

Martin Carlino hails from “Lawn Guyland”, New York, though years in New England--and, more recently, Olde England--have rendered him more presentable to polite company.  While completing his BA at Harvard, Martin concentrated in Government with an emphasis in political philosophy and served for...

Max hails from New York City (LaG, 2011), and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University with degrees in Film & Media Studies, Music, and Global Environmental Change & Sustainability. In pursuit of some kind of constellation of these fields and ideas, he completed a M.St. at...

Maya is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist interested in how environmental experiences during childhood—including socioeconomic status, cognitive stimulation, and exposure to violence—are associated with cognitive and brain development in children from diverse backgrounds. She graduated...

Meg is a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford and a tutor in the Hume Center for Speaking and Writing. She holds a PhD in History of Science from Harvard University and a BA in English from Amherst College. Before coming to Stanford, Meg taught writing and research...

Melanie was born to NY parents, grew up in LA, and feels happiest when she’s living in Paris. After realizing that her favorite part of all her English and history classes was thinking about all the people (and characters), she majored in psychology with the philosophy track at Yale University,...

Miles was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and fled for the Pacific as soon as it was possible. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of San Diego with a BA in English and creative writing, and went on to receive his MFA from the Programs in Writing at the University of...

Dr. Musa Gurnis is a Shakespeare scholar turned theater practitioner. She holds a PhD from Columbia University in early modern English drama. She is the author of Mixed Faith and Shared Feeling: Theater in Post-Reformation London, co-published by the University of Pennsylvania Press and the...

Natalia has lived and worked in four of New York City’s five boroughs, settling for now in Astoria, Queens. She received her BA in History from the City College of New York, focusing her studies on American History and graduating summa cum laude. After college, she pursued her passion for...

From a young age, Nicole has been a lover of history. At Boston College, Nicole studied History and like any good student of a Catholic institution, she also enjoyed many theology courses. After graduating, she worked in Fidelity’s Legal Department as a business analyst. She is now a student at...

Nora Isacoff, PhD, is a professor in the Psychology departments at both Columbia University and New York University, and a former National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow. She has many years of experience working directly with students of all ages, from elementary school through adults. Her...

Olivia originally hails from Ohio and graduated summa cum laude from The Ohio State University, majoring in psychology and public health. Following graduation, Olivia managed a research program and clinic at UCLA serving adolescents at-risk for suicide. Olivia is now a doctoral student in...

As an eldest child, Paige often wrote plays and taught her siblings how to act them out. This passion for fiction is central to her research and her love of teaching. She earned college honors at the University of California, Santa Cruz, majoring in Women’s Studies before going on to a Master’s...

Pat grew up on Long Island, New York and dreamed of living in a city. She went to college at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and majored in biology and English and then worked as a paralegal in Washington, D.C. while she decided whether to go to law school or graduate school in...

Paul attended Yale, where he majored in History and Russian and East European Studies and graduated with honors. His thesis and work relating to the revolution in Ukraine was selected to be presented at a policy conference. After Yale, he moved to Samara, Russia for one year as the recipient of...

Peter was born and raised in New York City, and remembers a time when angry men in Elmo costumes were not the scariest thing about Times Square. A graduate of Regis High School and Columbia University, where he majored in history and was foolish enough to voluntarily write a thesis, he spent a...

When John Mellencamp sang that he was from a small town, Quinn understands: he hails from that very small town. Born and raised in Indiana by a family of elementary and high school educators, Quinn studied Philosophy and International Affairs at Butler University in Indianapolis, IN. He promptly...

Although she hails from North Carolina, Rachel is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada. (Ask her about Anne of Green Gables.) Her status as a Commonwealther is her excuse for her lifelong Anglophilia. Rachel studied English literature at Duke, where her senior thesis on judgment in the novels...

With Indian, Kenyan, Pakistani, and Canadian roots, Rahima grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied global health, healthcare management, South Asian Studies, and Asian American Studies. Rahima worked at PwC Advisory in New...

Rhea was born and raised in the great state of Wisconsin, where she developed a love for a wide array of artistic pursuits, farming, and hiking. Her fondness for art and working in the dirt persisted in college and led her to study archaeology. In 2018, Rhea graduated from Brown University with...

Ryohei (Ro-hey) was born in Tokyo, Japan, where he spent the first three years of his life before moving to the suburbs of New York (Port Washington). He studied Francophone literature and the history of art at Princeton University, and spent his junior year in Paris at the École normale...

Sam trained as an architect at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and was a Fulbright Fellow in Central Asia before completing his M.A. at University College London. He is a PhD Candidate at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, where his research focuses on the...

Samuel began his college career when most people finish theirs, at 22, when he started taking classes at Shasta College before his evening shifts as a line cook and kitchen manager in the small city of Redding, California. He enjoyed his English class so much that first semester that one day he...

Sarah has spent much of her adult life as a professional English teacher both overseas and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which she considers her home. After completing her BA in liberal arts at St. John's College in Annapolis, she went on to pursue a masters degree in English and Comparative...

Sarah was born and raised in New York City, a place steeped in literary history that sparked her love of reading and writing. She attended Dartmouth College, where she majored in English and graduated as Valedictorian, winning the Stanley Prize in English for the most innovative undergraduate...

Scott is a teacher and scholar from White Plains, New York, who has spent his life sharing his joy of learning with others. He attended Bates College, where he majored in Classics and Spanish, writing a thesis on Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, and another thesis on Spanish chronicles of the Inca...

Shayna has lived in Montreal, Mumbai, Istanbul, Jerusalem and London—but considers herself a New Yorker at heart. She attended University of Michigan, majoring in Arts & Ideas in the Humanities and Creative Writing and graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. After a few years of...

Shira Zilberstein loves pondering anything and everything around her. Her curiosities led her to study Sociology and History at Northwestern University, where her senior thesis on the networks of grassroots artists received highest honors and was awarded Best Thesis in Sociology. During her time...

Sofía grew up in Berkeley, CA, which explains her soft spot for worker-owned cooperatives and her remarkably high burrito standards. She majored in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard College. Upon graduation, Sofía was awarded a Harvard Traveling Fellowship to research...

A North Jersey native, Sophia’s ideal Sunday morning consists of a great novel and a freshly-prepared Taylor ham-egg-and-cheese bagel (with ketchup). She left the New York suburbs for the mountains of western Massachusetts during her undergraduate studies, graduating cum laude with a BA in...

Stefan is originally from Boulder, Colorado, and loves hiking, biking, skiing, and all things mountains.  He majored in Public Policy and Urban Studies at Stanford University. After graduation, he worked as a Research Fellow with the Ford Foundation in New York, and then in the New York City...

A born-and-raised New Yorker, Sylvie first fell in love with reading while nestled between her parents on long subway rides. That love eventually took her to Princeton University, where she majored in English and received certificates in Gender & Sexuality Studies, Humanistic Studies, and...

Terry is from revolutionary Lexington, Massachusetts, where he grew up marching in parades as a minuteman until he was old enough to think better of it. He attended Amherst College, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with degrees in English and French. His thesis on medieval...

Tony grew up in an immigrant family and is fluent in English and Mandarin (and Shanghainese). Tony moved from his home in Brooklyn, NY to Boston for college, attending Harvard College, where he graduated summa cum laude in Literature in 2008. He began a JD/PhD program at Harvard Law...

Troy graduated cum laude from Yale, where he received his BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics. Afterwards, Troy taught middle school math and science in Mississippi as a Teach For America (TFA) Corp Member. After TFA, Troy attended Harvard Law School, graduating cum laude and receiving four...