hi there!

I had a series of lightbulb moments when I was working with my older son on his college applications.  Even though my son had a stellar high school career, I was shocked to discover how ill-equipped he was to write impactful personal essays.  He had a top GPA at his prep school, fabulous standardized test scores, and he was an editor for his school’s paper.  And yet, his college essays weren’t cutting it. 

 

I realized what was wrong when he said, “Dad, I just spent the last three years being told never to begin sentences with the word ‘I.’”

 

He was just like every one of my student-clients since then: he had never learned how to effectively write about himself.  But after many weeks of working together, he was able to fashion essays that impactfully connected many of his activities to the strengths/identities/values that made him desirable to top colleges.

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One happy result of this was that he got into his top-choice, Brown University, where he is now thriving.  Another result was that he finished the process with new skills for how to effectively communicate who he was… and hoped to become.

 

A third outcome was that I found out I absolutely loved helping him go through this transformative process, and I wanted to do it again and again.  The next season, I coached and counseled 13 seniors plus one transfer student.  It was a pure joy for me.  Furthermore, I realized that this whole process is even better when it begins earlier.  So, I started taking on students in 9th and 10th grade.  

 

High school is just better when it is done with intentionality and full awareness of the college application gauntlet that awaits you at the end.  Going through your high school years with built-in self-reflection also forms you into a more desirable applicant to colleges.  And the entire application process is easier when you have developed these muscles over multiple years.  You arrive at junior year much more able to build a strong college list, and your essay-writing flows with far greater ease.  

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BEFORE COLLEGE COUNSELING

 

I attended Wesleyan University, where I could not have been happier.  First I was student body treasurer, then student body president, a Film Studies major, and an Economics minor.  The day after graduating, I drove across the country to start my life in Hollywood, where I have had a solid career for 30+ years.  I am in the Writers Guild for a feature screenplay I sold to Disney, I’ve directed tons of low budget TV, and I also thrived in the niche of movie-marketing content (think blockbuster movie trailers). Most recently, I nourished my soul for a few years making commercials for many of our country’s leading non-profits, including St. Jude’s, Wounded Warrior Project, and the ASPCA.

 

During these three decades in advertising, I learned how to tell a story, market a product, and elicit a response.  And now, one of the ways I think of college counseling is that I’m teaching students how to tell their story, market themselves, and elicit acceptances from colleges. 

 

In my pre-dad years, I founded a youth group at Santa Monica’s Quaker Meetinghouse, my spiritual home. Even back then, I was seeking ways to help young people become their best selves.  An unusual way that I still do this is my love for umpiring high school baseball games, where I’m the ump that the players actually like — I think mostly because I’m just real with them.