My journey as an editor began in 2015, as part of a lunchtime editors' club in high school. Back then, editing was a fairly detached process — students would come in with an essay thrust upon them by a syllabus, I would provide mostly grammatical editing, and then the student would leave. I'd rarely (if ever) hear back about how the student ended up doing on the assignment.

As college application season rolled around, an increasing number of my friends started asking me for advice. My lunchtime editing hours spilled over, morphing into a routine after-school activity.

Editing applications was different. The impact of this writing spanned much farther than a single assignment's grade — it determined the next four years (at least) of its author's life. As such, these essays called for a level of authenticity that required essays about The Odyssey never did. The content needed to be rooted in the writer's life experience and the style needed to echo the writer's voice. Naturally, this called for much greater investments — physical, mental, and emotional — from both author and editor. Getting a return on those investments provided a newfound motivation that made the hours fly by faster, even though the number of hours had grown.

Over those years, my process underwent editing of its own. I realized that I would have to dig deeper than my earlier, largely grammatical edits. I could fix capitalization and comma placement all day long, but that wouldn't change the fact that a lot of first drafts rang hollow — I frequently faced loosely connected lists of accomplishments masquerading as essays. The most compelling essays emerged when I spent time understanding each student's unique story, rather than simply correcting their writing. Over the past decade, I've learned that the best essays aren't polished sales pitches — they're authentic self-portraits. This revelation has molded my entire approach to editing.

I've used that approach to help students at every academic level, from undergraduate to MD-PhD, transform their experiences into compelling narratives that have gotten them accepted to their top choices. I even used it to help myself get accepted to UC Berkeley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences program for both undergraduate and graduate school.

Surprisingly, the motivation I found years ago still hasn't worn thin. On the contrary, it feels refreshed every time I get the chance to help someone capture their past and shape their future.