The art and craft of the Application Essay

The Chernik Group specializes in helping students write powerful and successful Personal Statements and supplemental application essays.  We call our unique, intensive process The Art and Craft of the Application Essay™.

The Personal Statement is a wonderful opportunity for students to distinguish themselves from hundreds (if not thousands) of similarly qualified applicants by revealing something about themselves that their grades, scores, and recommendations do not.  Though the essay prompts students may choose from are varied, all successful Personal Statements offer compelling responses to the same core question: What makes you impressive, unique, and highly likely to succeed? 

The Art and Craft of the Application Essay™ guides students through discovering an answer to this question, developing an original and effective topic through which to reveal their answer, and drafting a truly outstanding essay. It is not at all unusual for clients to initially worry that they have nothing impressive to say about themselves, but we believe that everyone has an amazing story to tell. Our talent is in helping each client locate and craft that story.

Our process includes rigorous exploratory writing and collaborative brainstorming sessions, multiple rounds of drafting and intensive revising, and careful editing and polishing.  Our goal is for students to complete the process not only with an exceptional Personal Statement, but also with the satisfaction that comes from examining themselves and their lives, identifying something extraordinary, and then articulating it with clarity and style.

We also offer support to students in composing compelling responses to supplemental short answer and essay questions (additional writing required by many schools in addition to the Common Application essay).