‘Tis the season! SAT/ACT? Check. Impressive array of extracurricular achievements and awards? Check. Solid GPA? Check. Now, the only thing standing between you and the college of your dreams is mastering those application essays. Unlike standardized tests and grades, these essays offer a unique opportunity to share authentic, personal stories that reveal the essence of who you are.
In essence, the purpose of application essays transcends mere numerical assessments; it’s about presenting a narrative that showcases your individuality and potential as a student. The goal is for admission officers to gain insight into your true self and assess whether you are an ideal fit for their institution. Are you prepared to captivate the officers with your tailor-made stories?
Enter J&B’s team of top-tier consultants, ready to help you craft essays that authentically represent you and capture the hearts of admission officers. Whether your academic forte lies in STEM or English Literature, and whether your aspirations lead you to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, or Brown, our seasoned consultants will expertly guide you through a personalized consulting program. The Red Program’s signature element is the J&B Persona Portfolio which will help you and your consultants craft the perfect story to get you into the college of your dreams.
One of the most important parts of our Red Program is getting to know you! During our meet and greet, we gather any preliminary details about your goals for the college admissions process. Here, we also add clients to our project platform (where they can share comments, ask questions, or upload drafts and/or other necessary documents) and offer guidance on how to navigate it. Of course, you will also get the chance to ask any questions you may have before starting your project!
After sharing a detailed, 30-part questionnaire with you, we carefully assess your responses and prepare a “Client Persona,” or an evidence-based method J&B uses to conceptualize who a client is. The goal of the “Client Persona” is to help J&B and the client objectively view their unique attributes/skills/challenges, or their “persona,” by utilizing as much evidence-based research as possible. The “Client Persona” visually diagrams and elaborates on a specific set of criteria designed to successfully facilitate each step of the college admissions process.
Selecting the perfect list of desired schools and majors can require teamwork. In this step, consultants review the “Client Persona,” gather any preferences and/or goals about schools or majors from clients, and create a professionally curated set of recommended schools and majors that incorporate the client’s interests, strengths, and goals into a tangible list.
Once the client’s list of schools and majors is established, we help them showcase their talents and highlight any outstanding skills by creating a customized portfolio. Whether clients are painters, poets, scientists, or mathematicians, their customized portfolio creatively touches on each of their defining traits to create a concrete supplemental addition to their list of chosen colleges, increasing their chances of admission.
Before working on Common App Essays, we teach clients everything they need to know about the Common App essay through a six-week-long, intensive “Common App Essay Prep” course. We engage students in a series of interactive lessons, sharing outstanding examples of Common App essays, tips on brainstorming, outlining, and creative narration styles, allowing students to prepare a 300-word “trial” Common App essay at the end of the course.
After completing the “Common App Essay Prep,” clients are ready to write their actual Common App essays. Through a series of targeted lessons over two months, they take part in a “Common App Essay Writing” class, which includes specialized, one-on-one writing support in the following areas: brainstorming, topic selection, outlining, draft writing, and editing. By the end of the “Common App Essay Writing Class,” clients apply everything they’ve learned to create a final draft of their Common App essay, which they submit to their chosen schools.
In this step, we assist clients with polishing their resumes and preparing detailed notes they can share with teachers who are planning to write their college recommendation letters. We gather specific insights from our questionnaire, “Client Persona,” and any other communications with clients to ensure that we showcase their goals and talents in their resumes and recommendation notes.
Now that clients are ready to write their supplemental essays, we split up the clients’ list of desired schools into two batches to ensure that we can devote time and individualized attention to each school. We may address any ED or EA schools at this stage. We break the essay writing process into: a brainstorming phase (where clients share details about what they would like to include for each prompt), an outlining stage (where consultants share outlines for each prompt), draft writing (where clients write the first draft of their supplemental essays), and editing (where consultants edit and polish the clients’ essays so they are ready for submission). We also assist clients with preparing their Honors and Activities lists for the Common App, to ensure that their applications are thoroughly and meticulously completed.
After finalizing the supplemental essay for their first batch of schools, we apply the same essay writing process to address the clients’ remaining schools. We may tackle RD schools at this stage.
It is our pleasure to support our clients throughout the entirety of their application process—this means that we are here to assist clients with preparing any letters of continued interest, supplemental materials, and/or specialized guidance after clients receive news from their schools.
✓ School List/Majors by J&B✓ Optional Materials
(Art Portfolio/Research Abstract)
✓ 2 Essay Contests✓ Common App Essay
✓ Resume & Recommendation Notes
✓ Supplemental Essays✓ Interview Prep✓ Follow up Support
16-Month | September–December (following year)
✓ SAT Prep with J&B
✓ School List/Majors by J&B✓ Optional Materials (Art Portfolio/Research Abstract)
✓ Common App Essay
✓ Resume & Recommendation Notes✓ Supplemental Essays✓ Follow up Support
16-Month | September–December (following year)
✓ School List/Majors by J&B✓ Optional Materials (Art Portfolio/Research Abstract)
✓ Common App Essay
✓ Resume & Recommendation Notes✓ Supplemental Essays✓ Follow up Support
12-Month | January–December
✓ Common App Essay✓ Resume & Recommendation Notes
✓ Supplemental Essays✓ Follow up Support
7-Month | June–December
✓ Common App Essay✓ Supplemental Essays
3-Month | June–August
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
(Pasadena, California)
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
(Los Angeles, California)
Stanford University
(Stanford, California)
University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
(Berkeley, California)
University of Southern California (USC)
(Los Angeles, California)
Rice University
(Houston, Texas)
Emory University
(Atlanta, Georgia)
Vanderbilt University
(Nashville, Tennessee)
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU)
(St. Louis, Missouri)
Northwestern University
(Evanston, Illinois)
The University of Chicago (UChicago)
(Chicago, Illinois)
University of Notre Dame
(Notre Dame, Indiana)
University of Michigan (UMichigan)
(Ann Arbor, Michigan)
Duke University
(Durham, North Carolina)
University of Virginia (UVA)
(Charlottesville, Virginia)
Georgetown University
(Washington, DC)
Johns Hopkins University
(Baltimore, Maryland)
Princeton University
(Princeton, New Jersey)
Dartmouth College
(Hanover, New Hampshire)
Brown University
(Providence, Rhode Island)
Yale University
(New Haven, Connecticut)
Tufts University
(Medford, Massachusetts)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)(Cambridge, Massachusetts)
Harvard University
(Cambridge, Massachusetts)
Swarthmore College
(Swarthmore, Pennsylvania)
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
(Pittsburg, Pennsylvania)
University of Pennsylvania (UPenn)
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Columbia University
(New York, New York)
Cornell University
(Ithaca, New York)
New York University (NYU)
(New York, New York)
