Take a tour of EssayQuest
Examples of activities and professional support material
When you’re guiding students through activities—whether one-on-one or in a class of 30—you’ll have the straightforward videos and written guides to make it easy for you to support students.
These examples from EssayQuest will give you a sense of what it will look like from your student’s perspective, and from yours.
Foundation Activity
College Essays 101
In 20 minutes, your students will know what an effective college essay looks like and why. This self-directed version of our 7 Secrets for a Great College Essay workshop will get your students and their parents on the same page and speaking the same language as you.
“Barak-in-a-Bubble” professional development videos guide you every step of the way.
Thinker Activities
Introduction and Find a Bunch of Story Starters
After a fun, eye-opening introduction to the Thinker phase, students find 25–40 Story Starters they can use as starting points for their writing.
Videos with students break down the conversations you can have with your students, whether one-on-one or in a group or classroom.
The best sample college essays anywhere*
We love these essays and think you will as well. More importantly, your students will see why these are such effective essays.
Our students read these after they’ve taken College Essays 101.
*No, we can’t prove it, but see for yourself!
Deep dive videos, professional webinars, and recordings of professional training sessions will help you build your skills and streamline your process.
How to read any college essay like a pro
Most people can’t tell a good college essay from a terrible one. This one-page guide makes it easy for anyone to understand why an essay works, or doesn’t. We go through the same series of questions with our personal mentoring students every time we meet with them.
This is a powerful tool for students, parents, counselors, and teachers and example of the kind of resources we include with EssayQuest.
If the form does not download on your phone, copy this link and paste it into your browser to download.
Webinars for students, parents, and professionals
Barak leads college essay webinars for students and parents, and professional development webinars for the people working with students.
We’ve also begun to host webinars with experts—like Louis Newman, Ph.D, Stanford’s former Dean of Academic Advising—to share their unique experience and insight.
We invite you to join us on a live webinar or watch on-demand. And, please feel free to share them with your colleagues and families!
Quick, Easy, and Actionable College Essay Feedback
Explore a diagnostic and feedback approach built on a framework professional writers use to communicate clearly and intentionally. This is the hour-long version of the session Barak led at the 2022 Houston NACAC conference. About 400 people attended.
Resources to make it easy to streamline with EssayQuest
With our guidebook, templates, training videos, webinars, consulting, and more, you’ll discover just how easy it is to bring EssayQuest into your practice or organization.
And if you ever have questions or need to get unstuck, we’re here to help!
