Services
Tutoring
I've completed thousands of hours of one-on-one tutoring and have over a decade of classroom experience in history, English, and writing courses. Whatever your school and no matter how challenging your assignments, I can help.
HISTORY TUTORING: Between my history Ph.D., publications in multiple professional history journals, professorial work at Macalester, UCLA, and Pitzer, and guest lectures at Harvard, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania, I know a lot about history.
I'm particularly skilled at tutoring AP history courses. I’ve been an official APUSH grader for over a decade and have become part of the College Board’s AP History community. This experience means I not only understand the test, but I’m also always up to date with its latest changes. Over the years, I've helped many students earn a 5 on their APUSH, AP Euro, and AP World exams.
OTHER SUBJECTS: I have substantial experience tutoring students in English (including AP Language, AP Literature, AP Research, and American and European literature courses), and Social Science courses (including AP Human Geography and AP Government). In these areas I draw upon my background as a former high school English and Social Studies teacher, and have tutored multiple students in each of these areas.
Regardless of the subject, I take special pride in my ability to explain complex topics in ways that high school students understand. I also work hard to make the lessons learned in class applicable to life beyond school, demonstrating how concepts within history and literature can be used to gain deeper understandings in the real world.
Essay Writing
Having trouble starting that paper? We've all been there! Writing rarely comes easily to anyone.
Fortunately, I'm here to help. Over the years I've worked with many students upon all aspects of essay writing, from outlining to final edits and from basic five-paragraph essays to lengthy term papers. As a published author, I've learned over the years how to create powerful, well-organized narratives that resonate with diverse audiences, and these are skills I impart to students during our sessions.
Moreover, my background in teaching college writing classes gives me a unique skillset as an essay editor: not only do I have over a decade of professional writing experience within elite academic settings, I also have a decade of teaching those skills to teenage students.
Now, as a professional tutor, I continue to help people with writing, and have worked with literally hundreds of students on papers for English, history, philosophy, and other humanities subjects. I've also helped students prepare research papers for publication, such as in The Concord Review, The National HS Journal of Science, and others.
Finally, I have special experience in helping students draft personal statements and other college essays. Please see the College Counseling description below for more information on this area of my work.
Test Prep
ACT / SAT: I’ve been teaching the Reading and Grammar sections of the ACT and SAT for almost a decade and have helped numerous students to near-perfect scores. I also helped develop the SAT and ACT curriculums at two separate test-prep centers in southern California. I work with students of all levels and abilities, and have tips and strategies for every kind of student. I also work with students for a variety of durations, from a few days to a few months.
AP Exams: I have extensive experience in training people for AP exams in US History, European History, and American history, as well as AP Human Geography, AP Government, and AP Language and AP Literature. Please see the info above under the tutoring heading for more information.
College Counseling
For the past decade, I’ve worked primarily as a professional college counselor and essay editor, helping students find schools that best fit their aptitudes and interests, and guiding families through today’s increasingly complex application process.
My students have gone on to a variety of colleges, from local colleges to top-ranked Ivy League schools. Recent student admittances include Stanford, Princeton, the University of Chicago, Amherst, UC Berkeley, Wellesley, Yale, and others. I've also helped students finish a variety of competitive graduate school, law school, medical school, and fellowship applications.
Beyond working with students, I’m a current member or the NACAC,
WACAC, and IECA counseling organizations, and maintain numerous professional contacts with high school and college admissions officers, partially through organizations such as SoCal CANN, QuestBridge, and ScholarMatch. I'm also a board member and chief college counseling consultant at Middle Tree, a nonprofit college readiness center for low-income students in western Los Angeles County.
When working with clients on applications, I take pride in my holistic, student-centered approach. Instead of simply telling students what to say, I provide each student with a structured space to develop their own thoughts, resulting in both better essays and a less stressful experience for them and their parents. I want students to finish with not only the best essay possible, but also with a new awareness of how to effectively communicate to diverse audiences through writing—a skill my students retain long after college. Many have remarked to me that, upon completion of their essays, they have a better sense of themselves and what they're after as they begin college life.
Prior to being a college counselor, I earned a PhD in world history and worked as a professor at Macalester, UCLA, and Pitzer colleges. Working as a professor taught me that my true passion was helping young students find their identity and calling (as opposed to doing historical research), so I left academia to become an Independent Educational Consultant. Prior to graduate school, I taught high-school English and history at an English immersion school for Taiwanese immigrants. To summarize, I’ve been teaching and mentoring elite students most of my adult life.
If all this sounds good to you, feel free to reach out! I offer free introductory meetings to further explain my process, to see if we are a good fit, and you can ask as many questions as you like during that time.
Curriculum Consulting
I have experience helping both learning centers and individual families create high school curriculums for History, English, and ACT/SAT test prep.
For families, I specialize in designing curriculum for homeschool students. When doing so, I work closely with the parents, making sure that the final course material meets not only their desired academic requirements, but also includes the educational values they would like stressed within their home classroom. Examples of past courses I've designed include the history of technology, the history of religion in America, and several English literature and nonfiction courses.
Regardless of the course material, I take pride that my curriculums don't simply teach skills. They also teach students to apply what they learn to their everyday environment and to use their learning to become an informed, critical, and engaged society member. This, I believe, is the essence of a good education.
For learning centers, I have created a variety of ESL, English, History and test prep curriculums over the years. These span all ability levels and from class sizes between three and twenty. Email for more info on these course designs.