It's a mash-up between a course and a game like no other, designed to be easy to follow, entertaining, efficient, and economical. The entire adventure takes place in an online world where stress melts away. You're guided step-by-step through interactive activities as you create a totally unique personal essay for your college application while digesting writing skills and empowerment strategies you will use for a lifetime. You get the advice and process of a top private consultant for a fraction of the price!
This platform is designed for efficiency, so you can complete your essay well, even if your deadline is looming and even if your schedule is crazy busy. Having said that, the sweet spot for completing your college essay is the summer before or fall of senior year, though waiting until the week before a deadline is not optimum.
The platform is designed for you to complete a thoughtful, knockout essay efficiently—in one week under an hour/day for each adventure—so you can enjoy the rest of your busy life! But this is your journey, and you have 24/7 access to it for a whole year. You can cruise through the exercises in days rather than weeks if you’re racing a deadline or take an entire summer to meander through if that’s more your style—all good.
Absolutely! Writing instruction and stress-reduction tools are embedded throughout the adventures. You will learn tons of writing tips you can use for the rest of senior year, in college, and for all your writing forever! Plus, the world of the Intrepid Applicant is chock full of strategies to combat anxiety and self-empowerment techniques for any challenging adventures that lie ahead.
No one can honestly provide that guarantee! We can promise that if you diligently follow the path from creating a draft in a week all the way through polishing a sparkly essay, the resulting essay will be unique and have great potential to transform you from a two-dimensional applicant blending into the applicant pool into an impressive, memorable, three-dimensional person who will pop amid a sea of applicants.
Anyone applying to college can benefit from becoming an Intrepid Applicant! If you’re looking for a one-stop shop for expert advice you can trust, delivered in an entertaining efficient way on your own schedule for a low price, you’re a perfect fit for this platform. But an online, interactive venue might not be for you if you’re looking for a “white glove” live one-on-one service and are able and willing to pay for a traditional private consultant (this entire platform costs less than one hour of service for a coach with Jill’s expertise).
Jill’s experience with students with a wide variety of challenges—from ADHD and executive functioning issues to overthinking and perfectionism—inspired the delivery system of information on this platform in small, manageable chunks, easily digestible for any student. Our advice: Set aside an hour each day for one week for each adventure and block it out in your calendar. Then keep that appointment each day and let us take care of the rest. If you don’t trust your follow-through, ask a parent or an accountability buddy for a gentle (but firm) reminder. You’ve got this, and we’ve got your back!
You are not alone, and despite understandable anxiety about college admission, you can become an Intrepid Applicant no matter how much pressure and stress you’ve been feeling. Jill’s #1 priority creating this platform—beyond teaching you exactly how to write a knockout personal essay—was to eliminate stress for students, since anxiety about the college essay is such a pervasive problem.
There’s a book for that! Jill wrote College Admissions Cracked: Saving Your Kid (and yourself) From the Madness for just this reason. The book will guide parents all the way from the start of your junior year through college drop-off with month-by-month checklists, emotional support, and practical advice. The book makes a great gift to put your anxious parents’ (or grandparents’ or aunts’) minds at ease!
This is not AI that will write your essay for you! The essay you produce on this platform will emerge from your original ideas, written in your words, in your distinctive voice. You already have a unique story inside of you and the ability to share it. This platform will help you recognize your personal story and give it shape, which is 100% ethical, indeed!
Please take advantage of any free help your school offers! Most high schools can only offer a limited amount of advice (if any) about college essay writing, and counselors and teachers are stretched too thin to offer every student the amount of writing attention they deserve. The Intrepid Applicant adventure was created to fill in the gaps and help students feel more in control of their own destiny in lieu of or as a supplement to guidance from school.
Please let us know if you are interested in an optional add-on essay review or one-on-one consultation! College tuition is expensive enough, so we’ve created this self-service virtual world for expert advice at your convenience and to keep your costs down while still achieving outstanding results. For most students, the platform alone will be sufficient, but we understand that some students may want an add-on option for one-on-one feedback, and if enough request it, we’ll work on providing it!
This platform was designed to help you with efficiency by keeping your forward momentum going (you can look back to review anything you’ve already written but not change it). However, if you have the extra time and inclination, you’re welcome to start again from the beginning for up to one year at no additional cost.
If you do start over, be warned that everything you’ve accomplished so far will be erased and you’ll begin again from scratch. Therefore, be sure to download your original essay, and feel free to copy anything you’ve written on the platform into your personal files before returning to Day one.
The discount applies when you purchase both Draft in a Week and Finish a Sparkly Essay as a bundle at the same time. If you purchase them at separate times, the discount does not apply.
