College Essay GuyEthan Sawyer and his team of essay and application experts offer personal statement and college essay tips, guides, resources, one-on-one consulting, and webinars for students, parents and admissions counselors.
College Essay Guy (collegeessayguy.com) has 103 customer reviews on Five Star Index, with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5.
Also known as
collegeessayguy.com
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collegeessayguy.com
Category
Education Services
Listed on Five Star Index
2026
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Most recent review: June 2026.
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The insight into how college applications should read and the support in building cohesive essays and applications is invaluable and certainly something we would never have navigated well on our own. Would we have have had some success? Probably, but not the kind of application success that we had! My daughter was accepted to 5 of her 6 schools and is attending a top choice school-- cannot recommend enough.
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Sean
Excellent essay coach!
The essay coach our daughter was paired with really helped her to express her experiences in her essays in an interesting way; the 1:1 sessions worked very well for my daughter. I do not have anything I would change about the experience and I really like the fact that CEG provides college application support to those who can not afford it.
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Lily
College Counseling and Essay Coaching
College Counseling and Essay Coaching
We can't say enough about our college counseling experience. Our counselor was knowledgeable, understanding, encouraging, and supportive from the very first email. She was responsive to questions and always gave thoughtful comments and sound advice. She was and remains incredibly invested in the process and helped maintain our sanity.
Our essay coach set clear expectations for our child and we received an email after each session recapping what had been completed that week and what was to be done for the next session. As parents, we only had the initial meeting with the coach, but we know that our child enjoyed working with the coach and they built a strong rapport in a short time. The most important thing is that the coach held our child accountable to the process, which kept everything moving forward.
The entire CEG team is an asset. Immediately from intake, we were offered sound advice that helped shape the entire application process. The team quickly responds to questions and provides many resources that help parents support their students through the very stressful application process.
CEG uniquely offers a complete package that supports, educates, and guides both the student and the parents in an authentic and positive way.
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Mike M.
Empathetic and highly effective
The process is excellent and the team fantastic. Our son worked with Cat and her ability to connect deeply with him and to help him think through and articulate his passions were central to his journey. In a word - awesome.
CU
customer
Every session with our counselor and essay coach was a joy and inspiration
One the most helpful things about having my daughter work with the essay coach was being able to bounce ideas, brainstorm out loud, and also the incredible in-depth feedback Lola got on everything she wrote! Every session was a joy and inspiration and truly helped propelled Lola's writing to another level!
Working with our college counselor was immensely helpful! She was so knowledgeable and answered so many questions with a huge smile! She was a vast ocean of resources and information that really helped us navigate some confusing aspects of the application process, timing, and the applications themselves.
KC
Kimberley C.
CEG was great for my family! Thank you!
My family chose the one-on-one 10 school essay support and add on college counselor support packages.
Essay support experience: My son was matched with an essay coach who has been using the CEG program for 5 years. She had the experience to know how to bring out my son’s unique voice in his essays. I was not involved in any of the process until my son was ready to click submit, and me being able to trust a CEG expert and step away from the process was very good for my mental health. I trusted the coach and could let go of feeling responsible as a parent in this application journey. My son also meshed well with his essay coach and trusted her judgement. He was very happy to work with an expert and have me stop talking about college constantly. The CEG team has a parent questionnaire that dives into your student’s personality and how they relate to others. I felt with this questionnaire, my son was well matched with an essay coach and this set him up for success and not frustration. He really enjoyed the process. He learned so much about himself.
College counselor experience:
My son’s college counselor with CEG helped him build a more balanced list of schools. She suggested excellent schools that were not on our radar initially. She is a very good listener and was thoughtful in her comments and guidance. She really understood my son and what his goals were from just a few hours of Zoom meetings. I also appreciated her extra review of my son’s ED application to his first choice school. It was reassuring to have an experienced prior elite admissions counselor look at his application with a fresh perspective. Our counselor was both realistic and encouraging. She was easy to talk with and my son really appreciated her support. I was not 100% sure initially that this extra support supplement package was worth the extra money, but I am REALLY glad we did this addition to our package. I would choose to do this again. Excellent value.
Overall, I researched several college admission support companies and I am still glad I chose CEG. I really like how CEG has resources for all socioeconomic levels (from free YouTube videos to full support). I feel like college admissions favors wealthy families, and I think it’s fantastic that CEG doesn’t exclude families that cannot pay full price. None of my other friends have ever hired a company for support like this (I live in a small town in the Midwest where nobody even applies to elite universities) but I needed to take the stress of elite college applications off my plate. I was able to let go and let my son and the CEG team do everything. I was completely not involved in the process, I just read the final product. It was a healthy decision for my family and worth every penny. I felt the value was great. I just wanted my son to have the best guidance possible during his application process. He did all the work, but felt the guidance and deadlines were very valuable. He’s an amazing person - deep thinking, hard working, wants to change the world kind of human, and I know he sent out his best applications to a wide range of schools with the help of the CEG team. I also chose CEG because it was a TEAM - essay coach and college counselor, but the “almost done” review done by a different person at CEG who didn’t work with my son was also important to me. It was great having a fresh set of eyes for a final review. Thank you CEG for making this process so much smoother for my family. I trusted CEG every step along the journey.
My son was accepted ED to an elite university. His dream school came true!!! CEG is about the process and having each student present their best self, not about just acceptance letters. My son’s dreams did come true with the help of CEG, but even if my son had had to wait for regular decision, he certainly sent out a great application to all 10 schools and learned a lot about himself in the process. My son was very proud of his essays. CEG provided great support and it was always clear to me and my son that nothing was guaranteed, except for learning about yourself, your values, and diving deep into what’s important to you and why. What great learning experience for a high school senior!!!
Thank you CEG. I would choose you again and again! My highest recommendation to any parents looking for college admissions support. I cannot praise this company enough. It made the admissions process really about my son and his goals and gave me my sanity back when I could trust CEG with the process. Thank you CEG!!!
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Sue K.
College Essay Guy is amazing!
College Essay Guy is by far the most helpful resource! His courses are thorough and informative and the library of supplemental material is accessible for life after the courses, which is super helpful. I subscribe to the Counselor Essay Workshop in a Box and that is invaluable. There are resources for many different lengths of workshops and handouts that I can use.
AM
Archbishop Molloy College G.
Helpful Resources, Great Feedback, Amazing Results
I felt the access to the resources alone were worth the cost of the course. However, having the added bonus of discussing my thoughts and ideas with Ethan and other professionals in the course on a weekly business made this all worthwhile. If you've ever worked with a student that is academically talented, but just doesn't have confidence in their writing techniques, this course and the guidebook will help you immeasurably. I had the chance to use many of the approaches with my students in both small group and one-on-one settings and the results speak for themselves. As Ethan would tell you, there is no "one way" to write an essay, but these resources will help you get students writing, and that's the most important part of this process!