Wow provides students and educational professionals a simple, step-by-step process for writing effective college essays, so students can stand out and tell their stories. We’re transforming the college essay experience from daunting and frightening to calm and empowering.
Our PROCESS is our magic. The Wow approach is simple, with clear instructions to help our students and professional clients succeed. Every student has a story to tell, and we empower our staff and clients to guide their students using our proven tools and decision-making guidelines.
We help students PLAN ahead so they can calmly write essays that will enhance their applications. We model our process for professionals so they can improve their own college essay coaching practices.
Clients work one-on-one with a Wow coach, following a proven, flexible SCHEDULE. Whether guiding a student applying to multiple schools, or a professional writing an essay as part of a training program, our trademark schedules relieve stress and help clients maintain momentum.
As a boutique company serving both families and our counselor colleagues, we know that expertise, commitment, and relationships are just as important as our ten-step process. We take good care of our team so they can take good care of you.
Wow coach since 2013
Outgoing, thoughtful, and imaginative, Joe loves hearing his students’ stories and helping them reflect on their life experiences in compelling college essays.
Wow coach since 2018
Patient, curious, and kind, David loves guiding students through the Wow Method so they can share who they are through writing.
Wow Partner and Coach since 2018
Adventurous and intuitive, Erin is an expert in using the Wow Method to uncover the qualities of each student that make them proud.
Wow Coach since 2023
Compassionate, attentive, and playful, Shannon has been helping students write about their strengths and passions for many years
A former executive speechwriter and copywriter, Susan is also a published poet and essayist. She holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College.
When she's not running Wow, Susan likes to garden, cook, and go on adventures with her husband and their dog, Luna. She has three adult children who are all talented creative writers as well.
Perceptive, resourceful, and curious, Kim can get a story out of anyone; she helped create the brainstorming process used in the Wow Method.
Kim’s articles on the college essay appear regularly in print and on the web, and her work has been featured in a variety of newspapers, magazines and online publications. Kim is a former newspaper reporter and corporate communications manager with a BA in Journalism from Michigan State University.
We trust our coaches to make wise decisions based on their experience as teachers and their ability to use and modify our standard processes. We trust our students to make strong editorial choices, and we don’t second-guess their decisions.
Whether coaching students, training professionals, or managing internal operations, we develop and follow tested processes to guide our actions.
Everything we do is instructionally sound. We develop learning objectives and make sure we can explain why something works before launching a new program or concept.
We share our expertise freely through webinars, presentations, ebooks, and weekly emails. We also donate funds to youth writing programs.
We believe that young people are interesting and that counselors do their best under often challenging circumstances. We always ask why? Why does a story appeal to a student? Why does a counselor operate in a particular way? And then we ask how can we support them, so they feel empowered and heard?
We listen to our students and counselor clients, taking their suggestions to heart and modifying our processes and materials as appropriate to accommodate their needs.
Wow is a member or affiliate of the Michigan Association of College Admission Counseling, the National Association of College Admission Counseling, the Independent Educational Consultants Association, and the Higher Education Consultants Association.
Outgoing, thoughtful and imaginative, Joe loves hearing his students’ stories and helping them reflect on their life experiences in compelling college essays. Perpetually optimistic, Joe is grateful for the things he has learned from working with Wow’s students about life in distant countries, VEX robotics competitions, cloning extinct species, and so much more!
Joe joined Wow after working as a writer-in-residence for the nationally recognized InsideOut Literary Arts. He now lives in Nashville, where he is the Program Director of The Porch’s youth programming arm, SLANT (Student Literary Artists of Nashville, TN). Joe’s poems and stories have found homes in a number of magazines, including RHINO, Elimae, theEEEL, Clapboard House Review, The Splinter Generation, Cricket Online, Psychic Meatloaf, Temenos, Right Hand Pointing, and Admit2. He holds a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing from Central Michigan University.
Patient, curious and kind, David loves guiding students through the Wow Method so they can share who they are through writing. David lives in Jonesboro, Arkansas; he is a voracious reader and writer, and in his spare time, he consumes large amounts of pop culture.
Before joining Wow, David taught English at Leadership Prep Bedford Stuyvesant Middle Academy and creative writing with Nashville’s A Novel Idea and the University of Maine Farmington’s Longfellow Young Writer’s workshop. His stories and essays have appeared in many print and online publications, including The Rumpus, Hobart, and Carolina Quarterly. David also attended the Tin House Summer Workshop as a nonfiction scholar. He holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maine Farmington and an MFA in Writing from the University of New Hampshire.
Adventurous and intuitive, Erin is an expert in using the Wow Method to uncover the qualities of each student that make them proud. Erin’s love of storytelling has deep roots, starting when she switched from studio art to photojournalism as a freshman at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, and culminating in a black and white photography exhibit of her travels in Northern Ireland during a junior year exchange program.
In the 1990’s, she worked in 11 different countries as an international journalist for Habitat for Humanity. After 15 years in Wyoming working on dude ranches and restoring log cabins outside of Yellowstone Park, Erin returned to her love of storytelling and became a certified educational consultant in 2017. One of the first things she did as a member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association was to enroll in Wow’s Partners program, and she has been enthusiastically using the Wow Method with her own students ever since. Erin resides in Cody, Wyoming, with her husband, her pudlepointer Woodrow, and her two adopted children.
Compassionate, attentive, and playful, Shannon has been helping students write about their strengths and passions for many years. She joined Wow after coaching application essays independently, starting during her own days as an undergraduate student, and also served as an admissions counselor at Agnes Scott College, where she read hundreds of essays (and can attest to the fact that admissions counselors really want to hear students’ voices!)
Shannon is the recipient of the Flannery O’Connor Award for excellence in creative writing from Georgia College and was selected as a finalist for Ruminate Magazine’s VanderMey Nonfiction Prize. She has received support from many prestigious arts organizations, including the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Hambidge Center, and Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Though she often travels internationally, Shannon has always lived near Atlanta, Georgia, and currently calls Decatur home. She holds a BA in Studio Art from Agnes Scott College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Georgia College and State University.
