Study Abroad Academic mentor with 5+ yrs of exp in the US, UK, EU, foreign college admissions, essay & resume writing, and career consultancy.

Find out more about Anu

• Tell us more about your subject. How did you develop an interest in this field?

  My interest in being an academic mentor with a focus on creative writing started with my own experience navigating the Ivy League application process for higher studies: standardized tests, personal statements, the whole maze of figuring out how to turn a resume into a story. I realized early on that most of what determines success isn't raw achievement. It's whether you can articulate a clear, evidence-based vision for the change you want to make in the world. That's the language admissions committees and job interviewers respond to. Once I got into the field myself and saw how many talented, socially-minded students struggled to translate their passion into that kind of narrative, I knew this was where I wanted to spend my efforts.
  
  I started this work about seven years ago, one-on-one with individual students. Over time, that grew into something bigger. I now also consult colleges and schools directly, helping institutions think through how to widen access and diversify their student pipelines through higher education policy. So my work today sits on two levels: helping individual students tell their story well, and helping institutions build systems that bring in a broader range of voices in the first place.

• What or who is the motivation behind you choosing to teach & why?

  Teaching runs in my family, so in many ways this path chose me before I chose it. Both my parents were teachers; my father a foreign language professor and my mother taught fashion. Growing up in a household where storytelling, language, and creative expression were dinner-table conversation gave me an early appreciation for the arts and for the craft of communication itself. That's really what drew me to this work. I love language, narrative, and the creative side of expression, and college admission essays and job cover letters are one of the purest tests of that. Teaching, for me, isn't separate from that creative instinct; it's an extension of it. I get to help students find their voice the same way my father helped students find theirs in a new language.

• How does your work help society?

  I think of what I do as sitting at the intersection of communication, creative writing, and access. College admission, especially essay writing, can be one of the most intimidating and unequal parts of the process, because it rewards a kind of storytelling fluency that not every student has had the chance to develop. My background in language and the arts lets me help students treat their essay not as a form to fill out, but as a piece of creative writing: something with voice, structure, tension, and honesty. When a student who didn't think of themselves as "a writer" produces an essay that genuinely sounds like them and gets them into a school that changes their trajectory, that's a real, tangible impact- not just on that student, but on their family and community too.

• If you had to think of a role model for your work, who do you think of & why?

  I'd point to people who've spent their careers demystifying elite institutions rather than gatekeeping them further- the kind of mentors and educators who believe access should be based on substance, not polish or privilege. Two stand out as real mentors in how I approach my work: Horace Mann and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
  
  Horace Mann, often called the father of the American public school system, believed education was "the great equalizer of the conditions of men"- that where you started in life shouldn't determine how far you could go, as long as you had access to real education. That idea sits at the core of how I price and structure my mentorship. I work with students from very different financial and academic backgrounds, and I try to make sure the quality of guidance someone receives isn't dictated by how much they can afford.
  
  Dr. Kalam, meanwhile, represents something more personal for me- a scientist and eventually a President who never stopped being a teacher at heart. What draws me to him isn't just his achievements, but how he spoke to students: with humility, curiosity, and a genuine belief that any student, regardless of background, could dream big and contribute meaningfully to the world. He treated ambition as something to be nurtured, not gatekept. That's the tone I try to bring into every mentoring session by pushing a student's thinking hard, but always from a place of belief in their potential.

• Tell us about your hobbies outside teaching.

  Outside mentoring, I enjoy reading, surfing, going to museums, coding and volunteering at the local animal shelters. A lot of what I do outside work still feeds back into my teaching, such as staying current on global affairs, reading long-form journalism, or just having conversations with people from different fields, all of which helps me bring fresh perspectives into essay writing.

• Do you have an anecdote to tell us about your student or professional life?

  One incident that stays with me is of a student from an underprivileged country who came to me convinced their profile was "boring"; the usual with good grades, decent internships, nothing flashy. We spent days just talking through their actual experiences before writing a single line, and it turned out they'd been quietly running a small community initiative they didn't think was "impressive enough" to mention. Once we reframed that as the centerpiece of their story- a genuine, sustained commitment to grassroots problem-solving, everything else fell into place. They ended up getting a full-ride for a Bachelor's program in Canada. It was a good reminder that my job isn't to manufacture a narrative but to help students see the one that's already there.