Crafting College Essays with Care and Confidence: College Admission Essay Coaching

Jared graduated from Vanderbilt University with BAs in English and Political Science. He took on part-time work as a speech and debate instructor while in college, which set him on a path to continue teaching after graduation. After two years as an English and history teacher in a one-on-one environment, he is eager to continue working closely with students at KHL to recognize and fulfill their academic potential.

Analise grew up in Folsom, California – with a detour to Taiwan for a few years – and somehow wound up in Austin some eight years ago. Ever since she taught herself to read with a “Junie B. Jones” novel in kindergarten, she has held a deep appreciation for language and the ways we communicate stories.

She is now in the last year of a bachelor’s of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, with minors in philosophy and studio art. She’s held several roles at UT’s award-winning student paper, “The Daily Texan,” including associate editor, senior reporter, and senior illustrator. During the fall and spring semesters, she also works as a writing coach at the Moody College of Communication. Currently, she interns at “Tribeza,” an Austin lifestyle magazine, where she writes stories and creates editorial illustrations. Additionally, she joined the student-run, faith-based literary and academic publication “Terrain,” working as an editor, contributor, and social media manager. In the future, she either will continue working as a multimedia journalist or try her hand at law school.

Outside of school and work, Analise enjoys reading classic novels, creating art, bouldering, yoga, and exploring National Parks. She is extremely close with her three sisters and likes to think she is the Elizabeth Bennett of them all (she’s probably Kitty). Additionally, she has two cats, Snoopy and Charlie, who emotionally support her in times of distress.

She can’t wait to help students achieve the scores of their dreams. But most importantly, she hopes the relationships built at KHL help students realize their potential and come to love (or at least appreciate) the beauty of language.

Sophia is a recent graduate from UT Austin, where she majored in Art History. While at college, Sophia led multiple student organizations, took classes across a variety of disciplines, and wrote an honors thesis. She also tutored non-native English speakers in conversational and formal english.

Currently studying for the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) herself, Sophia is in a unique position to understand her students’ motivations and struggles with test prep. She is thus able to encourage and support her students from a place of deeper understanding and empathy. Sophia’s tutoring style focuses on a fully-rounded tutoring experience, aiding students to be their best academic and personal selves.

In her free time, Sophia reads novels, sews quilts and clothing, and plays games with friends.

Thom Waddill graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina in 2019 with a B.A. in English with Honors. In college, Thom explored his love of creative writing and literary theory, edited the campus literary magazine, and studied interwar Modernism and the contemporary English novel for a semester abroad at Oxford University. In his senior year, he wrote his honors thesis on the politics of language in George Saunders’ short fiction. Since graduating, he’s reviewed prose submissions for the national literary journal Adroit and continued to write fiction and poetry.

Thom has been the singer of dance-rock band Font since he co-founded the band in 2021. Font has since played across the country and is preparing to release its first record in the summer of 2024. The band was picked up as support for UK band Yard Act’s 2024 North American tour and has landed spots in festivals such as Austin City Limits, Levitation Fest, and the Pitchfork Music Festivals in London and Paris.

Outside of KHL and making music, Thom journals, reads, paints, watches movies, cooks, and talks to his cat. He is excited to develop personal connections with students, and knows that learning is always improved when tutor and student can find common ground. Thom knows from personal experience what a comfort books can be to teenagers in a time of pressure and transition, and he hopes that demystifying the subject and sharing his own love for language can help students develop their own relationship to reading.

Justin is a recent graduate from the New Writers Project at the University of Texas, where he received an MFA in Fiction. During his time at UT, he also taught undergraduate students as both a teaching assistant and instructor for classes like British Literature, American Literature, and Intro to Fiction Writing. More than teaching any specific subject, Justin is passionate about helping students learn— he firmly believes teaching is about making connections, and he is a strong proponent of finding common ground with students to better help them understand material they’re struggling with.

Before that, Justin earned his bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at the University of Houston. As a writer, he has long since dabbled in mediums from playwriting to screenwriting to poetry, and he is currently working on a short story collection.

Justin’s interest in writing and storytelling across multiple mediums extends to his other interests: on top of reading and writing fiction, he is an avid comic book reader with a passion for visual arts like drawing and animation. Some of his other hobbies include close-up magic, playing the drums, and talking in the third person.

Born and raised in Rockville, Maryland, Nathan has had a passion for words since he was a child. First, as a fifth grader, he began working on a series of novels, only to abandon them in favor of playwriting. Finally, at the age of eleven, he settled on songwriting—a passion that would define him from then until now. Throughout high school he wrote hundreds of songs, performed with a band, recorded albums, and ultimately gained admission to New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts to be a part of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. During his time in New York, he continued to write, record, and perform. In addition to his studies in music, he enjoyed courses in political science, economics, philosophy, and literature. In May, 2016, Nathan graduated with a BFA in recorded music and political science.

After graduation, Nathan worked at political fundraising and lobbying firms in Washington, D.C. before finally settling down at Loudoun Test Prep, an award-winning tutoring company in Northern Virginia. At LTP, Nathan taught classes in English SAT and ACT prep, although his curriculum often deviated into subjects as diverse as U.S. foreign policy, lost generation literature, and existential absurdism. While students routinely saw their English scores increase dramatically, they also left his class having had meaningful intellectual conversations with their peers, something they often lacked in school. Nathan also taught students in essay writing, AP U.S. history, AP U.S. government, AP Comparative government, AP literature/language, music theory, and songwriting.

In the fall of 2019, Nathan and Owen Hill—his friend, colleague, and soon-to-be business partner—packed up and moved across the country to Austin, Texas, where Kastner Hill Learning was born only a few months later. At KHL, Nathan has brought the same excitement, enthusiasm, and intellectual curiosity that characterized his classes at LTP to a new group of students and a talented team of educators.

In all, Nathan has been tutoring for over a decade in a diverse array of humanities-related subjects. He enjoys few things more than conveying to students a passion for words and a love of learning. Nathan scored perfect 800s on both the reading and writing sections of the SATs (out of 2400), as well as 36s on the ACT reading and English sections.