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Esslo users have gotten into every T20 university!

Princeton
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+ many more

Esslo is for everyone

Students

Get instant essay feedback, scoring, and suggestions that help you refine your college application essays without diminishing your unique personality.

College Counselors

Easily manage your students' essays with integrated college app deadlines, Esslo comments, and custom feedback. Licensed for commercial use.

In the news

Inside Higher EdSeptember 2024

Can AI Help a Student Get Into Stanford or Yale?

Two entrepreneurial Stanford students fed hundreds of essays—both high and low quality—into an AI model to train it on what top-tier colleges look for in admissions essays.

Read more
EdTech DigestDecember 2025

Esslo Named a Cool Tool for College Essays

EdTech Digest names Esslo a Cool Tool—a digital guidance counselor that sharpens students’ essays and their own voice, never writing for them.

Read more

Join 80,000+ students & college counselors

Esslo was brilliant and gave very tangible, useful advice for the Common App. I loved it — and it was much cheaper than a consultant.

Aarav G.
Attending Stanford University

Use Esslo across all application essays

Personal Statement

Common App and Coalition App logos

Receive expert insights for all Common App and Coalition App personal statements.

Expert feedback at your fingertips

Line-by-Line Comments

  • Highlight specific weak areas in your essay
  • Evaluates writing style, story arc, detail, and character
  • Get feedback in minutes

The stadium lights shone brightly in my eyes. I stepped up to the plate and drew back my bat. I wiggled my fingers, waiting. The pitcher wound up and threw. “Strike three!” the umpire yelled. That was the time I struck out at the quarter-finals. My team was counting on me.

Good use of vivid imagery to set the scene. Consider expanding this to create a more immersive opening.

Quantitative Scoring

  • Compare your essay to thousands of Ivy+ admits
  • Categories are based on internal college rubrics
  • Track your improvement over time

Writing

3

Detail

5

Voice

4

Character

5

Curiosity

2

Contribution

3

Score Comparison

  • Compare your essay to 150,000+ others scored by Esslo
  • See how your essay stacks up against others applying this cycle

Overall

Better than 62% of essays scored by Esslo this cycle.

Feedback + Suggestions

  • Highlights strengths and areas for improvement
  • Gives "brutally honest" thoughts... no sugarcoating!
  • Review actionable suggestions to improve your essay

Overall Feedback

Your essay has a clear narrative structure and shows some personal growth through a sports experience. However, it lacks depth and fails to fully explore the emotional impact of that moment.

Brutally Honest Feedback

The detail score of 5 is generous; while there are some specific moments described (like the strike-out scene), much of the essay tells rather than shows and stays surface-level.

Suggestions

Instead of just stating that you learned to focus, explore how this shift in mindset has affected other situations, and show it through a concrete later moment in your life.

Frequently asked
questions

No. Esslo never writes any part of a student's essay — it only gives feedback and revision suggestions, like a college counselor would. This is a deliberate product policy, not a limitation. Many college counselors use Esslo to help give feedback to their own students.

Rick Clark, Executive Director of Enrollment Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said about Esslo in Inside Higher Ed: “Using ChatGPT and copy and pasting it will create a horrible essay because it's not specific and detailed, but using [Esslo] to get feedback? In that regard, I’m all for it. It’s democratizing resources, advice and consults, and it’s available 24-7, where sometimes adults are sleeping or working a second job.”

College counselors recommend Esslo. Shana Russell, a guidance counselor, said about Esslo in SmartBrief: “Esslo has been one of the most helpful tools I’ve used… Esslo added an objective layer of feedback that was easy to understand and easy to act on.”

Christa Olson, an Independent Education Consultant, wrote in eSchool News: “I wanted a platform that offered inspiration, feedback, and insights without taking over the creative process. I chose Esslo, which allows me to collaborate with students on their actual writing.”

Esslo is also featured in Dr. Jeffrey Neill's “Top 10 AI Tools Every College Counselor Should Know in 2025.”

Essays uploaded to Esslo will never be shared, published, or sold. You can read our full Privacy Policy here. If you would like to delete your account or information, contact us and we will do so immediately.

Different college counselors, admissions officers, and Esslo will often have differing opinions, because everyone has their own personal preferences, priorities, and thought processes.

Ultimately, this is your application, and you should write what you feel is authentic and important in your personal story.

When working on your essay, ask yourself, "What do I want my admissions officer to remember about me from my application?" How you answer that question, and what feedback you choose to take, is up to you!

Our story

After getting into their dream school, Stanford students Hadassah and Elijah began helping family members with their college applications. They found that students often struggled with writing and essay consultants cost thousands.

They assembled an extensive dataset of applications from friends at elite universities and built Esslo: immediate, personalized insights for essays.

Esslo team picture

Join 80,000+ students & college counselors that use Esslo to improve their college essays