Rao Advisors - Home

Do you have an 8th - 12th grader at home? Do you feel that they can use some advice to improve their high school preparedness? Are you confused about how to plan for their college?

 

We hope that your child can join the hundreds of our student clients in the United States and from around the world who have won admission to top colleges and universities in the U.S.

For the Class of 2026, several clients reported getting interview calls from the very best schools, including MIT, Caltech, Yale, Columbia, CMU, Princeton, Penn, Brown, Cornell, CMU, and Johns Hopkins. Several students got confirmed admissions to Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Rice, NYU, Vanderbilt, Wash U and CMU. A few got admissions to direct MD programs.

Many clients reported getting into some of the best public Ivys. UT Austin, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, UCLA, the University of Michigan, Purdue, the University of Virginia, and the College of William and Mary repeatedly made the list. Clients also got into Texas A&M, Arizona State, the University of Washington, the University of Pittsburgh, and Virginia Tech.

Read our open letter to parents of the high school class of 2026.

Our lead counselor is Rajkamal Rao, the founding Managing Director of the firm. We're proud to be a Google 5-Star Business, a prestigious recognition we first earned in May 2018 and continue to maintain. Check out our public reviews on Google or feel free to ask the 1,300 people who like or follow our Facebook page.

 

 

 

 

 

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Essay primer including our two-pass approach

 

 

 

 

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Try Khan Academy's Dialogues Program to Practice Engaging in Difficult Conversations

 

By Rajkamal Rao  

Have You Tried the Dialogues program?

Khan Academy's Schoolhouse.world has launched a new program to help high school students engage with each other by Zoom on a topic of their choosing.  

Through a casual chat, you’ll learn about other people’s views and gain experience getting comfortable sharing your ideas. You can even create a portfolio and submit them to certain colleges. 

The program is free. 

For more information, check out Sal's blog post: https://schoolhouse.world/blog/courage-to-converse

Sign up here: https://schoolhouse.world/dialogues/events

A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions. We are indebted and privileged to have earned their trust in matters which are so important to them. Please check out our public Google reviews to see what they say about us.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.

Go back to "Rao Advisors - Home".

Texas A&M Essays

By Rajkamal Rao  

The Water Tank at Texas A&M. Image credit: Rao Advisors LLC.

Required essay

Texas A&M's required essay prompt is the same whether you use ApplyTex or the Common App: “Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?"

Supplemental essays

You will also see the following two supplemental prompts in the writing section of the Common App.

Essay topic 1: Tell us about the person who has most impacted your life and why. 250 words.

Essay topic 2: Describe a life event which you feel has prepared you to be successful in college. 250 words.

TAMU Engineering supplement: The Engineering Essay/Short Answer Question is no longer part of the freshman application. No engineering supplement is required.  

Stealth essays (for TAMU Endowment Scholarships)

You will find these five stealth supplement questions in the page after the writing section. You enter your responses in the box underneath each question - just like you do the main supplements or the platform essay in the writing section. These are part of the scholarship section of the application.

1. Why have you chosen to apply to Texas A&M University?

50 words

2. Why have you chosen your academic major(s)?

50 words

3. Briefly describe any educational plans you have beyond earning your bachelor's degree

50 words

4. What are some of your life goals and objectives?

50 words

5. How do you show leadership in your life? How do you see yourself being a leader at Texas A&M University? or ( Describe an example of your leadership. Be sure to describe your actions and the actions of those around you and to explain what you accomplished).

550 words

The stealth supplements do not appear on the ApplyTex platform.

Engineering Honors Essays

The Engineering Honors Applications will open early November 2025. We do not know what the requirements will be this year. Based on the requirements of prior years, Texas A&M has some of the strictest admission requirements among colleges and universities to gain admission to their Engineering Honors program. You will need to write three 500-word short answers plus a 1,000-word supplement. Additionally, a separate letter of recommendation is required.

Our takeaway

Texas A&M is an excellent public university option for Texas residents. Most students typically opt for UT Austin but for some programs such as Engineering, Sciences, and Business, Texas A&M is an attractive alternative. The Aggie network, the lifestyle of a small college town, and proximity to the big Texas cities (Houston, Dallas, and Austin) for commutes to visit family, and for internship/job opportunities all make TAMU a smart choice.

A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions. We are indebted and privileged to have earned their trust in matters which are so important to them. Please check out our public Google reviews to see what they say about us.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.

Go back to "Rao Advisors - Home".

Tips for after-school academic support

   

Tutoring and study guides tips  

Most high school students are able to cope with the rigor of in-class instruction. However, there are always cases when in-class teaching is inadequate - perhaps because the teacher is inexperienced, the class is not well organized, or the material is too difficult to digest.

Several tips can help you address this need. 

Study groups. One of the most effective techniques is to have your student team up with 2 to 3 close friends in school who have approximately the same academic standing and also want to improve their performance. Simple tricks like dividing content among group members, with each member taking ownership of creating index cards that can later be shared with others in the group, and role-playing as an expert in the topic area to "teach" the other members can be extraordinarily effective. 

Tutoring. If you're already a Rao Advisors client, you are a member of our WhatsApp group of parents. Post your request for a tutor and receive a direct message from another parent who has vetted a tutoring resource. This service is only available to Rao Advisors customers.

Online tutoring. Websites like Gopeer.org and Wyzant provide online resources for a small subscription fee. These resources can be beneficial when you are coming up against an exam and want emergency assistance.

Study guides. Books and exam prep packets from companies like Ultimate Packet are helpful in summarizing key concepts taught throughout the year. 

AP Physics and other STEM topics:  Prof. Michel van Biezen's YouTube channel is outstanding and can provide a solid foundation on which to build confidence. 

SAT/ACT/PSAT-11 assistance: Please review our posts to help you better prepare for these vital college admission tests.

1. How do you prepare for the SAT/ACT?
2. Our partnership with Achievable for ACT prep

How we can help international students

Stanford University. Image: Rao Advisors.

Our legacy of helping international students

We have been helping international students pursue education in the United States since 2012. Hundreds of our clients have gained admission to the most prestigious schools, including Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Dartmouth, and Columbia. Among the public Ivies, our students have attended elite institutions such as UT Austin, Michigan, UNC Chapel Hill, and Georgia Tech.

Our founder, Rajkamal Rao, has written numerous newspaper columns about higher education and H-1B matters in the United States and is considered an expert in this field. He recently appeared on Worldly Wise, a podcast from The Federal, to discuss systemic issues, due process concerns, and the long-term implications for US higher education and Indian students’ aspirations.

 

 

 

What do you get as part of individual counseling? 

Pricing information on this page applies to students pursuing Master's degrees in STEM fields and MBA programs that only require a Personal Statement or Statement of Purpose (SOP). It does not apply to MS or MBA programs that require multiple essays, MS/PhD joint programs, or PhD programs - for these students, our Tier-A per-hour charge and terms and conditions apply.  

Summary: When you engage us, you will get up to 1½ hours of one-on-one counseling in a private, secure video conferencing environment.  [No free introductory counseling minutes].  We make extensive use of Google Apps for Business in the cloud and email.  All interactions are secured using 128-bit encryption.  Our package fee, which includes additional services indicated by the bullet points below and the development of one Master SOP, is $599.

[In some cases - such as changes of major - it is difficult to finalize an SOP for the above fee and additional hours of service may have to be purchased. An example is of someone who has received admission to an MS degree in Computer Engineering, but wants to pursue an MS degree in Computer Science instead. Understanding the differences between the two is a crucial first step. See the last bullet item in this section].

Payment terms are half upfront before our first call and the balance before we release your SOP. We only accept credit card payments from international clients and our bank assesses a 4.9% transaction fee.

Branding:  We will help you define your profile and interests, identify your higher education needs and evaluate other options.  For example, if you are a Mechanical Engineer, should you be studying in Germany where tuition is free? 

Field Selection Strategies (i.e. map interests to careers):  We provide advice regarding the field of study that best exploits US market conditions.  For example, should you consider a Professional Science Masters program in the US?  Which industries are hot?  What are work visa restrictions?  For example, it is not a good idea to pursue Aerospace Engineering because many jobs require US citizenship. 

Find US States and regions that are economically strong:  Not all US states are equal.  We will help you find company concentrations and job clusters in hot states and regions.  The premise is that if you are educated at a college nearby, you will become a local candidate with specific skills and thereby more easily get an internship or a job. 

Find Colleges: We will counsel you on college selection of up to 12 schools using a combination of your profile, hot regions, college rankings and desired course availability - diversified into three groups (dream, core and safe).  [If the only assistance you want from us is our college shortlisting and selection service, our price is one hour our Tier-A rate. This is an offline service so there are no audio or video communications with the client.] 

Subjective Criteria Strategies: We will counsel you on how to write strong SOPs and optimize your recommendation letter strategies.  We provide advice regarding composing resumes and cover letters, including providing you with free templates to make it easier. 

Work Flow and Task Plan: We will provide you with a detailed checklist of when to do what until you are ready to apply for your visa. This website from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is an excellent resource for visa information. We will also provide two detailed original presentations with all the information you need to be successful.  Most slides are linked to our website for additional detail. 

Statement of Purpose (SOP) Review: Your SOP is the most crucial element of your application. It needs to be specific to you bringing out your voice, personality, and academic/life experiences that are unique to you. Please review our guide on how to develop graduate statements of purpose. 

Your SOP will undergo our proprietary two-pass review, just like shorter essays written by high school students applying to college. On our review team are creative writers from Stanford, Duke, and Penn with years of experience reviewing essays. The review team is managed by Rajkamal Rao, who is an accomplished author of 4 books and a respected op-ed columnist.  We don't review cover letters and resumes. 

Other SOP-related services: SOP Review Only. If the only assistance you need from us is to review your SOP, you may buy this service online from our essays shopping cart.

Additional Hours:  You can buy additional hours of counseling (including for visa advice) at our Tier-A rate. 

A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical, and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors.  Please contact us for more information.

Essays Shopping Cart

 

Welcome to our easy-to-use Essay Review Shopping Cart

All of our essay reviews can now be ordered from a simple menu-driven product list resembling an online store (see PayPal drop-down below). You prepay for our service using a fixed-price model and get full buyer protection from PayPal.

Our new automated processing reduces our manual time-keeping, accounting, book-keeping, invoicing, and collections procedures at the back end. We are pleased to pass those savings on to you by lowering our fees.   

How do our reviews work?

We do both a first pass critique (creative review, including feedback on story clarity and voice) and a second pass finalization (professional editing for originality, completeness, engagement, delivery, and plagiarism checks) for one low price. 

Two creative writers will review your essay during the first pass to replicate the environment of a college admissions team.  [An exception is the resume review which only includes one final pass].

First Pass: We will provide you with genuine feedback on the creative and intellectual structure of your essay. Essays should be deeply personal experiences, with specific and concrete instances supporting your narrative. A good essay should reflect - meaning it should show what you learned and how you intend to apply your experiences, even if subtle. Duke University says that its admissions officers review submissions “primarily to understand the student’s lived experience." We will provide you with pointed, actionable tips and comments so that your essay enlivens your personal story. 
Standard time for first pass: 48 hours.

Second Pass: During the second pass, you will send us your revised essay (that is, after incorporating our first pass comments) to professionally edit and finalize for submission to college portals. We do an end-to-end review of every word and punctuation, citing as our favorite story, the $5-million dollar comma. We check your essay for correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery - and for the all-important plagiarism checks. 

We will, however, not provide a creative critique of your essay's underlying idea, as we did during the first pass. We will also not validate or check that our first pass feedback was incorporated into the revised essay submission. Forcing students to accept our input would be tantamount to our ghostwriting the essay. 

We respect the creative spirit of our clients. Our rules are so strict here that our second-pass reviewers never see the feedback from the first-pass comments. This step enhances the independence of the review process because the second-pass reviewer truly accepts a green essay with no comments, red lines, or markups when an essay is submitted for the second-pass review. The second-pass reviewer does not have to make any judgments regarding how much of the first pass review feedback was accepted. 

Standard time for second pass: 48 hours

For more information, including examples of a first pass review, please read our primer on college essays, which describes our proprietary two-pass review process. For questions, please contact us on WhatsApp or by email at rajkamal.rao@raoadvisors.com or bhagyashri.k.rao@raoadvisors.com. 


PRODUCT CATALOG
Unless otherwise indicated, all reviews include both a first AND second pass. 

1. Any essay up to 700 words: $379 (First AND Second Pass)
   
   Your essay could be the Common App, ApplyTex, Texas A&M Main, the Coalition App, or any other platform essay.
   
   You may also submit multiple supplements totaling up to 700 words as long as they are in the same document. For example, UT Austin has two supplements totaling 600 words; Penn has three supplements totaling 600 words; UIUC has three supplements totaling 450 words and Notre Dame has one supplement of 150 words and a short answer prompt of 100 words (700 words total); or two UC supplements totaling 700 words. We suggest that you maintain a simple Google sheet to group essays together for better organization.
   
   
2. Any essay up to 350 words: $199 (First AND Second Pass)
   
   Your essay could be a single supplement for any school (such as a single supplement for UT Austin, Texas A&M, or a supplement from the University of California).
   
   Or multiple supplements totaling up to 350 words as long as all are in the same document.
    
3. Any essay up to 700 words (First pass ONLY): $249
   Your essay could be the Common App, ApplyTex, Texas A&M Main, the Coalition App, or any other platform essay.
   
   You may also submit multiple supplements totaling up to 700 words as long as they are in the same document. For example, UT Austin has two supplements totaling 600 words; Penn has three supplements totaling 600 words; UIUC has three supplements totaling 450 words and Notre Dame has one supplement of 150 words and a short answer prompt of 100 words (700 words total); or two UC supplements totaling 700 words. We suggest that you maintain a simple Google sheet to group essays together for better organization.
   
   
4. Any essay up to 350 words (First pass ONLY): $149
   Your essay could be a single supplement for any school (such as a single supplement for UT Austin, Texas A&M, or a supplement from the University of California).
   
   Or multiple supplements totaling up to 350 words as long as all are in the same document.
   
   
5. Common App/TAMU REPEAT First Pass: $129
   Repeat first passes are from one reviewer only. You can also order a repeat second pass for this price.
   
   
6. Any Supplement REPEAT First Pass: $99
   Repeat first passes are from one reviewer only.
   
   
7. Resume review (one final pass): $189
   We only review expanded resumes, not one-page resumes. We provide our expanded resume template to all of our clients. If you haven't received one, just ask.
   
   Expanded resumes are a key component of the holistic admissions review. It’s your chance to go beyond the limited space in the main application and showcase the full scope of your experiences, impact, and fit for your intended major. Here's an excellent reference link from UT's Plan II Honors page which extols the benefit of expanded resumes.
   
   
   
8. Graduate School SOP up to 1,200 words: $499
   First AND Second Pass
   
   
9. Filler 1: $159
    
10. Any other essay: Please contact us on WhatsApp
    
    
    
    

Please select from the product drop down below and choose from among the various payment options to complete the transaction. After you receive the order confirmation from PayPal, please let us know the details so that we can match your order to the essay submission request.
 

Essay reviews

1. FP & SP 700 words: $379.00 USD 2. FP & SP 350 words: $199.00 USD 3. FP Only 700 words: $249.00 USD 4. FP Only 350 words: $149.00 USD 5. REPEAT FP/SP Only 700 words: $129.00 USD 6. REPEAT FP/SP Only 350 words: $99.00 USD 7. Resume (One review only): $189.00 USD 8. FP & SP Grad School SOP 1,200 words: $499.00 USD 9. Filler 1: $159.00 USD

How to submit your essay for review: Please click here for our essay submission page.

Refunds: We understand that plans can change, so we offer a full refund (less credit card processing fees, typically 3-4%) if we have not yet begun reviewing an essay. Otherwise all sales are final.

Note that banks charge us processing fees when a transaction goes through. When we issue a refund, banks do not reimburse those fees to us.  

If you want to request a refund, please contact us on WhatsApp within two hours of purchase. Or by email at rajkamal.rao@raoadvisors.com or bhagyashri.k.rao@raoadvisors.com.

How we help you fill out the Common App

 




By Rajkamal Rao  

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC.

The University of Texas will continue to accept the Common App (along with ApplyTexas).

Many parents ask our help to assist their teenagers in filling out college applications - primarily the Common App.

You generally need our help to complete the form for only one college. We will record the Zoom call and let you refer to the recording for the other universities on your list. We require the presence of at least one parent throughout the call, with no exceptions.

Before we get on the call, several preparatory steps must be completed.

1.   We should be in WhatsApp communication with your teenager through a group. The group name should follow the format 2026_JohnStudent, assuming a 2026 graduating class.

2.   We should have completed your long-form resume review.

3.   You should already have completed the formalities to have your high school transcript sent to the college under consideration. Every school follows a different process - but, this post should provide you with some guidance.

4.   You should have already sent your SAT/ACT scores to the college unless you want to exercise the test-optional feature. Self-reporting SAT scores on the Common App is entirely different from sending official scores from the College Board.

5.   Filling out the Common App. The Common App has two parts to it. The common section - including static information like name, address, contact information, social security number or Tax Identification number, information about the high school, the self-reporting of the SAT scores - is common for all colleges. We ask that you fill out as much information here as you can.

It would help if you filled out the FERPA section on the Common App to request that recommendation letter links be sent to your recommenders. For this step, you would need the recommender's name, title, and email address (this also applies to school counselor recommendations). Your teenager must have keyed each item from the reviewed long-form resume (in step 2 above) into the Common App Activity Section. (See note below).

The second part of the Common App is the college-specific information (such as first and second-choice major, start term, and supplemental essay responses). Here also, try to fill out as much information as you can. For some schools, such as Texas A&M, you will be asked to self-report your high school grades (SRAR). This task can take up to two hours - so we recommend that a parent assist the student in accurately making the clerical entries.

The SRAR is a crucial step in college admissions and a university will not consider your application until it is complete. Because of the manual nature of the data entry process, we will not review the SRAR, relying on the parents to validate that this important step has been accurately completed.

The Common App Activity section: The Common App Activity Section severely limits the expression of each activity to an 80-character title and a 150-character description. The best way to deal with this limitation is to copy and paste our reviewed long-form resume content into ChatGPT and explicitly ask it to compress it to the desired character length for both title and body. ChatGPT is excellent at this kind of thing.

Sometimes, ChatGPT exceeds the character length - at which time you can gently rebuke it and have fun. "I said 150 characters!" The output is generally good, but as with all things ChatGPT, you need to review that it makes sense and doesn't take away from the original resume (at least the salient points). Completing the activity section takes time - sometimes an hour - so please have this section complete before the call.

Prioritizing items in the Common App Activity section: Before we suggest how you should list your accomplishments, remember what you should not do: Don’t list chronologically because admissions officers aren’t tracking a timeline. Don’t bury your strongest activities at the bottom. And avoid filler items just to hit 10 slots, as quality is always preferred to quantity. 

The best way is to list what is the most impactful first. The Common App explicitly instructs students to list activities "in order of importance to them." Here is our guide of how you should prioritize your list.

1. Leadership. List activities that demonstrate leadership first. This could be club officer positions, examples when you initiated projects, participated in UIL competitions such as debates, or made a measurable impact to your community.
   
   
2. Depth of involvement and time commitment. Any activity about which you are passionate reflects in your time commitment to that activity. List all activities where your sustained effort is over multiple years, logging multiple hours a week.
   
   
3. Relevance to intended major or career. Any activity that aligns with your academic or career interests deserves to appear higher up in your list. If you are a Computer Science major, you would list hackathons or coding competitions. 
   
   
4. Activities which distinguish you. If you have done something unique, such as founded a nonprofit, published research, or built an app, you want to highlight it. Depending upon the impact, this could go even to the leadership bucket.
   
   
5. Essay relevance. If your Common App essay refers to an activity, that activity should appear high up on your activity list. This will help reinforce the narrative that the activity was fundamental to your growth. 
   
   

A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please  contact us for more information.