Welcome to our easy-to-use Essay Review Shopping Cart
Update, Jan 15, 2026: We are entering the off-season for essay reviews, so we will deactivate the shopping cart features on this page until July 1, 2026 when they will become active again for the Class of 2027. If you have specialized essay requirements in the meantime, please contact us.
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
Our reviews are priced based on 50-word units depending upon the service sought.
- Full Service: First Pass & Second Pass: $29 per 50 words
- First Pass Review Only: $21 per 50 words
- Second Pass Review Only: $12 per 50 words
- Repeat First Pass or Repeat Second Pass: $12 per 50 words
- Grad School SOP: $25 per 50 words
- Resume Review: Flat price: $189
A full review of a Common App essay (650 words), First Pass and Second Pass, would require a purchase of 13 units at $29/unit = $377 total.
Use this calculator to determine how many units you need to buy. You may round down to the nearest 50 words. Enter the word count in Column C for your desired product. Read out the results in Columns D and E.
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| Courtesy: Rao Advisors LLC |
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.
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.
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.
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.
