Poise is a woman-owned small business that helps high school students through the college application process. Your application starts as soon as you start thinking about higher education, and you can benefit from help at any point in the process, early or late.
For seniors, we offer full-scale application support that includes help deciding where to apply, managing applications, writing essays, and preparing for interviews. For students who need just a second set of eyes on essays, we also offer editing by the hour.
For freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, we can help choose classes and activities that build on students’ skills and interests. Thoughtful cultivation of schedules in the first three years of high school helps prepare students to show mastery and commitment and to tell compelling stories about their values and achievements in their college applications.
With nearly twenty years of experience in editing and ten interviewing applicants to Harvard for the Harvard Schools Committee, Harvard Club of Washington, D.C., we encourage students to see their applications as stories. Our job is to help them understand, organize, and convey these stories clearly, truthfully, and in ways that delight and entertain.
Elizabeth Thottam owns Poise and lives and works in Alexandria, Virginia. She holds a BA from Harvard College (2008), where she graduated phi beta kappa and magna cum laude, and an MBA from the UNC Keenan-Flagler School of Business (2017).
