Josh

About Me

I’m Josh, and I’ve spent the last ten years tutoring students in ELA, social studies, AP courses, and college readiness. Over time, my focus has shifted more and more toward what I’ve come to love most: helping students find their voice, especially in the high-stakes, high-pressure world of college admissions. Whether we’re refining an essay, choosing the right prompt, or just trying to identify what a student actually wants to say, my goal is to make the process feel approachable - less like “selling yourself” and more like “being yourself” which is far more of an effective approach than some will have you believe.  Only then can you be truly proud of what you put on the page, and I love watching students get there. 

My academic background is in English Language and Literature, with a minor in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the University of Missouri. I taught high school English for nearly seven years after working as a CRLA Master Tutor at the college level. I’m currently finishing my Master of Education in Curriculum & Instruction with a concentration in Holocaust & Genocide Studies from Gratz College, where my research and curriculum development focus on how reading and writing can empower students to challenge injustice, think critically, and act with purpose.

Tutoring Style

I approach every student like I would the first draft of an essay: We collaborate and start with what’s already working. I read a student’s emotional tone before anything too rigorous or academic. To skip this step is to embrace inauthenticity. If a student walks in burnt out or unsure where to start, we slow down. If they’re ready to aggressively take on the challenge, I match that energy. I don’t bring a “formula” to sessions or a script. Every tutoring session looks vastly different from any other. I bring a lot of empathy, honesty, and a knack for asking the kind of questions that help students think in new directions and generate ideas that they already have, but had a few too many mental blocks in the way. I listen for what matters to them—and then we build the application story from there. So, no gimmicks, tricks, or cliches. Just real progress that feels and is authentic to who they are and where they’re going. Truth always reads better than inauthenticity.

Success Story

A student I worked with last fall had already submitted a few college apps and wasn’t happy with how her personal statement turned out. She said it felt like a chore or a heavy cloud hanging over her head and that the essay didn’t sound like her, but every time she tried to revise it, it just got more forced. We scrapped the structure entirely and started by talking through the parts of her life that didn’t usually make it into school assignments. That’s how we landed on a story about the quiet routines she built with her grandmother when things were tense at home—meals, grocery trips, translating small things. The final version wasn’t dramatic or showy, but it was focused, grounded, and finally in her voice. She ended up getting into four of her top-choice schools and told me, “That’s the first thing I’ve ever written that felt like mine.”

One year prior to that, I was assisting another student who was applying to engineering programs and had done a lot: robotics team, summer courses, Honors coursework, and yet, he struggled with writing immensely. His first draft read like a bullet-point list with transitions. Instead of trying to make it sound polished, I asked him to walk me through a moment that actually stuck with him. He talked about a drone he’d been building that kept failing for weeks until he figured out the wiring issue by accident. It wasn’t a big revelation, just a real moment of focus and problem-solving. That story ended up becoming the backbone of his personal statement. He got into UT and Purdue and told me later he was surprised the essay he spent the least time performing in was the one that worked.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t to turn students into essay-writers. It’s to help them say something true in a way they can stand behind—something they won’t cringe at a year later.

Hobbies & Interests

I live in Houston with Dexter, my Boston terrier–pug mix (he’s technically a “Bugg”.) We spend a lot of time wandering around outdoors, museums, and taking long car rides. I love creative writing as a hobby and I write across genres—fiction, poetry, memoir, historical nonfiction—whatever I’m obsessed with at the moment. I’m drawn to overlooked details and the way writing makes you notice more. That same curiosity is what makes this work matter to me. It’s not just about college—it’s about helping students figure out who they are in the process, so they can be dangerous too (in the best way possible, that is.)

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