Lead Educator and Writing Coach

Hi, I’m Sara, seasoned personal essay coach and educator. I love listening to the stories and views of young people and asking them a million questions. If you're here because you want to write a killer personal essay, I help you do so in your best possible words.

I was lucky to always love school, to think I could and should do what(ever) I wanted there, and to have teachers who promised me that that was possible. I had access to the best education and hundreds of books.  I fake-wrote before I knew the alphabet, but once I became BFF with AlphaBet, and got my nerd creds on my CV, I got to live out my belief that writing and imagination change lives for the better.  I’m still living that, and am still a sucker for sentences. And now I want you to get to experience what words can do for you, how your writing can help you fulfill your deepest and most practical aspirations.

Work with me by reaching out here.  Expect a quick reply.

Now let’s get formal about it, shall we?  

Sara Nolan’s Narrative C.V. 

Sara Nolan believes that all students can use their college admissions essays as the perfect vehicle to access and show their intelligence, insights, creativity, and relevance.

In her former position as college-essay writing coach at JPMorgan Chase The Fellowship Initiative, and as editing consultant at Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, Sara’s mission was to cultivate student expressive talent to achieve (and fund) their educational dreams.  Aided by the powerful impact of their writing, her JPMC Fellows were awarded over 8.4 million dollars in scholarships to attend their top schools.

A Teacher Who Loves To Learn

A professional educator for over 25 years, Sara teaches personal, creative and expository writing, deep reading and cultural preparation for college with consciousness and fearlessness.

Sara Nolan earned her BA in Classics and Comparative Literature from Brown University in 2001, graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Betta Kappa. She studied both Latin and Ancient Greek, so she even knew what those accolades meant! When she wasn’t in the library, she was in the dance studio.

She mentored closely with Rick Benjamin, who later served as poet Laureate of Rhode Island.

While on the Classics faculty at St. Ann’s School (where she also attended middle and high school), Sara completed her yoga teacher training with master teacher Alison West.

She left her position to live in Thailand, to develop her own writing and meditation, and lived with a Thai family, bridging cultural and language divides.

In 2009, Sara received her MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University, mentoring with prolific poet Elizabeth Robinson, and was certified through Yoga Ed to bring yoga to public schools.

Sara traveled the world with an extraordinary, adventuresome family as their private teacher for a year.  When she returned to the US, she jumped fully into educational access work, with writing as central, and never looked back.

Sara studied the intersection of leadership and health, Whole Heart Communication, with Thea Elijah, lecturer and acupuncturist.

Current Curriculum Vitae

She is trained and works as a birth doula, supporting birthing people in the perinatal period, and infant feeding specialist.

On personal essays, dissertations and poetry– in short, whatever writing she’s tasked with editing–Sara navigates her critique and coaching with professionalism, compassion, generosity and speed.

In and out of the classroom, working one-on-one and in groups, Sara helps all her students reframe perceived limitations and opens themselves up to the possibilities in radical creativity, clarity of expression and revision of their writing.

In 2006, Sara joined Sponsors for Educational Opportunity Scholars Program as a critical reading, writing, and grammar instructor; she has since served as verbal SAT-prep instructor, editing consultant for admissions essays, and professional development lead for their college essay writing coaches.

On the staff of The TEAK Fellowship since 2004, she first piloted and instructed their Latin language program, then consulted on high school admissions essay writing. She taught personal essay writing and grammar from her own responsive curriculum to New York City’s brightest public middle school students, and served as the Dean of 7th grade.

She feels lucky to wear many hats and to love what she does every day.

Sara’s expertise allows her to meet students where they are and support them into their greatest selves. Her students gain not just an academic advantage, but enduring skills from which to live their chosen lives to the fullest.

As mother and stepmother in a blended family of five children, Sara also knows what it takes to tend to high-stakes tasks in busy, energetic households.

Sara holds space for the development of personal excellence with her own honesty, vibrancy, receptivity and rigor.

Here’s what her students say about working with Sara, and some of the essays that they wrote with her.

If you’d like to work with Sara, she can be reached here.