About Me
A major struggle for me and many other students when applying to college was feeling confident that I had something interesting to write about. When applying to college, I decided to have fun with it and shared fun facts about myself without the expectations or stress to impress. I learned that that was unknowingly a really good strategy because applying to college is all about meeting new people, so if your story is imbued with personal details, readers will really feel like they've gotten to know you so that they want to admit you.
​
Right now, I'm a senior at Duke University double majoring in Biomedical Engineering & Neuroscience and minoring in African & African American Studies. As a college senior, I'm going to be applying to gap year programs before going to medical school, so I'm right there with you!
College Calm with Talya, LLC is dedicated to help you on your college journey wherever you may be in that process. The first motivation for my business was the intent to serve as many students as possible who are traditionally underserved when it comes to college application consulting (middle to low-income applicants). The biggest motivator for me was discovering all the different college application pathways and opportunities that exist after I had already applied to most places. Unfortunately, many of the resources out there are on a need-to-know basis, so in order to even find lists of those opportunities, you would have first needed to know to research those opportunities. I aim to create a space on this website to house lists upon lists of resources all in one place, so you can discover opportunities you may not have even thought possible.
​
The second motivation for my business was the ability to help students craft their essays. When I applied to college, I became the "resident writer" in my grade for proofreading my peers' essays and noticed I genuinely had a knack and passion for the storytelling and communication aspect of writing application essays. Ever since, I've read 500+ essays and have helped dozens of students apply to college putting their best foot forward in their essays.
​
Over the years, I've discovered that not only am I talented at generating databases and brainstorming brilliant essays, but I also have a knack for mentorship and "life coaching". Because the college application process is so daunting and vulnerable, a lot of what I do is build student's confidence so that they don't allow the imposter's syndrome to impact their ability to submit their best application possible.
​
On my website, the priced services are personalized and there are free resources available for you to use however you'd like!