By: Nicole Laporte
Published: March 9, 2025
Lindsay Tanne’s essay on her Harvard application was about a cooking experiment gone wrong—specifically, a soufflé. She often brings it up with students she works with at her company, LogicPrep Education, a New York–based independent college consultancy she started with her boyfriend when they were both undergrads at Harvard in the early aughts. She was an English major; he was a musician and mathematician. After rounding up a bunch of other artistically minded tutors, the band of bohemian intellects would drive to Westchester County in a van to tutor high school kids in essay writing and standardized test prep.
Image Source: Getty Images
Today LogicPrep has a team of 50 tutors and essay coaches who work with students around the world. But the company maintains a less cutthroat approach to helping kids get into college. “It’s no coincidence that our head of college advising and our head of tutoring are both former therapists,” Tanne says. “We really think holistically about supporting students and parents on this journey: taking the stress out of the household and helping every student be the best version of themselves, whatever that means for them.
““Our advisors know how to talk to parents and students in a way that meets with empathy.” ”
Tanne’s approach represents the more humane end of the college counseling spectrum, where the discussion doesn’t begin with what Ivy a student wants to go to but with what school is the right fit. Sessions typically begin in 9th or 10th grade (“I don’t think your 11- or 12-year-old needs to be enrolled in our program”), and the idea is to get kids to be “more intentional and more proactive” in choices, such as what level math to take if they plan to go in a STEM direction. On the extracurricular front, students are encouraged to “go deeper and think about how they’re going to have the maximum impact.” The idea is to build up a personal narrative that is unique, compelling, and rigorous—though realistic about a student’s capabilities—by the time they’re seniors and filling out applications. The journey costs money. Tanne says packages range from the mid-twenty-thousands to the mid-thirty-thousands, depending on the experience level of the tutor.
As with therapists and life coaches, much of the service Tanne provides is a soft skill. Getting kids to open up to her and helping them find what makes them tick and, essentially, who they are. These discussions can become fraught when it’s time to write essays, which colleges now use to understand a student’s background and identity since the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action. The shift has given more space for minorities and underrepresented groups to flesh out their stories, but white and Asian students often react with feelings of being too commonplace. “I think students bemoan their lack of bad fate sometimes,” Tanne says. “But I think everyone is interesting. It’s really about tapping into what’s special and interesting and cool about you, and it doesn’t mean that something horrible has to have happened.” Cue the talk on the soufflé.
The excerpt above is from a Town & Country article authored by Nicole Laporte. Read the full piece, originally published in the magazine's March 2025 issue, here.