Common App & UC PIQ
Honest feedback on your college essay.
Post a draft and get notes from real readers — with current students, past students and verified professionals clearly marked, so you know whose advice you are taking.
Good essay help costs money. It shouldn’t. Why I built this.
Free, and you can read the feed before signing up.
Notes on the exact sentence
Readers highlight the line they mean and comment right there, so feedback points at the writing instead of talking around it.
You can see who is talking
Current students, past students and verified professionals are checked and badged. A commenter can hide their name, but never their badge — no guessing who knows what.
Post without your name
Share publicly, post anonymously, or keep it to a private link you send to a few people. Your call, per essay.
Moderated, and you can block
Comments are screened, anything cruel can be reported, and on your own essay you can block someone outright.
How it works
- Step 1
Post your draft
Pick your Common App or UC PIQ prompt, paste the draft, choose how public it is.
- Step 2
Get real feedback
Readers leave notes on specific passages — what lands, what reads generic, what to cut.
- Step 3
Revise with context
Weigh notes by who wrote them, edit your essay, and post the next draft when it is ready.
What the badges mean
- Verified Student
- Confirmed with a school email — currently enrolled.
- Past student
- Already been through admissions — in college now, or graduated.
- Verified Professional
- Counselors, teachers, professors, admissions professionals, tutors and essay coaches, and others who describe their own role — reviewed by hand. They give feedback on your writing — they do not evaluate you, and none of this reaches an admissions office.
- No badge
- Anyone else — no badge at all. Still useful, just weigh it accordingly.
Is it safe to put my essay here?
Fair question. The short answer:
- You choose who sees it. Public, anonymous, or a private link.
- Nobody can message you. No inbox, no chat. Every comment is public and can be reported.
- Search engines are told not to index essays.
- You can delete it any time.
- No ads. Nothing about you is sold.
One person built this and runs it. Here is who, and why. The full safety rules are on the safety page.
Ready when your draft is.
Create an accountA parent, guardian or counselor? Here’s how CREX works and what we do about safety.
CREX is free and costs about thirty dollars a month to run. You can help cover that if you want to. Nothing on the site changes either way.