A 'Unique' idea: Ahuja '02 capitalizes on college-admissions craft

Anand Ahuja '02 and Maxene Mulford are unusual business partners.

Ahuja, an operations research and financial engineering major, and Mulford, a mother, writer and creative-writing teacher living in Stamford, Conn., teamed up three years ago to start Uniquely U — a college essay consulting business that has already enjoyed great success.

Three years ago, when Ahuja was applying to colleges, he asked his neighbor, Mulford, to read his college application essays. Mulford was extremely helpful in critiquing Ahuja's essay, he said, and helped him get accepted to seven of the nation's top schools.

Convinced that his essay was one of the most impressive parts of his college application, Ahuja talked Mulford into starting a college-essay consulting business, and agreed to be her partner.

These days, Ahuja handles the business aspects of their organization — managing bills, advertising and organizational tasks from school — while Mulford meets with their clients in her office at home.

During the summer, when Ahuja is at home, he sits in on the writing sessions and helps Mulford teach aspiring Ivy Leaguers how to write sincere, meaningful essays.

For Ahuja and Mulford, it's a near-perfect partnership.

"I try to get the kids spiritually involved in their essays and Anand nails down the fine points of the essays that give them polish," Mulford said. "We take the most important thing that a student has ever tried to say and we take it deep."

Ahuja said the process can often be enlightening. "When students leave from a session with us, they radiate. Being a part of that is a great feeling," he said.

Mulford said crafting an essay is rarely easy. To end with a successful product, the process must often be a labor of love. "Writing a college essay is closer to writing a short story than to writing any type of essay at school. It takes three or four stages of rewriting."

The business is as lucrative for Ahuja and Mulford as it is spiritually rewarding for them and their clients. Consultation for a "core essay" of 500 to 750 words costs $500. Shorter essays cost $50 to $250, depending on their length and complexity.

Uniquely U is currently expanding its business to the Internet.

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"Last year Maxene and I put in our AOL profiles that we had a college-essay consulting business, and we started getting a lot of business that way," Ahuja said. "So right now we are constructing our own Website."

Clients of Uniquely U say the process is valuable.

"My experience with them was really positive," said Lane Marmon, a senior at Greenwich High School. "They helped me come up with ideas that I could adapt to all different kinds of questions. Mrs. Mulford had me write many drafts of my essays, and I know that they turned out as best as they could have."

Matt Denardo, a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania who used Uniquely U in the college application process, agreed.

"They helped me grow as a writer, not just for purposes of a college essay," he said.

Mulford's own son is a senior in high school this year and is going through the application process, but he is taking advantage of his mother's business in a more unconventional way.

"My son does not want to use my help. Instead, he is writing about seeing all of our clients come down the spiral staircase that leads up to my office with happy, satisfied looks on their faces," Mulford said.