The Missing Link in Our College Prep Plan: A Peer Perspective

By Marcus H. (not his real name), Parent of a High School Senior

I thought we had everything covered.

My daughter, Laila (not her real name), had been preparing for college since middle school. We had the grades, the SAT prep books, the volunteer hours, and a spreadsheet mapping deadlines for everything from FAFSA to supplemental essays. As a father, especially one who didn’t go through this system myself—my own education was pieced together in night classes while I worked—I wanted to make sure she had more than I did. I thought if we planned hard enough, we’d be ready.

But about two months into senior year, I saw something I hadn’t planned for: Laila was stuck. Not just on logistics, but emotionally—creatively. She didn’t know how to tell her story. She didn’t feel like she had one worth telling.

She’d write three lines and erase them. “Everything sounds fake,” she told me one night, defeated. “Like I’m just writing what they want to hear.”

I didn’t know how to help. And that’s when we discovered something we hadn’t factored into our plan: the peer perspective.

Why Peer Coaching Changed Everything

Laila was paired with a college sophomore named Diego (not his real name), a first-gen student from El Paso who had once been exactly where she was. Diego wasn’t a counselor. He wasn’t some adult giving lofty advice about finding your “authentic voice.” He was just a guy who had recently written essays, filled out forms, and lived through the stress of decision letters and second-guessing.

From their first conversation, something shifted. Diego asked questions that didn’t sound like school:
“What made you choose the environmental club over all the others?”
“When you talk about your brother, what’s something you’ve never put in writing before?”
“Is there something you stopped doing that you miss?”

He didn’t critique her. He listened. And she responded. For the first time, Laila didn’t feel like she was being interviewed. She felt seen.

More Than Just Essay Help

Diego helped Laila unpack her story—how growing up in a mixed-heritage home (Black and Filipina), how translating at parent-teacher conferences for her mom, how her curiosity about climate change started with picking up plastic bottles in the neighborhood park as a kid—wasn’t just background noise. It was the story.

I listened outside the room during one of their sessions and heard something I hadn’t heard in weeks: laughter. Real laughter. They were talking about her part-time job at the aquarium and how her manager always made her feed the stingrays because no one else wanted to do it. That moment became the opening line of her Common App essay.

“Before I ever spoke at a climate rally, I was hand-feeding stingrays in a tank behind a mall.”

Who knew?

What We Had Been Missing

Looking back, we had counselors and teachers and a family support system. But what we didn’t have was someone close enough to the experience to make it feel possible. That’s what Diego brought.

He didn’t just help her write. He gave her permission to be proud of who she was without translating it into bullet points. He reminded her that rejection happens even to the most qualified students—and it’s not a reflection of worth. He made her feel less alone.

For a student like Laila—ambitious, unsure, deeply self-aware—the difference between generic advice and peer insight was like night and day.

A Lesson for Other Parents

Now that we’re on the other side of it—essays submitted, interviews done, acceptances arriving—I can say with confidence that the missing link in our college prep plan wasn’t more test prep or another club. It was empathy, relatability, and insight from someone who’d just walked that path.

I wish we’d found peer coaching sooner. Not because it would’ve changed the outcome (though maybe it would have), but because it changed how my daughter saw herself in the process. She felt understood. She felt like her story mattered.

In a process that too often feels transactional, peer mentorship brought the humanity back.

If you're a parent going through this journey with your teen, ask yourself: who's helping your child not just prepare for college—but prepare to be heard?

That’s the piece we almost missed. And now I can’t imagine this process without it.