Built on admissions officer guidance

Don't just get a score. See exactly where your essay can improve.

Paste your Common App essay. Get a score on all five traits, free.

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One free grade, no credit card. Written feedback starts at $9.99.

How it works

From paste to score.

No upload, no formatting cleanup. Paste your Common App essay and get a 25-point grade across five traits. Written feedback — the rubric anchor behind each score, and the lines it points to — unlocks with a paid grade.

What a grade contains.

One pass against the five-trait rubric. You get a score, the anchor each trait matched, and suggestions pinned to specific lines of your essay.

See the rubric

Paste, then grade.

One pass, temperature zero, the same rubric and the same exemplars every time. Two students with the same essay get the same score.

Revise with the reasoning.

A paid grade shows the rubric anchor each trait scored against, and every suggestion quotes the line it's about. A free grade shows the scores.

A rubric you can actually point to.

EssayLab grades on a 5-trait, 25-point rubric. Every trait cites public guidance from admissions officers — and a paid grade shows you exactly what your score was graded against, not just what it says.

See an anchor

Pull anchors

Anchors cite real admissions officers.

Every trait score traces back to public writing from someone who reads applications for a living. No vibes, no AI generalities — sources you can look up yourself.

One pass, twenty-five points.

Five traits, five points each, scored together against one rubric.

Your sentences, not generic advice.

When the grader identifies a specific line, it highlights that line in your essay and pairs it with a numbered explanation. Every highlight is your exact words — if it can't quote you verbatim, it doesn't highlight anything.

Two paragraphs from a student's essay with one sentence highlighted and marked with a numbered reference to its suggestion.
Sources

Every score traces to something real.

Not just a number — a rubric, a rationale, and a source for every trait. Built on what admissions officers have actually said, not on what AI assumes.

Built on what admissions officers said.

Not a synthesized 'best practices' list. Not vibes. Public writing from people who actually read applications, mapped to the schools you're applying to.

See the source list

Anchored in admissions officers' own words.

MIT Admissions. Georgia Tech's Rick Clark. Former Penn dean Sara Harberson. Jeffrey Selingo's embedded reporting from Davidson, Emory, and UW. Public writing from people who read applications for a living — not a synthesized 'best practices' list.

Sources from the schools your readers come from.

Every rubric anchor traces to admissions writing from a specific institution. When MIT publishes how they read essays, that's an anchor. When Penn's former dean explains what they look for, that's an anchor. Your essay is graded by the schools' own words.

Pay once. No subscription.

Every plan unlocks full written feedback on your Common App personal statement.

Single

$9.99

Full written feedback on one personal statement.

Get Single

  • Everything in Free
  • Written feedback on all 5 traits
  • A suggested revision for each trait, pulled from your essay
  • Grade 1 essay

Three-pack

$24.99

Three gradings. Grade a draft, revise, grade again.

Get Three-pack

  • Everything in Single
  • Grade 3 essays
  • Re-grade as you revise

UnlimitedPopular

$49.99

Unlimited gradings. Grade every draft as you revise.

Get Unlimited

  • Everything in Single
  • Unlimited gradings
  • Grade every essay and every draft
  • Good through Jan 31, 2027

Free

$0

See where your essay stands — no purchase needed.

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What's included:

  • Your overall score out of 25
  • A score on each of the 5 traits
  • A level description for every trait
  • Written feedback is locked — unlock it with any plan

Questions students actually ask.

If your question isn't here, email support@tryessaylab.com — we read every one.

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One free grade. No credit card.