About
Hello and welcome to Stark Tutoring Services!
My name is Haley Stark and I am currently taking a gap year. I am a 2020 graduate from Falmouth High School in Falmouth, ME, and I have been admitted into the class of 2025 at Harvard. I am passionate about writing, reading, and all things social studies/humanities!
I am a published author of a memoir about overcoming a life-threatening spinal cord stroke, I earned a perfect score on the essay portion of my ACT, and I won a Maine NSDA (National Speech and Debate Association) tournament for Original Works during high school.
I love all different kinds of writing. I was selected by my high school’s staff to serve as editor to my school’s newspaper my junior and senior year after I completed a journalism course. I wrote screenplays for student films, conducted a semester-long independent study about screenwriting and playwriting, and I even tried my hand at poetry; I submitted a poem I wrote my sophomore year to a nation-wide competition and became a Poetry Nation’s National Amateur Poetry Competition Semi-Finalist! Although revising and giving feedback on personal narratives and college essays are my strong suit, I am totally up for helping you delve into any sort of writing style in which you may be interested.
I worked in the tutoring center at my high school during my senior year fall semester to help students with social studies and English. I have also been working one-on-one with students in private, in-person and online sessions for the past year and a half. If you are interested in reading student testimonials from some incredibly talented young people who worked with me last year, I can certainly send those along to you. After a few sessions of working with me, I am also more than willing to write peer/mentor recommendation letters for your applications.
The two students whose college essays I most recently helped edit are going to Dartmouth and URichmond this fall (a HUGE congratulations to them!).
The student who received my most recent rec letter is also headed off to Dartmouth this year!
This is going to be a CRAZY year for the college application process. Whether you need help with a particular school subject, SATs/ACTs, your college essay (coming up with ideas, getting feedback, fine-tuning and revisions, etc.), or any other aspect of preparing for senior year, let me help you get to where you want to be!
Highlights
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Natalie R.
Frequently asked questions
What is your typical process for working with a new student?
I like to start out with a FREE consultation Zoom or Google Hangouts call to see if we would be a good match! On this <30 minute video meeting, we can discuss goals, rates and # of sessions, and any questions you may have about my process!
What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
Thomas Jefferson arrived in a beaded hijab. Benjamin Franklin scribbled in Arabic, and Abigail Adams muttered curses to the air conditioning system in Somali. The Founders of the United States crouched on stools and tucked their knees beneath a newspaper tablecloth draped carefully over paint-coated desks. Perspiration dampened their knuckles, yet they drank hot tea in Dixie cups without complaint. Within the confines of a preschool modular classroom, sixteen immigrants honored the United States with their portrayals of the historical icons.
When I accepted a job teaching an eight-week course on U.S. history to immigrants preparing for their citizenship test at the end of my junior year, I could not have anticipated the complex journey ahead. Technically, I was too young to apply, but I still requested an interview; I conferenced with the administration on several occasions before being offered the position. For the first time, their staff decided to explore new territory and hire a high school student.
I was provided with a dense syllabus at the end of my vigorous training. Although I felt proficient in the subject matter, I still studied relentlessly. Meanwhile, no article of the Constitution taught me how to receive a traditional African blessing upon meeting my students. The language, culture, and age barriers separating my students and me caused inevitable frustrations. A novice young woman, I looked unfit to be instructing middle-aged adults dependent on me for their vital citizenship.
Over time, I learned to establish a successful means of communication between us by drawing on what I knew: theatre, public speaking, and animating my body purposefully to communicate. After seven weeks had passed, I was confident in their knowledge. Even so, a disconnect between the material and the students persisted. With a final week for review remaining, in accordance with Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” I decided to depart from standard content-reinforcing methods. I planned a “Boston Tea Party,” a chance for the students to inhabit the lives of the people they studied.
I sacrificed my fingers to countless papercuts and hot-glue burns to construct masks with cutouts of the Founding Fathers. I purchased a smashing array of cookies, scones, and tea bags. When the activity ended, I was touched by their investment in the role-playing and convinced that they had a greater appreciation for U.S. history and a greater desire to participate in democracy than anyone I’d previously known.
Coming up with creative strategies to teach immigrants gave me an opportunity to draw on and synthesize my own education. This interdisciplinary experience employed the public speaking skills I have practiced in theatre and debate when I transformed lessons into well-rehearsed performances. Furthermore, my interest in foreign language study was sparked by daily visits to my local library for their Somali-English dictionary. Approaching U.S. history content from the immigrants’ perspectives dramatically altered my sense of my nation’s history. By the end of our Tea Party, the education I received with the privilege of my own U.S. citizenship held an entirely new significance.
Captivated by the Party, I watched the immigrants who were seated at the front table maintain presidential posture while the back of the classroom erupted in violent disagreements about establishing a Federal Bank. The historical biographies I taught were resurrected by actors desperate to achieve their freedom; I admired their efforts to embody my nation’s history and felt a reverence for these model citizens. Honored to have helped these passionate, educated people, I felt a new sense of gratitude for my own citizenship blossom within me.
Do you have a standard pricing system for your lessons? If so, please share the details here.
I usually charge $20/hr for private, one-on-one sessions.
If you want to put together a group session with more than one student looking for help writing college essays, my rate drops to just $15/hr per student in the group (because I believe studying with and getting feedback from friends is a GREAT way to improve on your own writing skills). Group sessions are NOT exclusive to students preparing college essays... if you have a group working on the same project or studying in the same class, let's make it a group!
What types of students have you worked with?
I have worked with English students as young as the 1st grade and ELL adult students. I specialize in the high school age group because I love working on college essays, but I am completely flexible and I enjoy working with many different types of students.
What advice would you give a student looking to hire a teacher in your area of expertise?
If you are a student in high school getting ready to prepare your college application, know that I JUST got into Harvard EA this past year and the application process is still very fresh in my mind. I worked with several professional tutors and I'm confident I can share with you what I've learned to get you into your dream school (for a percentage of the price most tutors charge...who are often many years removed from actually applying for college themselves).