Leslie Seifert, an award-winning op-ed editor and educator, applies the best of both fields to coach writing and research skills.

COACHING. Coaching for admissions essays, for more than 10 years, Leslie has helped students gain acceptances at all Ivy League schools and many of the leading private and state colleges.

TEACHING. The newspaper published by his McCourt High School students was named Best New Newspaper in New York City by the NYC High School Journalism Collaborative, based at Baruch College. It is the only citywide journalism competition, judged by professional journalists. His innovative journalism project at a Queens public high school for at-risk students was the subject of reports on CNN, public radio (click below) and NY1 News.

METHOD. Leslie’s method is modeled on a rigorous process of give-and-take that he developed as an award-winning opinion editor at Newsday and Advertising Age, to engage writers from a wide variety of backgrounds and skills.

This is tempered by the patience he has learned teaching students of widely varying ages and skill levels in colleges and public high schools. He won two national awards from the National Association of Opinion Editors.

RESEARCH SKILLS. Leslie helps students with all forms of writing. He also teaches research skills, drawing on the course in investigative thinking that he created as an adjunct professor at the Columbia Journalism School.

EDUCATION. He is a graduate of Harvard College, with a master’s degree in U.S. history from Columbia University and a second master’s degree in special education from The City College of New York. In recent years, after a long career as a full-time editor and part-time educator, he has been working as a certified, tenured teacher in the New York City school system for special education students in grades 7-12.

PUBLICATIONS. Leslie’s writing has been published in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Columbia Journalism Review, Education Week, Newsday and Teachers College Record.