Working with your consultant
Join your consultant's organization, collaborate on essays in real time, and book advising sessions.
Updated July 2, 2026
If you're working with a college essay consultant, Draftl gives the two of you a shared home for your drafts. Once you join your consultant's organization, they can read and comment on your essays without you having to send anything back and forth, and you can book advising sessions and receive their announcements right from your dashboard.
Accepting your consultant's invite
Your relationship starts with an invitation. Your consultant sends an invite to your email address, and you'll receive a message with the subject line "[Advisor Name] is inviting you as a client to [Organization Name] - Draftl."
- Open the email and click the Accept Invite button.
- Sign in to your Draftl account, or create one if you're new. If you haven't used Draftl before, Getting started as a student walks you through setup.
- Accept the invitation on the page that opens.
That's it — you're now a client of your consultant's organization, and you'll appear in their client list.
What joining an organization means
When you become a client, every advisor in the organization automatically gets commenter access to your essays. They can open your drafts and leave feedback, but they can't change your words — commenter access means they can read and comment, not edit. You never need to share essays with your advisor manually; access is automatic for everything you write.
Your essays still belong to you. Advisors see your work so they can help, but only you (and anyone you explicitly make an Editor) can change the text.
Reading and resolving inline comments
Your advisor's feedback shows up as inline comments anchored to specific passages in your essay. Commented text is highlighted in the editor, and clicking a highlight jumps to the matching comment in the Comments tab of the tools panel.
Once you've addressed a piece of feedback, you can resolve the comment to clear it from your active list. Resolving comments as you revise keeps the conversation focused on what still needs work.
Sharing an essay with anyone else
Organization access covers your advisors, but you can also share an essay with anyone — a parent, teacher, or friend — using the Share Essay dialog. Click the Share icon in the editor header, enter the person's email address, and choose a role:
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Viewer | Read the essay only |
| Commenter | Read and leave comments |
| Editor | Read, comment, and edit the text directly |
Click Share and they'll get an email with an Open Essay button. Everyone you've shared with appears in the "People with access" list, where you can change their role or remove access with the trash icon at any time.
Editing together in real time
Draftl's editor supports live collaboration. When your advisor (or anyone with access) has your essay open at the same time as you, you'll see their cursor moving through the document in their own color, labeled with their name. Comments and edits appear instantly for everyone — no refreshing, no conflicting versions. What each person can do still depends on their role: a Commenter can highlight and discuss, while only Editors and you can change the text.
Booking a session with your advisor
If your organization offers 1-on-1 meetings, you can schedule them from the Book a Session page in the Advising section of your sidebar. You'll see the session packages your organization has published, each with a name, description, and price.
- Click Book on the package you want.
- Complete Stripe checkout (free packages skip payment).
- You'll be redirected to your advisor's calendar, where you pick a time that works for you.
Your upcoming sessions appear on your dashboard home. If you see a message like "[Org] hasn't published any session packages yet," your organization simply hasn't set up booking — ask your advisor about it.
Receiving broadcasts
Consultants can send announcements — called broadcasts — to all of their clients at once. Broadcasts arrive by email and in your dashboard, and they're often tagged with labels like Deadline, Reminder, Announcement, Event, or Resource so you can tell at a glance what's urgent. Once you've read one, mark it read (or mark all read) to keep your list tidy.
Organization advising vs. one-off reviews
Joining an organization is an ongoing relationship: your advisor sees all your essays, comments over time, and meets with you throughout the application cycle. If you just want a single professional read of one essay — with no ongoing relationship required — you can purchase a one-off review from any consultant on the marketplace instead. See Getting a professional essay review to learn how that works.