My ambition, after graduating from Yale, was to work on a dude ranch. Instead, I tumbled into a career in scholarly publishing, stumbled into work as a college admissions officer at Duke, wrote some books, wrote some essays, and now I have a great job teaching creative writing in the MFA program at Eastern Washington University in Spokane.
Currently I write a monthly column on issues in writing and publishing for The Chronicle of Higher Education , and a bi-monthly one for Running Times . My work has appeared in various and diverse places, from The New York Times to Reader's Digest, Glamour to JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Assocation), Ploughshares to Runners World .
I run marathons and ultra, compete in a wacky sport called Ride and Tie, and hike several times a day with Helen, my dog. Other than that, I'm sitting in a cafe and writing, or lying on a couch reading. Yes, it's an exciting life.
web CV.docx
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Most Recent Stuff
My older stuff is on a webpage that was designed by my mother. Since she died, I haven't been able to move things over here. But the site is still active and if you really want to read a whole bunch of stuff by me, it's there.
Fifteen years after I had a midlife crisis during which time I applied to medical school, got in, and then decided not to go, I had two pieces published in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Assocation.
JAMA - Apostrophe by Rachel Toor.pdf
JAMA-Me and My Fibroid by Rachel Toor.pdf
Since I am a writer, and a professor of writing, I spend a lot of time working on the essays and trying to help students brainstorm good, interesting, and unique essay topics. I ask them to do a lot of writing. I also suggest reading lists. I am quite tough on students, and ask for multiple drafts and re-writes, since that is, I believe, where much of the learning takes place. Often straight-A kids will tell me that Im the first person who has ever criticized their writing. My goal is to teach them how to write in the first person, and how to think hard about themselves and what they are interested in and find ways to represent that to admissions committees. Often students dont even realize how amazing they are. I never share anything they have written with anyone else (including parents).
Though I think it goes without saying, I offer no guarantees about the final outcome. It's a random and often bizarre process, and anyone who says they can get your kid into Harvard (or Cornell or Northwestern or Wesleyan) is either naive or wants your money. What I can do is answer questions honestly, based on my experience and expertise, help to figure out whats interesting and unique about each student, be a voice of reason (and sometimes gloom and doom) about the relative safety of a college list, and teach students a thing or two about writing.What I aim to do is to keep the process from being brutalizing for both kids and parents. It is certainly the case that I have a bunch of clients who have landed at top schools, but there are so many great kids applying for such a limited number of slots that there is bound to be disappointment if they narrow their choices too early.
At this point, I take on only a select number of clients who are highly motivated, hard working students.
racheltoor at gmail dot com
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