About Us
Sarah Hamlin founded Creative College Composition to help students find their voice and confidence to join the class that is best for them. In 2022 Meg Graves joined Sarah to offer experience and collaboration to even more students.
About Sarah Hamlin
Sarah Hamlin graduated from The University of Virginia in 1989 with a B.A. in English and a minor in History. (You don’t chose those majors unless reading and writing are your favorite things to do!) After school, she worked with Bank of America as a retail and commercial lender for the Private Bank in Washington D.C. and Nashville, TN. She and her husband, Frank, moved to Dallas in 1999 where they have raised their three children. Sarah has been a regional interviewer for the prestigious Jefferson Scholarship for the University of Virginia and has been a member of the Jefferson Scholar’s Foundation Board as well as a member of the Board of Directors for the Episcopal School of Dallas.
As a coach and student advocate, Sarah reminds parents and students alike that ultimately it is the student and the work of a College Guidance Office that gets a student where they need to be.
It is just nice to have a voice sitting with you along the way to keep the details straight.
This job fell into my lap.
I have heard the best ones usually do. It really started with my volunteer role as Eagle Scout Advisor where I helped young men navigate the bureaucratic process to achieve the elusive Eagle rank. I quickly learned that to keep the scouts engaged, I had to keep the tasks short, the visits concise (until they asked for more) , and to have timelines within short site. It was a job I cherished through two of my own children’s paths to Eagle and ten years of service. As my children moved off to college, friends asked me to help with editing and refining college essays. For the first two years, I drank from a fire hose and learned everything I could to create and simplify the entire application process. Friends starting referring friends and then they referred more friends. It is with passion and care and a commitment to help students find voice and confidence that I sit with them each and every year.
Ready to Get Started?
About Meg Graves
For the past 15 years as an adjunct professor for leader development and communications at SMU, Meg Graves has coached students toward professional growth centered around strengths and interests.
She tells her students about her own circuitous career path before landing in a role that perfectly pairs her passions and skills. Ignoring what her own assessments told her, she stubbornly started college at Vanderbilt University as a molecular biology major with the goal of becoming a genetic engineer. After taking the prerequisite science classes, she came to understand that her strengths would be grossly underutilized in her intended profession; instead, a major in English with a minor in Business Administration better aligned with her personality, skills, and interests.
Professionally, she held marketing-oriented positions at Neiman Marcus, ClubCorp, Ericsson, and Match (and earned her MBA with honors from SMU Cox School of Business in between). In these roles, she used her top strengths in communication, relationships, collaboration, and coaching exponentially more than she would have as a genetic engineer.
Think how many times people have asked you: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Students face a lot of anxiety over the answers to this question. Meg's exercises will ideally help you understand why certain options would complement your natural strengths.
Nearly 75% of students change their major at least one time which leads to delayed graduation, extra coursework, and tremendous angst. Adding a further layer of complication to the matter, many universities make it hard for students to change majors if it means moving into a different school (e.g., liberal arts students cannot gain admission to the business school as a sophomore or junior). As a Certified Strong Interest Inventory® Practitioner, Meg guides students before they reach these expensive and stressful crossroads. With an honest, intentional, and collaborative process that includes the teenager and parents, students can apply for and start college with a strong sense of purpose and a clear plan for exploration.