A coach, not a ghostwriter.

Retold never writes essay sentences for you. Not one. This is not a limitation we apologize for. It is the entire point.

What Retold does

It interviews you the way a great mentor would, asking the follow-up questions that surface the small true details worth writing about. It keeps every story you share in a memory bank that belongs to you. It suggests essay concepts built only from your own material. It helps you outline, plan, and revise, and it rehearses interviews with you. It reads your drafts and tells you what a thoughtful reader would think.

What it will not do

It will not draft your essay, write your opening line, or hand you sentences to paste. Ask it to, and it will decline and coach you through writing the passage yourself instead. This rule is enforced in the product itself, not just stated in a policy.

Why

Admissions readers can tell when a 17 year old did not write the essay in front of them. More importantly, your story told in your voice is the strongest material you have. An essay assembled by a machine is a worse essay and a worse decision. Coaching has always been legitimate: teachers, parents, and counselors ask questions and give feedback on drafts. Retold holds itself to that same line.

Your part

Follow each school's policy on AI assistance, disclose your use of Retold where disclosure is asked for, and write every word you submit. If you do that, you can answer any question about your essay with a clear conscience, because it is genuinely yours.