Working with Grad Coach means you get a dedicated, highly-qualified research specialist to help you through any stage of your research.

Whether you just want a little initial guidance to make sure you're headed in the right direction, or you want hands-on, ongoing support throughout your entire research journey, your coach will be there for you whenever you need help.

Your dedicated coach will work with you using three channels: live sessions, content reviews and email support.

Live Coaching Sessions

A live coaching session is a real-time online meeting (audio or video) with your coach. In these sessions, you can discuss anything you need assistance with. For example, you might discuss topic ideas, how to structure your next chapter, how to undertake a specific analysis, etc.

Content Reviews

A content review is an offline review, where you send your document to your coach and they’ll meticulously review it at the scheduled time. They will provide extensive commentary within the document (including what’s wrong, why it’s problematic and how to correct it), and then email it back to you (see an example here). If you want to have a call in addition to the content review, you can do that too.

Email Support

In addition to these two options, you can also email your coach at any time to ask any questions you have, so you'll never be left feeling unsure.

There are a few key differences:

On-demand access

A university-allocated supervisor can only spend a limited amount of time with each student and their support is usually limited to a certain amount of time per section of content. Also, support is often limited to one or two formats (e.g., email).

Conversely, we provide unlimited, multi-channel, on-demand support. You can book a live coaching session anytime you need to, get your work reviewed as many times as you like (see an example here) and drop us an email whenever you have a question or concern.

Plain-language advice

Supervisors often communicate in complex “ivory tower academic-speak” that is difficult to understand and not particularly actionable. Students often struggle to make sense of their supervisor’s advice and feedback, due to this language barrier and experience gap.

Conversely, we provide you with plain language, actionable advice and feedback, with lots of examples and analogies to help you grasp concepts as quickly and easily as possible.

A safe, confidential space

The supervisor-student relationship is a tricky one to navigate, as the supervisor is often the first/primary marker or will be assessing you in some way. This creates an awkward dynamic, where it can feel somewhat risky to ask certain questions or propose ideas.

Conversely, your dedicated coach is your “partner in research” and there are no power dynamics. We create a 100% safe, comfortable space for you to ask questions, learn and grow. No question is a "stupid question".

Combined research expertise

Your supervisor will generally be allocated based on your area of research (your topic), not your methodology. This means that oftentimes (not always) they are not methodology experts and cannot provide the best possible guidance regarding your research design.

Conversely, the Grad Coach team consists of methodology experts across the spectrum of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. While you'll usually only work with one dedicated coach, you'll have access to the combined knowledge pool, which means you'll get the best possible advice.

Editing and proofreading services focus purely on language, formatting and technical presentation requirements, such as referencing. In other words, the focus is on the language, not the content itself. As a result, a dissertation can be perfectly edited and proofread but still fail, as the content itself is poor.

With coaching, on the other hand, the focus is on content. In other words, we focus on the quality of the research itself. For example, we look at things like:

• Is the research topic well-defined and justified?
• Are the research aims, objectives and research questions well-articulated and aligned?
• Is the literature review comprehensive, integrative and well-structured?
• Is the methodology well-considered and executed?
• Is the analysis sound and do the conclusions make sense?

Simply put – coaching focuses on the things that earn the majority of the marks. Additionally, we do offer a separate editing and proofreading service to polish the document, once the content is finalised.

Yes. In fact, many universities refer students to us and some institutions even use our content (articles and videos) as part of their curriculum.

We provide dissertation coaching to help you improve the quality of your work. Importantly, all work must be your own – we do not write for you. While there are organisations that will cross this ethical boundary, we refuse to engage in any activity which may be considered as academic misconduct.

WARNING - If you are considering any academic writing service, please be aware that the use of such services can lead to expulsion or even revocation of your degree years after the fact. Many websites offering such services provide extremely low-quality work that is unlikely to pass and some websites are outright scams preying on desperate students.

The purpose of the initial consultation is for us to assess your specific situation, needs and wants, and then explain how we can help you.

Please note that the initial consultation is not a coaching session. Naturally, we cannot provide accurate guidance without first having a sound understanding of your project, and we need to charge for such services.

There are a few factors that distinguish Grad Coach from the alternatives:

On-demand, online service

Grad Coach was built to give you the help you need, whenever you need it, wherever you are. You can book live audio/video sessions, get your written work reviewed and sent back to you, or just drop your coach an email whenever you have a question. 1-on-1, hands-on help is always just a click away.

Friendly, plain-language coaches

At Grad Coach, our goal is to bring academia "back down to earth". While our coaches have over 100 years of combined experience within academia (including dissertation supervision, marking and lecturing), we always aim to simplify the content as much as possible, using plain language, actionable advice and feedback. You can download a sample content review here to see this in practice.

More than just coaching - a one-stop-shop

In addition to our flagship dissertation coaching service, we also provide a suite of time-saving services such as interview transcription, qualitative coding, survey design, statistical testing, and editing and proofreading. This means you get everything you need under one trusted roof. You can visit the services page to learn more about our full offering.

An accredited, award-winning operation

We take our work seriously, which is why we're accredited by the Tutors' Association UK and subscribe to their extensive code of ethics. We've also won multiple awards, including "Best Dissertation Coaching Service 2021" (AI International), "Best Dissertation & Thesis Coaching Specialists 2020" (MEA) and "Top 50 Student Blog" (Feedspot). To date, we've supported over 3000 students with private dissertation coaching and approximately 7 million students with video lessons.

To learn more about Grad Coach and the team behind it, visit the “About Us” page.

We can provide coaching for a wide range of dissertations, theses and research projects/assignments at Bachelors, Honours, Master's and Doctoral-level degrees, especially (but not limited to) those within the social sciences.

Importantly, our expertise lies in the research process itself, especially research design, methodologies and academic writing – rather than specific research areas/topics (e.g. psychology, management, etc.). In other words, the support we provide is topic-agnostic, which allows us to support students across a very broad range of research topics.

If you’re unsure about whether we’re the right fit, feel free to drop us an email or book a free initial consultation.

As we mentioned previously, our expertise lies in the research process itself, especially research design, methodologies and academic writing – rather than specific research areas/topics (e.g., psychology, management, etc.).

Simply put, the support we provide is topic-agnostic, which allows us to support students across a very broad range of research topics. That said, if there is a coach on our team that has experience in your area of research, as well as your chosen methodology, we can allocate them to your project (depending on availability).

If you’re unsure about whether we’re the right fit, feel free to drop us an email or book a free initial consultation.

No. We work on a 1-on-1 basis, where each client has a dedicated coach assigned to their project, to ensure that they receive the highest possible quality of service.

Since our coaching services are completely custom-tailored for each student, they are billed on a time basis (as opposed to a project basis). This allows you to engage as much or as little as you want, with no long-term commitments or tie-downs.

The hourly rate itself depends on whether you purchase single hours or a discounted package. Please visit the pricing page for more information.

Yes - you can view our Facebook and Trustpilot reviews here. You can also read about our accreditations and awards here.

Absolutely. Your work will be treated completely confidentially and will not be shared with any third parties, nor published anywhere. We can sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) if you wish. Once you have completed your project, we can delete all content from our servers.

Yes, in addition to dissertation coaching, we provide a suite of time-saving services, including:

• Interview transcription
• Qualitative data coding
• Survey design and hosting
• Statistical testing (SPSS & R)
• Editing and proofreading

If you have any other requirements, feel free to contact us to discuss them.

No - all writing must be your own. We can hold your hand throughout the research process, but we cannot write for you as that would constitute academic misconduct.

WARNING - If you are considering any academic writing service, please be aware that the use of such services can lead to expulsion or even revocation of your degree years after the fact. Many websites offering such services provide extremely low-quality work that is unlikely to pass, and some websites are outright scams preying on desperate students.

Yes, we can. In fact, many of our students are international ESL students. We can assist both with the academic aspects (e.g., coaching) and the English communication aspects (e.g., editing and proofreading).

It’s not ideal, but we will do our best to help. Please email us or book an initial consultation as soon as possible.

If your application requires a research topic or proposal (as is common for Master's and PhD applications), we can assist with that aspect of the application. However, if you require admissions-specific advice and guidance, that is not our area of expertise.

Please book a free initial consultation with us to discuss.

No problem. Feel free to email us or book an initial consultation to discuss.