Introduction: Note: early acceptances are in! Lots of acceptances, including Harvard, Yale, and Brown. Currently taking students in grades 9-11. Will also take seniors for any work due after January 1.
I’m a professional admissions counselor with almost 20 years of experience plus a special emphasis on Ivy League and other top-tier colleges. I graduated in the top 10% from Harvard, where I was a debate champ, and have been doing admissions counseling since I was 17. It helped me pay my way through college, and I’ve done it ever since. The result is that I’m sort of a weird find: I'm young enough to relate to students (important) but I have close to two decades of practice. Over the years I've helped students get into every Ivy League school many times over, plus other top colleges like Stanford, Oxford, and Caltech.
What is a college admissions counselor? Put simply, my job revolves around helping you get into college. And not just any college—the college you want to go to, including the best colleges in the world. Whereas a normal tutor teaches you how to do, say, calculus, an admissions counselor teaches you how to get into, say, Harvard.
It’s easy to confuse professional admissions counselors with "guidance counselors," the people at high schools who answer your college questions, but the jobs are very different. Guidance counselors can only provide limited information, plus they're spread thin across many students and they can't really give you the special attention that's required to navigate the obscene maze that has become the college application process.
On the contrary, I am solely devoted to you and your quest to get into an amazing university. This is my job, and I take it very seriously. My students routinely get into Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Yale, UPenn, and the list goes on. Sure, they were smart and talented to begin with, but there's a humongous difference between being smart and talented and being equipped to conquer the college admissions process. That process has become increasingly complex, convoluted, and downright confusing in recent years, to the point where even top admissions officials swear that it's random.
But it's not random, and it never has been. It's about presenting a compelling narrative, about telling a story. It's about separating yourself from the herd and proving that you're not just a statistic, not just a GPA and a series of test scores, but a vibrant, creative, wildly driven kid who wants to change the world. It's about painstakingly and consistently crafting that image in everything from your college essays to your resume to your in-person interviews. To do that effectively without any advice from someone who has been through the process before is pretty tough.
That's where I come in.
When you work with me, I handle everything: I help you craft a series of college essays that will wow admissions officers and put you on their radar. I help you carry that same narrative into your short-answer questions, into your resume blurbs, into your emails to admissions staff and into your in-person interviews. I coach you on interview technique, advise you on school selection, explain admissions mumbo-jumbo and help develop a comprehensive admissions strategy.
And I'm good at what I do. The vast majority of my students have been admitted to one or more of their top 3 schools. Of course, part of having such a strong acceptance rate is being honest with myself and my students about what's realistic. If I don't think you have a chance of getting into one of your top 3 schools, I'll tell it to you straight. In those cases, I may advise you to change up your list a bit, or I may forward you on to an advisor who I think is a better fit. In any case, my priority is simple: helping students maximize what they've got and leverage their skills and background to get into the best colleges possible.
I also help with grad school applications, so if that's something you're interested in, let me know.
Without further ado, here's a summary of the services I offer:
• Essays! Essays all day. These include the make-or-break personal statement as well as supplemental essays, short-answer essays, scholarship essays, and any other essays you may need to submit at any point during your college application process, even essays that have nothing to do with colleges (say essays you write in applying to an internship or prestigious summer program).
• School selection, including a personal evaluation of which schools you stand the best chance of getting into based on your resume and background.
• General application strategy and explanation. I help you customize your strategy for different schools and also help to explain the process in general, keeping track of deadlines, rules and technicalities, and the like.
• Preparation and training for in-person interviews. I help coach you on how to do well in your interviews with college alumni. These interviews can be hugely important and should not be taken lightly.
• Resume help. I help flesh out your resume so that it sounds impressive, is stylistically consistent with your essays, and is visually appealing (as opposed to many resumes which appear dull and/or disorganized).
• Letters of recommendation. I can help you pick and choose the best recommenders, then reach out to your them in a way that will encourage them to write the best recommendations possible.
• High school course load. I can help you choose the high school courses that are likely to suit your strengths and simultaneously fulfill colleges expectations.
• Selecting extracurriculars. I can help you identify which extracurriculars will impress colleges the most while still playing to your strengths.
• Planning summer experiences. Similar to extracurriculars, I can help you make the most of your summers. Many students waste their summers in ways that aren't productive or don't benefit their applications.
• Managing communication with college interviewers, campus representatives, recommenders, your guidance counselor, college admissions committees, and more.
• Connecting and networking. I can introduce you to alumni or current students/faculty from your target colleges who can tell you more about the colleges and potentially assist you during admissions.
• Planning visits to colleges. I can help you plan useful and informative college visits that aren't touristy and are designed to increase your chances of getting in.
• Follow-up or "supplemental" application components, including essays submitted after your application has been reviewed. I can assist with these.
• Transfer students. I can assist students with transfer applications. Fortunately I've done them before and they’ve all been successful.
• Student athletes. I can help student athletes leverage their athletic abilities during the admissions process. I can liaise with coaches and athletic heads and negotiate admissions help on the basis of athletic talent.
Those are just some of the many services that go into college advising. If you need help with any of the above—or anything else—simply message me here and let's chat.
Thanks, and good luck!
