How I Help You Build the Best College Admissions Application
"You can trust me," I always tell my students. "I have been helping students with their college applications — very successfully — for over forty years. I know what I am doing." It's true, but not just because I have been doing it a very long time. It's because I am the best at what I do.
My students have been accepted, across all majors, to every Ivy League school, nearly every "Little Ivy" school, MIT, Stanford, the United States Air Force Academy, UChicago, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, WashU, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, USC, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and many other top 50 national universities and liberal arts colleges, including Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, and Wellesley.
A resident of the Bay Area for 12 years now, I have over 40 years of experience in education. I have been a teacher, the longtime director of (and sole college counselor for) a rigorous, independent, college-preparatory high school, a Master/Senior Admissions Consultant at the Bay Area's largest educational consulting company, and a private consultant. Over those years, I developed a college counseling methodology that works — in essence, my life's work. But the main reason it works is because of who I am.
I help students learn who they are and what they can become. I maintain a deep sense of personal responsibility; I am honest and direct with students, and encourage this kind of behavior in them. I am also honest with parents and the community at large. Each student's achievement and development is my concern. I am determined and creative in helping each of them understand and realize a dream.
At the high school I ran, I worked literally around the clock, seven days a week, wearing multiple hats. I did all the college counseling, college application preparation, and essay editing to assure the success of the school and to provide the highest level of personal attention and administrative response. I am an expert editor. I know how to strengthen a college application essay — make the story flow logically and beautifully, and come alive in a way that will elicit an emotional response from the reader — while preserving the student's voice. I love the process: finding the solution to a puzzle that yields an exquisite reward at the end. I have boundless energy and an unparalleled work ethic that includes laserlike attention to detail and deadlines. I connect easily with students and parents alike, and respond to their emails, texts, and phone calls immediately. I put nothing off.
I am realistic about college admissions, but ever optimistic. I am convinced that when a student tells their story in a genuine fashion — writes from the heart instead of to "impress," the latter of which will inevitably produce an essay that is stilted and lifeless — magic can happen. Colleges want to know who a student really is: their roots, what they love, what they care about, and what they would like to do with their life. Colleges want to enroll students who are about something — students who will contribute to their campus community in a meaningful way and bring honor to the school after they graduate.
Most college admissions consulting websites cite endless statistics and proclaim their data-driven approach in an effort to prove they know what they are doing. Instead, I offer a description of who I am and what I do for my students — how I help them grow and become irresistible to colleges. I know what I am doing.
My work combines the highest level of professional expertise with the most human of touches. I hope you will give me the opportunity to put all my experience and abilities in the service of your son or daughter. I know what I am doing. I will never let you down.