University of California Admissions Counseling Tailored to Your Target Campus

Spencer has a Bachelor of Science from UCLA, where he served on the Alumni Scholarship Admissions Committee, reviewing student applications for scholarship awards. Spencer has extensive experience as a college admissions consultant, university adjunct professor, and law school graduate. 

Spencer is driven by his passion for helping every student craft and convey their distinctive story. He firmly believes that comprehending their personal narrative is the key to unlocking success in the admissions process. He derives great satisfaction from inspiring applicants to communicate their message compellingly and coherently, enhancing their chances of admission to their dream college. 

Through his work with high school students, Spencer endeavors to identify and secure the ideal college that aligns with their aspirations and future objectives. By getting to know his students as individuals and understanding their unique perspectives, ideas, and personalities, Spencer skillfully connects the dots between their personal packages and the ideal institutions that will allow them to thrive.

Spencer’s greatest strength as a coach is attentive listening and skillfully using the nuances of an individual's narrative to construct a compelling overall story. He recognizes the overwhelming nature of applications and prefers to help applicants approach everything in manageable steps that lead to success.

Applicants Spencer has recently coached have gained acceptance into the country’s top universities, including Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, and NYU.

When Spencer isn’t coaching, you can find him racing with his sailing team in San Diego.

Noel earned a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MEd from NC State University, an MA from UCLA, and is currently pursuing a PhD from UCLA. Noel worked for the international student office at UNC as an essay reader and liaison for newly admitted students and coached students through the admissions process at UCLA, providing feedback on prospective graduate students’ essays. Students Noel has coached have been accepted to Duke, Emory, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UNC at Chapel Hill, among others. 

Through his experience, Noel learned that admission truly is a holistic process—every part of an essay can make a difference. His experience as an essay reader helped him gain much insight into how important these items can be, especially when serving as "tie-breakers" for students with similar GPAs and test scores. Successful students, from his experience, presented themselves confidently and authentically, grounded in their own unique, specific experiences. Noel has been a writing instructor and coach at UCLA in recent years and excels at helping students develop and present themselves and their accomplishments in a memorable way they can be proud of.

Noel’s passion for coaching stems from his love of celebrating the moments when students achieve the goals they have worked so hard for! He loves to see how students grow during the process, learn new things about themselves, and be able to embrace their strengths along the way, even if the process is stressful. He believes we learn from stress as long as it is managed well; Noel hopes to be a stress mitigator and support system for students. 

Noel takes an assets-based approach to student counseling, which focuses on each individual's strengths and accomplishments rather than what they haven't done. He knows it can be easy for students to compare themselves to others and lose sight during competitive processes like admissions. Noel sees his job, first and foremost, as identifying, developing, and helping students present the strengths they already have in the most effective way possible.

Noel’s greatest strength is his positive and pragmatic outlook. His approach helps students build confidence, leading to tangible results on their final application materials and setting them up for success beyond college. While positive, he understands the many complicated steps required for acceptance in the current highly competitive admissions landscape; Noel breaks down these large tasks into more manageable items for students. He delivers honest and direct feedback to push students to develop themselves and their materials in a healthy way, but one that requires work on both ends of the counseling partnership. 

When he’s not coaching, Noel enjoys cooking, running, and hiking, traveling to new places, practicing language skills (French, Spanish, Italian, and a little Arabic), and watching a wide variety of movies.

Brennen graduated from the University of Southern California and has earned two Master’s degrees from the University of Denver and University of Washington. He has over three years of experience helping students apply to college, seven years of experience in higher education, and 15 years of tutoring experience. Brennen has helped 500+ students gain acceptance to their dream schools, including prestigious private schools, the Ivies, and the UCs. Of the multiple students Brennan has coached, two went on to become Olympic gold medalists, and three have been drafted to the NFL–he has tutored 10% of USC's NFL draft picks since 2016! Additionally, he is also a member of the invite-only Harvard Business Review's Advisory Council. 

Brennen is passionate about coaching college applicants because he loves helping students reach the next level, meeting students where they are, and helping them achieve their academic goals, no matter what! Brennen enjoys having the opportunity to work with students of all types. Seeing one student apply to Harvard, Pomona, and Yale one day and seeing another student apply to Georgia Tech, USC, and UCLA the next is the joy of being able to help diverse populations. This is one of the main reasons he enjoys working with students worldwide to apply to excellent schools and get great degrees that match them to successful careers.

As a coach, Brennen’s greatest strengths are that he’s kind, encouraging, fun, knowledgeable, and a journeyed consultant. He is currently pursuing his third Master's degree, so he understands the higher education scene extensively and is a West Coast University savant. He has personally taken the GRE, LSAT, and GMAT and has an extensive track record of helping students strengthen skills, applications, profiles, resumes, interview performance, and more.

Outside of coaching, Brennen is an avid music fan and has all the good jams! He also loves reading and writing and has written nine books (mostly academic) since 2012. You can also find Brennen watching and attending sports games and watching funny and informative reels/videos online from content creators who are queer, of color, or have disabilities.

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