University of Texas at Austin Admissions Counseling From Former Admissions Officers

Alec has a Bachelor’s degree in both Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Asian Studies from Rice University and an MBA from Stanford University. He has several years of experience helping college candidates get into their dream schools.

As a coach, Alec enjoys helping others find confidence and pride in what sets them apart. Essentially, he loves to see students embark on journeys to further cultivate their individuality. His greatest strength when working with Quad applicants is his ability to help them find their confidence and voice. Alec understands the difficulty in articulating the “why” behind your experiences and decisions when applying to college. He prides himself on his ability to help students dig deep so they can determine the motivations behind their choices, whether it's their reason for pursuing an activity, a school, or a program.

Students Alec has recently coached have gotten accepted into UC Berkeley, Yale University, Princeton University, MIT, Stanford University, Washington University St. Louis, Rice University, and Vanderbilt University.

In Alec’s free time, he enjoys taking courses online, making up games, and solving computer science problems.

Alec’s Pro Tip?

Students do better in the interview when they answer extemporaneously from the heart rather than when they memorize what "should be said".

Arianna is a counselor at Quad Education and has been on the admissions team at Dartmouth College. She loves being able to help guide students and lessen the anxiety that the process causes. Arianna likes to inspire students and help them reach the goals they were unsure were attainable prior.

Arianna was heavily involved in interviewing candidates at Dartmouth, leading to her greatest learning in admissions: interviewing a candidate is just as much on the interviewer as the interviewee. Later in her admissions journey, she realized how this also applies to other aspects of the application. If you search for the candidate to fail, they will, but if you have no expectation, then the candidate's performance will be their own. Arianna incorporates this philosophy into her coaching style as a consultant at Quad.

Arianna is an expert at guiding students throughout the application process. She really enjoys helping students determine their strengths, guiding them through each step in an understandable way, college list creation, and helping students discover their theme to utilize for their application and personal essay. Although she loves helping all students, she is particularly passionate about helping diverse and POC candidates, STEM, LGBTQ+, women, and disadvantaged candidates.

Arianna loves to play the violin, learn languages (she's currently working on Portuguese and Italian), and write poetry and short stories.

Kerry holds a Master’s from Columbia University and a Master’s from Carnegie Mellon University. She has served as an international admissions consultant with multiple global companies, especially those that only hire Ivy League alumni. Kerry has worked on all aspects of admissions consulting, shepherding students through admissions season or working with special cases for over a decade. She has personally coached students accepted into prestigious institutions, such as the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, Rice University, Cambridge University, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, McGill University, and more!

After working as an adjunct professor throughout her PhD years, sometimes teaching three-hour lectures to 80 students, Kerry realized that her one-on-one work in private tutoring and admissions consulting was her greatest passion, with real-life results always visible. She loves getting to know each student as an individual, helping them figure out how to stand out and their brand, who they are, and who they want to be. Kerry loves leading students through the process, helping make it fun, alleviating anxiety, and watching their admission acceptances roll in.

Kerry excels as a coach due to her ability to navigate substantial work and pivotal life plans with a blend of humor, infusing the admissions process with genuine enjoyment and excitement. Her strengths lie in authenticity, characterized by honesty and diplomacy when offering advice and openly sharing her successes and setbacks in admissions consulting. Thanks to a rich tapestry of life experiences in academia, journalism, diverse careers, and extensive travel, Kerry possesses a unique perspective that enriches her coaching approach. She also excels in her ability to read students well for what makes them unique and how to make them stand out in the admissions process.

Furthermore, Kerry's expertise extends to a comprehensive knowledge of various schools, programs, admissions intricacies, and effective strategies. Over her years as a private admissions consultant, Kerry has learned the intricacies of the systems of the various schools. She has also learned how best to help students depending on their personalities, profiles, goals, and strengths and to let them take a lead role in their own admissions process so that they can grow into the best versions of themselves.

Moreover, as an international writer with over sixty publications in both scholarly and popular outlets, Kerry offers students an unusual opportunity to collaborate and edit with a working writer. 

As a journalist and digital nomad who has lived around the world, Kerry has an immense amount of knowledge to share about places, schools, degrees, and just about anything else, too. When she’s not working, Kerry enjoys studying languages and art. Kerry is extremely into fitness and training, and the gym is her happy place for stress relief.