When the time came for CollegeAdvisor.com Admissions Expert Anya Ranganathan to apply for college, she was well-prepared for what was in store.
She was raised in the college town of Princeton, NJ, which crystallized her plans of gaining a higher education. In addition to living near a prestigious university, Anya also went to a college preparatory boarding school where she had high school counselors to help her with the college application process. They were able to help her organize a list of schools to apply to, gather letters of recommendation, and even keep her on track with deadlines after she suffered concussions during her junior year. Because of the diligence of her counselors, Anya was able to successfully apply to college and eventually attend and graduate from Duke University with a degree in economics.
Without the support of her school, Anya knew that she would have been lost during the college app process, and probably would not have been able to apply to schools until the following year. The gratitude that she felt during her experience, combined with her knowing that the various sources of information on the internet can be confusing to applicants, made her want to help high school students who traditionally did not have access to college counseling.
Anya got her chance to help students when she saw her friend Brian Mitchell, founder and CEO of CollegeAdvisor.com, post about his new company on Facebook. After learning about CollegeAdvisor.com’s social mission and how actively committed the team was to help all students confidently apply to college, she signed up as one of the first advisors.
For Anya, the most exciting part of working with CollegeAdvisor.com was that she could be a third party person‒ someone objective who could provide feedback and help students realize their interests, hone their story, etc. As she puts it, “When students are able to consolidate their work, it’s very empowering because they can use it as a springboard.”
Being a CollegeAdvisor.com Admissions Expert also gave Anya the chance to work with women of color, something that she cared about greatly since she knew that she would have benefited from having an advisor like her at that stage of her life.
Anya recommends CollegeAdvisor.com to applicants because she believes that there is a huge benefit of working with someone who has recently gone through the college app process. She remembers how the competitive nature of the process can make a student feel anxious and uncertain about where to start. By drawing on their personal experience, advisors can approach the process with personal and specific knowledge to answer individual questions from students.
As Anya says, CollegeAdvisor.com does more than provide essay writing services. Honest conversations with advisors can help applicants realize the parts of themselves that they want to share with their dream schools.
This post was based on an interview with CollegeAdvisor.com Advisor Anya Ranganathan. If you need help with your applications and are interested in working with a CollegeAdvisor.com Admissions Expert like Anya, register with CollegeAdvisor.com today.