Ready to start building your best college app? 😇

Bay Area College Consulting — Helping Families Build Story, Strategy, and Sanity

The admissions process is overwhelming by design.

Our former admissions officers guide families with calm clarity. We help you craft authentic narratives that admissions committees remember at the most competitive STEM, business, and social science programs.

Ready to write yours? Book a free 20-minute strategy call.

 

 

🎉 Our 24-25' "Radical Transparency" results are out! See our full GPA, major, course-rigor breakdown 🎉

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"No legacy, no hook. Penn M&T. Cornell Engineering. Berkeley EECS. We worked with Ben and Carolyn on courses, extracurriculars, and essays. In the end, I think it was the writing that set his application apart — one admissions officer even told us they remembered his essay when we visited on admitted students day.”

TA., Sierra Admissions Client (Los Gatos)

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"Couldn't be happier."

We’ve worked with Sierra for four years through high school at Paly. Our son did his applications with Kylie and got into a great school for him, so we asked her to work with our daughter. In junior/senior year she and Ben helped my daughter build a school list and coached her through writing essays that were as amazing and personal as our son’s. Couldn't be happier.

Jian B., Sierra Admissions Client (Menlo Park)

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"Our hero throughout everything."

My daughter (first child) took care of the process on her own. My son needed some serious help navigating the process and counseling dept at Gunn wasn't enough. Sierra were our heros through everything. He helped Luke write essays that we had no idea he had in him. Highly recommend the Sierra team. 

Joy N., Sierra Admissions Client (Palo Alto)

Our college consulting outcomes speak for themselves. And our clients do, too.

We've helped hundreds of students get into schools like these.

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Meet your new college consulting team.

We are a small team of award-winning writers, musicians, competitive climbers, and former admissions officers with roots in the San Francisco Bay Area. We attended (and worked at) state schools, liberal arts colleges, UCs, and selective private universities across the country. We know admissions in and out, and we’re here to help you reach your admissions ceiling.

Our partners are experts—former admissions officers and superb writers from schools like Vanderbilt, Stanford, Yale, and Harvard. Combined, we've worked in highly selective admissions for more than 30 years, with a particular flair for Ca consulting.

Everyone on our team has a stake in every application. And we share a common view that our best interests lie in being obsessed with client outcomes.

 

 

 

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Ben Bousquet, M.Ed
Former Assistant Admissions Director, Vanderbilt University

Ben is the former Assistant Director of Admissions at Vanderbilt University and was a Resident Director of the 2018 Harvard Pre-College Program. Ben has reviewed 20,000+ applications, presented files to the admissions committee, and selected students for top merit scholarships. At Harvard, he facilitated admissions workshops for 500+ high-achieving high school students. 

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Carolyn Orosz, MFA
Former Admissions Officer, Middlebury College

Carolyn Orosz is a former admission officer at Middlebury College, where she read thousands of applications and served as a voting member of the admissions committee. At Middlebury, Carolyn read applications from athletes, international students, and students at top public and private schools nationwide–including Phillips Exeter, The Lawrenceville School, and those in the San Francisco Bay Area. She understands highly selective admissions and the unique pressures and competitions that students face.

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Irena Smith, PhD
Former Admissions Officer, Stanford University

Irena is a former admission officer at Stanford University and has led her own admissions practice for 15+ years. She works in consultation with Sierra Admissions, providing application strategy feedback to team members. Irena's writing on college admissions has been featured in The Atlantic, San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR.

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Kylie Kistner, MA
Former Admissions Counselor, Willamette University

Kylie is a former admissions counselor at Willamette University. She has been a writing coach at three institutions, worked with thousands of students on writing, and has supported neurodiverse students through writing, planning, and project management. Kylie co-created a university-wide writing handbook used across 200+ undergraduate writing courses and to teach writing in several countries. 

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"Truly gifted writing coaches."

We hired Sierra Admissions to help my son research what he wanted to study in school. The Sierra team helped bring my husband and me up to speed on the admissions process. Ben has become a mentor to Ken. They are gifted writing coaches. We recommend Sierra Admissions to everyone.

Kerry H., Sierra Admissions Client (Atherton)

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"My results were amazing."

I was anxious going in because I had a pretty generic resume and was applying to very competitive schools. Ben was so good at helping me frame my application in a way that was authentic to me and that made sense of my story. Studying CS at Berkeley next year!

Ellie H., Sierra Admissions Client (San Francisco)

Why College Consulting with Sierra? Here's the deal:

Pretend you're an admissions officer... It's Thursday, 4pm. The 28th application of the day slides across the desk from a competitive school in California. Maybe Crystal Springs, maybe Menlo, maybe Paly. You start reading, trying to stop your gaze from wandering up to the clock every few moments. Ugh, Another essay about machine learning?

Academic rigor, grades, and extracurriculars matter. But those factors only get you to the starting line. Then, the real test begins. (Especially true in the most competitive application markets.)

Ben, team member and former Admissions Officer at Vanderbilt University, tells us what makes an application great:

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Your application must knit your transcripts, extracurriculars, scores into a coherent and authentic story that a reader connects with. If your story doesn't connect, your app is often, to be blunt, DOA. That connection usually happens in the essays.

Ben Bousquet, Director of Consulting @ Sierra Admissions (Former Vanderbilt Admissions)

We work with you at every phase of the application process to help students craft their own vulnerable, authentic, and resonant admissions stories.

 

 
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"Our hero throughout everything."

My daughter (first child) took care of the process on her own. My son needed some serious help navigating the process and counseling dept at Gunn wasn't enough. Sierra were our heros through everything. He helped Luke write essays that we had no idea he had in him. Highly recommend the Sierra team. 

Joy N., Sierra Admissions Client

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John is heading off to USC next month! We worked with Sierra Admissions from junior year on course selection, school research, and his extracurricular direction. But I think in the end it came down to the essay. It was phenomenal… We hung it on the fridge at the end of the cycle (much to John's chagrin). If the Sierra Admissions team is available, stop looking.

Jeanette S., Sierra Admissions Client (Redwood City)

Our Bay Area College Consulting Practice

We work with students nationwide, but the core of our practice has always been rooted in California and the Bay Area. Our students come from many of the top public and private high schools across the South Bay, San Francisco, and Marin County. The practice began in Marin and is now centered in Palo Alto, Atherton, Los Altos, Menlo Park, and Redwood City.

How is our approach to Bay Area college consulting different?

Most Bay Area college counseling firms take on large caseloads, juggling 30–40 applicants at once. Much of the work gets delegated to junior “associate” counselors — often recent grads with limited experience.

We don’t work that way.

We limit our caseload to just 15 students per year. Your student receives direct, personal support every step of the way.

Why do Bay Area families choose Sierra?

Our team brings over a decade of writing coaching experience alongside years of admissions work at some of the most selective schools in the country. Our consultants include former admissions officers from Vanderbilt, Stanford, and Harvard. We understand what truly makes an application memorable — and how to help students find their most compelling narrative.

We see every application as a storytelling challenge:

What makes you unique? What's your authentic story? What will make an admissions reader stop and remember your file?

When we’re finished, your student's essays will stick in the mind of the reader for their openness, vulnerability, creativity, and clarity of personal voice. Writing coaching is a process that looks different for each student, but it's what we're best at.

👉 Book a free intro call with Ben, Director of College Consulting. Or learn more about how we work.

  • 1:1 Coaching: Our writing approach helps turn good ideas into unforgettable essays. And our younger student work helps you have plenty to write about when the time comes. 

College consulting for every phase of the application process.

The most intensive college consulting happens every year with our senior class as we guide them through the exhaustive (and exhausting!) process of creating and submitting the strongest college applications possible. We also work with younger students—First-years, Sophomores, and Juniors—on early strategic planning. 

Seniors (Application Consulting) Ongoing Strategy Consulting (First-Year, Sophomore, Junior)

1. 10-School Support Package

(Starts: June - Nov, Senior Year)

Inquire for price

Build your strongest application and maximize your admissions chances with support for up to 10 schools. Work one-on-one with a former admissions officer on every essay required to apply—plus narrative strategy consultations, school list creation, and help creating standout extracurricular and additional information sections. 

Included: School list consulting, essay narrative planning, application strategy consultation, extracurricular section assistance, essay writing and revision support, interview prep, LOCI assistance, and decision support for 10 schools. 

  • Brainstorming, drafting support, editing for 10 schools.
  • "Best narrative" strategic selection: planning your narrative across all essays.
  • Common Application extracurriculars and additional information sections.
  • Application list construction and counseling.
  • Every other week, one-hour in-person session to work on essays, applications, extracurriculars, or anything included in the deliverables.

All service packages are built around at least one hour every other week of face-to-face session time, in addition to on-demand asynchronous editing work between sessions and access to "office hours." Work exceeding the scope of a package will be billed hourly at the season's rate of $700 per hour. For package upgrades after work has begun, the difference in price between the packages will be charged.

2. 7-School + UC Support Package

(Starts: June - Nov, Senior Year)

Inquire for price

A comprehensive package for students who need help with private universities and the University of California system.

Work directly with a former admissions officer and professional writers to craft standout applications for every school. This package is built around in-person meeting time with former top-15 admissions officers and on-demand asynchronous essay edits.

Included: School list consulting, essay narrative planning, application strategy consultation, extracurricular section assistance, essay writing and revision support, interview prep, LOCI assistance, and decision support for 7 schools + UCs. 

  • Brainstorming, drafting support, editing for up to 7 schools + the UC application.
  • "Best narrative" strategic selection: planning your narrative across all essays.
  • Common Application and UC extracurriculars and additional information sections.
  • Application list construction and counseling. 
  • Bi-weekly meeting in-person (Zoom or Google Meet) time with a former admissions officer/member of our consulting staff. 
  • Four hours of time with Irena Smith.
  • Access to digital Essay Academy™ masterclass and 60+ example essays for asynchronous learning.

All service packages are built around at least one hour every other week of face-to-face session time, in addition to on-demand asynchronous editing work between sessions and access to "office hours." Work exceeding the scope of a package will be billed hourly at the season's rate of $700 per hour. For package upgrades after work has begun, the difference in price between the packages will be charged.

3. UC Package (Standalone)

(Aug - Apr, Senior Year)

$14,000

Add consultation support from a former admissions officer for the entire UC application — up to 9 schools. 

Narrative planning, UC extracurricular section, and essay support for the full UC application. 

  • Brainstorming, drafting support, editing for the UC application.
  • Customized application and essay tracking solution to streamline and organize the process.

All service packages are built around at least one hour every other week of face-to-face session time, in addition to on-demand asynchronous editing work between sessions and access to "office hours." Work exceeding the scope of a package will be billed hourly at the season's rate of $700 per hour. For package upgrades after work has begun, the difference in price between the packages will be charged.

1. First-Year Consulting

Freshman Year

Inquire for price

In the first year of high school, our goal is to help the whole family understand the basics of the college admissions process and chart a path for high school success.

We introduce the college application process to younger students in a way that eases them in - minimizing anxiety and confusion while answering their questions about the application process. 

We believe that a college education is something students should take ownership of. This begins in the first year of high school. 

In a series of sessions with the student or the family, we will focus on essential admissions topics like: 

  • Understanding your likely course trajectory at your school and anticipating any scheduling challenges.
    Balancing the importance of course rigor with mental health.
  • Understanding the role of rigorous coursework (of AP, IB, DE, Honors) in the admissions process and creating a plan to balance rigor with mental health.
  • Identifying extracurricular commitments and pathways to deepening, and expanding through high school.
  • Completing basic college research, gaining familiarity with different categories of schools and the college landscape.
  • Sharing our 3-pronged approach to ECs: school-based engagement, helping someone else, and passion projects.
  • Discussing “spikiness vs roundedness” and laying the seeds of a plan for your application narrative.

2. Sophomore Consulting

Sophomore Year

Inquire for price

In Sophomore Year, the branches of a student's application narrative begin to grow. Our work focuses on continuing to provide strategic advice to families while strategically honing our students' engagement in and outside the classroom.  

Sophomore Year services focus on: 

  • “Pruning” the extracurricular tree and ensuring the student is focusing their efforts on the most meaningful and strategically impactful extracurriculars.
  • Taking next-steps with college research, including planning school/virtual tours, and learning about majors and academic programs. Getting closer to a preliminary school list.
  • Helping to make important course-planning decisions for Junior year informed by an appreciation for rigor and a continued commitment to preserving mental health and “staying power.”
  • Making a test-taking plan and connecting with any prep services needed. 
  • Auditing course rigor and assessing whether the student is on track for admissions goals and college list.
  • Evaluating summer programs and "pay to play" opportunities.

3. Junior Consulting

Junior Year

Inquire for price

Junior year is the most important academic and extracurricular high school year. Admissions committees look most closely on Junior year commitments and grades. We help you navigate this all-important year while preparing for the college application push.

In Junior year, sessions focus on the following areas: 

  • Making final decisions about extracurricular and academic commitments going into the most important high school year for admissions. 
  • Completing any unfinished school research and beginning to demonstrate interest in relevant schools.
  • Solidifying a college list and strategic application narrative that incorporates areas of extracurricular and personal experience throughout high school. 
  • Solidifying major/academic study decisions and evaluating the strategic impact of major decisions on admissions plans. 
  • Setting up a summer plan that dovetails with the beginning of application season in Senior year. 


By the end of Junior year, students should be prepared for the rigorous college application process in Senior year.

 

 

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"Great result."

Our sophomore at Harker School needed help thinking about career & major. Set up meetings twice a month and were ready to go by senior year. Brown BS/MD great result!

Hanish L., Sierra Admissions Client (Mill Valley)

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"Helped me brainstorm an essay I loved."

I like writing but the college essays are so weird. I had never really written a personal essay but Carolyn broke it down and helped me brainstorm an essay I loved. 

Lily S., Georgetown University (Palo Alto)

Are you a fit for college consulting?

Fill out our inquiry form (the button below) to take the next step. You'll get a detailed sense of our pricing options based on where you are in the application journey and a link to book an introductory call—right in your inbox. 

 

 

 

 

Read about our local college consulting work in Palo Alto