Dartmouth Admissions Counseling: Boost Your Chances Of Acceptance

Amanda has a Bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a Master’s in Education. She has over 14 years of counseling experience, having coached her students at top universities such as Dartmouth College, Cornell University, and Georgetown University, among others. Amanda also holds a certificate from Columbia Business School’s Executive Education Developing Leader’s Program.

Amanda is a strong project manager; she meets every deadline and ensures it feels doable for her students and their families. She is also highly perceptive and can understand her students’ strengths and character to tell powerful stories that showcase these character traits. Amanda has applied these skills with her Quad students by helping them develop strong essays and resumes, coaching her students through interviews, and ensuring that their applications are impactful. Amanda knows how important getting into college is for her students; she hopes to honor the importance of this process through her work ethic, commitment, and follow-through.

Her passion for working with students and guiding them through the admissions process comes from her experience of getting into her dream school. Amanda has spent her entire career working in education because she knows how powerful education is as a tool for transformative change. Spending time with her students – hearing their stories, learning more about their skills and passions, and being part of their educational, professional, and civic journeys – is incredibly special to her. She is committed to her students and wants to see them have their moment in the sun when they receive their acceptance letters.

When Amanda isn’t coaching, she loves reading books, starting book clubs, volunteering, kayak, and playing trivia.

Amanda’s Pro Tip?

It’s most important to reveal who you uniquely are as a student. This will allow you to connect powerfully with admissions staff and build personalized strategies for each element of your application.

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.

Dominique earned a BA in anthropology with a minor in Hispanic studies from Dartmouth College, while completing STEM coursework required for the pre-medical track. After completing her undergraduate studies, she was selected for the prestigious Teach for America program. She then completed a Master of Arts in teaching with a concentration on special education from Relay Graduate School of Education. She has four years of teaching experience and many years of admissions consulting experience.

Dominique served as an interviewer for Dartmouth, submitting reports about students’ character, academic and extracurricular engagement, and overall professionalism as part of the admissions committee's assessments. She advised a group of students throughout their four years of high school, assisting with class and extracurricular selection, SAT prep, essay editing, and scholarship applications. She also mentored them on how to choose the best schools to attend based on award letters, prestige, major-specific programming, and school culture fit. 

Over the years, she has helped students get into top institutions such as UCLA, UC Berkeley,  Emory University, Rice University, Northwestern University, and more. She has also guided students to achieve remarkable milestones, such as earning spots in the US Presidential Scholars Program, becoming National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, participating in UC Davis Pre-Med Programs, and securing positions as counselors at Sunrise Day Camp.

As a first-generation college student and former teacher and advisor in the public high school setting, Dominique understands the immense value of having a dedicated guide through the complexities of the college admissions process. Aware of the anxiety that often accompanies this journey, she enjoys helping students and families break it down into manageable steps.  She believes every student has a story that can bring their application to life and loves helping them craft compelling and authentic narratives to complement their test scores and grades. She has extensive experience mentoring students who are interested in STEM-focused careers, such as medicine. 

Dominique excels at providing personalized support to each student. She begins by understanding their family’s background and experience with the college admissions process and identifying their specific concerns. From there, she develops a tailored plan that aligns with the student’s and family’s expectations and goals, and she continually checks in to ensure they’re receiving the precise help they need. As a coach, her greatest strengths lie in helping students refine their stories through multiple rounds of editing and feedback on their essays. She guides students from brainstorming to the final draft, dedicating significant time to this process. Her detail-oriented and direct feedback is always accompanied by explanations to help students improve with each essay they write.

Outside of coaching, Dominique enjoys weight lifting, hiking, running, snowboarding, traveling, and attending concerts in her free time. She also likes listening to indie pop/rock music, classic rock, or electronic music and spending time with her family, friends, and golden retriever, Norma. 

Dominique’s Pro Tip?

Telling a compelling story in your personal statement is very important! There are certain notes your essay must hit to score highly in all of the different buckets that admissions committees use to score it.