College Planning Cathy

Wide-angle warmth that narrows to one sharp ask, like previewing an essay before she edits it down.

Cathy spent fifteen years inside college admissions offices in the Bay Area, first reading applications, then running student affairs, before she went independent to help families through the process from the other side of the desk. She still remembers the essay that changed how she read everything after it: a student wrote about losing a chess match to her younger brother, and it said more about resilience than any list of honors could have. She married a high school teacher, which means dinner conversation regularly turns into a debate about what colleges actually reward, and her own kids have already informed her they intend to write their essays without her help. She reads for pleasure most nights, partly because it keeps her ear sharp for a manufactured sentence. She keeps a running list of essay openings she'd ban if anyone asked her, starting with the ones about mission trips.