There are not enough words to express our appreciation for Ilumin Education and the work that Kyra…read moredid with our two sons during their college application process- it was definitely one of the best decisions we made for them. From the very beginning, we appreciated how accommodating Anthony was given our limited time and how forthcoming he was with the information we needed to make our decision. Kyra was phenomenal! Although our kids were among many of her students, Kyra was so attentive and committed to their experience, helping clarify their interests in majors and helping them give voice to essays that were authentic to who they are- this was definitely not a cookie cutter experience! She was always supportive and well organized so our kids never felt overwhelmed or pressed for time. When we expressed concerns about the pathways for a particular major, Kyra put together an impressive presentation on the various options convincing us this pathway is fitting for our son. Kyra kept us in constant communication so we didn't need to worry about any hiccups or missed deadlines. We are so lucky to have found Ilumin Education to work with; they made the college application process seamless and actually enjoyable! We know that their involvement was key to our children being accepted to their "reach" schools! Thank you, Kyra, Anthony, and the entire team at Ilumin Education!

I was a highschool student being advised by Ilumin education. My counselor was always so helpful…read moreand never had me stressed or overwhelmed. The thing that sets Ilumin apart is that they don't stress out students or discourage them. I was always so stressed about the admissions process but thanks to the team at Ilumin I always felt supported and ahead on the college admissions process.

We were referred to John by one of our close friends and we are so thankful we did it. John and…read morehis team worked closely with our son for four years, from course selection to summer camp application, and eventually through the college app process. He put a lot of thought and paid extra attention to every details of the application forms. He is our guardian on meeting every milestone in this journey. John is more of a mentor to my son as well. He helped him navigate through his stress and anxiety, so that he could focus on making progress in his course work and applications. He also help bridging the communication between us and our son, which we deeply appreciated to balance our relationship during the crunching times. We would highly recommend John, he is the one you can count on!

John worked with both of my sons through their high school years. He was very patient with them,…read morelistened to their goals and focused on what was important to them. He also helped them figure out what they were interested in pursuing as a degree and potential career. Without his guidance they were feeling confused about the whole college application process. When the boys had calls with John they would come back with action items that would push them out of their comfort zone. The steps they took helped build their confidence as well as their skills. Both of them are attending a top California university and had choices between various UC's as well as some top private schools. Having John help them through the process was invaluable. It also preserved our parental relationships since we were not the ones telling our teenagers what to do. I would highly recommend John and his team.

My time spent with Manuel and his team was super helpful for me and my family!…read more When it came time to do essays for my college applications, his team was very specific and detailed in their criticisms. Since the essays used in my college applications were very particular about subject matter and word count, him and his team's pointers greatly helped me in conveying my essays' messages effectively. They also made understanding finances for my difference colleges easy to understand. Going into the federal financial aid application process, I was rather intimidated with the amount of steps involved. However, after consulting with Manuel and his team, they gave us a clear outline of what we have to do and what forms of financial aid to look out for--even going as far as to point out which of my chosen colleges offer the best financial aid. Overall, College Planning ABC offered me and my family a smooth, professional, and streamlined approach to the college application process that would've felt more time-consuming and stressful otherwise.

Working with Mr. Manny has been such an excellent experience! He answers my questions promptly, and…read morereally listens to my concerns from what classes to choose in high school to the whole college application process. Manny and his team also helped with my personal essays & advised my parents the alternatives on how to pay for college. Him & his team are always responsive & take the time to know my interests & assist me as needed. Thank you so much Manny & Team for all the support and guidance!

Tiffany is amazing. She helped my senior son with his college application process…read more She helped him narrow down the college list. She worked with him to come up with a story about himself. On one occasion, my son decided to submit an appeal letter at the last minute. She was out of the country and my son was on vacation. Timing was very challenging. Nonetheless, Tiffany made herself available, stayed on top of it, and helped my son write and submit an appeal in a very short period of time. Best part of all is her communication skills. She knows how to work with teenagers. My son is introverted and sometimes it's hard for him to open up to people he doesn't know. Tiffany was able to make him feel comfortable and he was able to work with her genuinely. We were very happy with Tiffany's service, and when our younger son wanted to work with a counselor, we scheduled an initial meeting with her for him. During the initial meeting, my son already knew that he wanted to work with her and now Tiffany is his college counselor, too. I would recommend Tiffany to any high school student looking for an excellent college counselor. She is knowledgeable, approachable, and very passionate about what she does.

This was our first time going through the college application process of today. Everything is so…read moredifferent from when we went to school, that we knew we needed a professional to guide us and our son on his next journey. Tiffany was a good fit, very organized and kept our son accountable and on track with the application process. She really listened to our son, guiding him through the process with his best interests in mind. She reviewed his essays timely with constructive feedback that helped give him a competitive advantage and made him stand out among so many applicants. As a parent, you naturally want the counselor to weigh your choices more heavily than the student. However, Tiffany tries her best to balance out the differences in choices. Tiffany's templates were very helpful and she had a lot of good references to share. Both us and our son had weekly action items. Our meetings with her were on time, focused and kept us moving forward. She took us step by step and explained clearly. There were some moments where it felt like things were moving a little too fast in areas we wanted to spend more time, but when we asked for clarification, she did provide it. Tiffany's systematic approach to the college application process, along with her recommendations on schools based on our son's interests, contributed to the high volume of acceptance letters from schools of his choosing. As a family, we committed to the university that best suited our son's personality, needs, and goals. Tiffany was there every step of the way. We are grateful for her support and look forward to going through the process again with her in another three years with our youngest.

My brother worked with Angela for his college admissions, and she was instrumental in the process…read more College admissions had changed a lot since I applied to college, but my parents wanted me to help anyway. In the end, I realized I was out of my depth and we found Angela who had all the up-to-date information and was able to answer all our questions. Most importantly, she helped with the essays, the most difficult part of the application for us. My brother had issues with comprehensibility, keeping within the word limit, and having a voice that would make him stand out amoung the other applicants. End the end, we had much better essays and he was accepted to many top tier programs. He is very happy with his outcome. My only regret is that we didn't work with Angela sooner; we started late in the process after we realize we were in over our heads and had pretty middling essays.

This review is about Angela Sun's college counselling abilities. Our experience was exactly the…read moreopposite of what's written here and I would give negative stars if I could !! She was an absolute nightmare to deal with and has zero emotional intelligence or tact to deal with young teens !! She preys on parent's weaknesses and has clearly understood parents would do anything for their children as long as she says things like she got admission into MIT, Ivy's and self proclaims that she is the absolute best college consultant who will make your child write the absolute best essays he can ever write !! (I am paraphrasing it but she said something like that to me in our first meeting !). She made it amply clear even before I met for the first time that all she cares about is money and nothing else ! She charged me $300 per hr saying it's "the weekend rate" - whatever that means (although her website only mentions 250 per hr ). She was laser focused on the money in our conversations and showed zero interest in knowing my child before or after the meeting. Her website says parents will get a detailed report within 24 hrs of the first meeting, and we received no such report. The first meeting was a complete disaster. She was so rude (and please don't say she is strict/tough /good etc). No - she was plain rude and not good as a counselor !! My son was so scared of her that after a point stopped answering even basic questions ! She gave as little info as possible in the session and made it laborious by asking my son to type out literally every word that came out of her mouth (all of it was just general info and nothing anyone wouldn't know about college admissions)! Despite all these negative signals, I still tried to go ahead with scheduling a few more sessions, because believe it or not, my son insisted he wanted to try her a bit more before giving up ! I wanted to understand how many sessions my son would need and in her response she had the audacity to say my child was a "non high functioning" kid and hence would probably need many sessions (being vague and open ended of course to milk as much money as possible from me) ! The "genius" in her, inferred all this about my son from just the 1 hr meeting !! Not to brag - Honestly, my child is in a highly specialized gifted track at school and elsewhere and in fact the very reason I was looking for a counselor so early on was to make sure I give him all the advantages possible and guide him using the best counselors ! She quoted a ridiculous number of hours at the rate of $300 per hr and I told her , her website states she will only need 3-4 sessions for coming up with a 4 year plan and her response was "website is outdated " !!! (can you believe that ??) Parents, please be careful when choosing a counselor. Please make sure the counselor has the right emotional intelligence, credentials , experience to deal with your child in this vulnerable yet important stage of their life. Please don't select a counselor based purely on 5 star online reviews or what these counselors say they achieved for themselves. If in your initial interactions you detect the counselor's main focus is money, and not your child or if the counselor is rude, evasive about answering your questions , please take these red flags seriously and run miles away from her/him ! I am very thankful that I was able to detect this problem early on and not expose my child to a horrible 4 year counselling experience !

Although I did not purchase the additional learning module, Albert's YouTube lecture series alone…read more(which addresses the two primary sections of the LSAT --logical reasoning and reading comprehension-- is both systematic and thorough. He is highly personable, relatable and even fun. It is clear that rather than pursue a career as an attorney (a profession at which he would certainly excel had that been the field in which he professionally thrived) he has chosen to leverage his natural aptitude for teaching. His passion for being an educator is infectious. In telling his own story he recounts having been literally offered unheard-of incentive packages (tuition remission and a cozy stipend) by at least two Level 1 law schools (of the four levels, Level 1 is composed of the top 14 law schools in the US) after earning a score of 179 out of 180 on what is recognized as the most difficult of objective metrics that are used to determine one's suitability to obtain admission to a top professional degree program (in this case, the JD, or Juris Doctor). Albert's love for and competence as an educator is attested to on both the preparation end as well as his delivery. HIs program is the result of an intensive inquiry into the specific types of questions (of which he's categorized from literally reading thousands of samples, fewer than a dozen actual structures on which the authors base the patterns of the text, creating variety and disguising this fact by varying the topic and content of the material on which the questions are based. Without having the benefit of this knowledge, the test-taker --regardless of innate intelligence-- is at a disadvantage that is genuinely indescribable. I believe that Albert is the type of person who enjoys the challenge of extremely complex puzzles. Being that the LSAT is just that --an extremely complex puzzle-- and one that was created by humans, it is not as though a dedicated analytic mind like Albert cannot "crack the code," so to speak. In fact, it is precisely because of years of intellectual curiosity and sheer dedication to solving the meta-questions of the exam that Albert has been able to systematically classify them. Without a knowledge of how the authors of the test assemble the information and the multiple-choice options, the aspiring LSAT taker --no matter how intrinsically smart he or she may be-- is utterly clueless in knowing how to approach these questions. On the delivery end, Albert has produced ten-plus hours of content that is presented for free on YouTube in a way that is thoroughly consistent in its format, so that --in terms of the presentation of content-- you know exactly what to expect. He introduces a handful of "tools" that make for greater degree of clarity and efficiency. I cannot overstate how critical these tools are in helping to efficiently manage the specific structure and details of a written passage while working against the clock. Having as many heuristics at your disposal is indispensable to completing the reading comprehension section, as the topics are deliberately esoteric and unengaging. Albert will make you thoroughly aware of how to "solve" both the logical reasoning (LR) and reading comprehension (RC) sections of the exam by establishing what have proven tried and true methods that, if followed given the recommended amount of preparation will result in a *significant* increase in your LSAT score.

Hi Ajit, Any chance I can get my $200 back for an initial consultation that was absolute nonsense?…read moreI have kindly asked for my money back multiple times. I want you to known that telling my kid who is STEM focused taking 10+ APs to consider taking a ceramics course doesn't cut it for a $200 initial consultation. JUST GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK. Just letting you know that your responses on your reviews of people who complain about your service is underwhelming. Improve your service and you will do much better. Ajit, I will continue to complain about the service I received to every Indian parent that I know in the Bay Area. If you think otherwise, you don't know me well... Based on your "Stanford MBA" education, you may certainly know that word travels fast in the Bay Area. A simple suggestion to all who read this (including you Ajit) - Do NOT pay $200 for an initial consultation. Simply request a free initial consultation so that you are aware of the all of the program details, the costs, and the proficiency level of the counselor. If they can't give you a free consultation, move on and find another program. Believe me, there are plenty of programs that give you all the information that you need without paying fees to find out. They should be selling you on the program and not the other way around. 8/18/25 - Ajit, I read your response. Your answer is false. My wife, my son, and I all attended the meeting with your "counselor." It was you who was missing in that meeting. So don't make up stuff. The fact remains that I have not received my $200 back....

My kid went through Mr. Hulls program back in 2008-2010, so this is a very late review. However, I…read morehonestly felt that he and his program had helped my kid greatly. It did improve his scores and he was able to get into a very good school, and eventually got into a very good law school and received his JD. Now, he works for a high tech company and their stocks have gone through the roof. Mr. Hull was a little stiff at times, but I think that is from him taking his job seriously.

Did not help in any admissions. Child got into all the schools that Ivy Review did not help with…read more The schools Ivy review helped with, student did not get admission. Essay feedback was not personalized enough, very generic advice. Needs more 1-1 sessions of actually doing work, case by case basis, not just general admission strategy. Would not recommend.

Mr. Trung Le at Bay Area College Consulting, Northern CA, is an expert and the best, most…read moreknowledgeable, and kindest College Counselor my family and I are lucky to have worked with. Counselor Trung Le has devotedly helped my son and daughter with great advices and in details, and their best college applications. My family and I are grateful for Mr. Le's help. You're in great hands with College Counselor Trung Le's guidances. Scott & Katelynn N. Sunnyvale, CA

I want to share my experience with Bay Area College Consulting and Trung - who is the founder and…read moreconsultant of this organization. We are extremely happy with Trung for guiding our son (and me too :-) ) through the College Admissions process. Our son is now admitted to UCLA and I give a huge credit of this achievement  to Trung and his consultation. Trung, very expertly took us through all the intricacies of the college application process and essentially gave a very realistic picture of this very daunting process. Interaction with him greatly demystified the college application process, for us.  This helped our son clearly focus his energies to the right areas without having to second-guess if this was the right thing to do. Right from the beginning Trung was very organized with his approach. -He created a baseline of our son's profile. -Created a list of colleges matching his profile and expectations. -Identified and recommended taking relevant community college courses to augment credentials (super helpful!) -Most Important: Trung recommended the execution of a unique project that showcased abilities that were relevant to his area of interest. I think this really helped towards rounding up our son's overall profile. -And finally, Trung helped us through all the details of the college application process. We are extremely happy with the guidance, counseling and consulting Trung has provided to us. I would happily and highly recommend Trung to any one who wants to prepare themselves, or their child, for the College Application process.

As a parent, I honestly felt we had started the college application process too late. We first…read morebegan working with Mr. Park during the summer before senior year, and I was worried there would not be enough time to really help my son. But after meeting him, my thinking completely changed. From the beginning, Mr. Park was very clear, organized, and realistic with us. He did not just give general advice like many other counselors. He took time to understand my son's strengths, personality, and goals, and gave guidance based specifically on him. That made a very big difference for us. He helped a lot with essays and personal statements. Many times he pushed my son to think deeper and explain his experiences better, and I could see the improvement over time. His feedback was very detailed and personal, not advice that I could find online. What I appreciated most was that he was honest and straightforward while still being very supportive. The college process can be stressful for both students and parents, but Mr. Park helped make everything feel much more manageable. My son also became more confident, organized, and mature during this process. I truly feel Mr. Park cares about his students and wants them to succeed long term, not only for college admissions. I would highly recommend him to any family looking for genuine and personalized college counseling support.

I write this recommendation as a reflection of the process we went through with Mr. Park. We…read moreweren't sure what to do or what we were looking for when we searched for a counselor. We searched and met with a few counselors before deciding to go with Mr. Park. It is one of the best things we did for our child and for ourselves. Mr. Park helped our child navigate through his entire high school and the college application process. Mr. Park continues to mentor him even after our son graduated high school and left for college. Mr. Park's guidance is very direct and genuine in the student's best interest. You can see he guides each of his students differently based on their capabilities and their aspirations. He is very honest with them if they are going down the wrong path and guides them back onto the right track in order to maximize their potentials. He can be critical at times, but as we reflected back, it was in the best interest of the student. He took the pressure off the parents. More times than not, parents worry more than we should and it can have an opposite effect despite us thinking its our good intentions. I strongly recommend him as a coach and guidance counselor for any students who really want to strive to get into the best universities in the country. He help guided our child into the top 10 colleges in the country. At the end when reflecting back....Mr. Park's impact was beyond just a high school planning and college application process, but he instilled some life perspectives that are very important for long term success. We have a second child that is a bit younger, but we do plan to have Mr. Park guide the younger one too!