Top Tier AdmissionsA former Admissions and Financial Aid Officer for Harvard University, Kristen brings over 20 years of experience working in higher education. Kristen has a PhD in Education with a concentration in Higher Education, an M.S. in Business Management, and a B.A. in English. Her PhD dissertation won the International Susan B. Anthony Institute Dissertation Award. In her role at Harvard, Kristen oversaw admissions for 17 departments and was also responsible for distributing funding from the National Science Foundation Fellowships Program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Student Research Fellowship Program. Kristen previously worked as a substitute K-12 teacher, as adjunct faculty at three universities in MA and NY, and as an educational researcher. Kristen recently published a book (Information Age Publishing) on faculty and tenure in academia which Stanford University Libraries featured on their recommended "Gender and Education Books" list. Kristen has written for Entrepreneur Magazine and published in journals such as the Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs and the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences Journal. Kristen has also been featured in and interviewed for publications such as U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Examiner, Yahoo News, and Business Insider.
You may have noticed a recent trend: more and more students are taking a “bridge year” between undergraduate and graduate school to prepare for graduate studies, boost their research foundation, gain professional experience, or volunteer. WHY CHOOSE A POST-BACCLAUREATE PRE-MED PROGRAM? There are many post-bacc programs out there, but the good news is that the […]
The beginning of a new school year also marks the start of the academic conference season. Some colleges and career offices do a great job relaying the importance of attending professional and academic conferences. Others don’t get to it. ACADEMIC CONFERENCES: UNDERGRADUATES Did you know there’s a professional association that allows undergraduate student members in […]
Our Top Tier Admissions annual meeting in May featured a topic close to our hearts: mental wellness. As admissions consulting professionals (and parents!) who work with middle schoolers and high schoolers from all other the world, we are paying close attention to today’s global mental health crisis. Clinical psychology graduate programs train and position their […]
I’ve worked with students for almost two decades who hate the GRE. It’s long, they haven’t taken a math class in several years (so the quant section is overwhelming), the registration fee ($220 in most U.S. cities) is pricey, it’s anxiety-producing to sit in a test center for four hours, standardized testing is fraught with […]
February is prime time for graduate school application submissions. It’s also when many college students are thinking about next steps. If you are researching graduate programs, you might be understandably confused when it comes to the testing requirements. I want to help clear up some of the confusion and give you straight answers about “score […]
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