Get to Know College Admissions Expert, Dr. Kristen Willmott

How has your experience working as an Admissions and Financial Aid Officer for Harvard University informed your approach to Private Counseling?

I really connected to my role as an admissions and financial aid officer for Harvard University. I started as a Staff Assistant III in admissions and worked my way up the ladder. One of the neat things about Harvard admissions is that it’s a truly wonderful place to work –almost no one ever leaves until retirement. I fondly remember time spent with peer admissions officers in “waitlist meetings,” assessing National Science Foundation funding (and projects) at Harvard, conferring with some of the most respected, renowned faculty in the world on forthcoming open spaces in their labs for incoming students, distributing stipends to students via the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Student Research Fellowship Program, and meeting with the slew of admissions and transcript readers processing a seemingly endless amount of admissions applications. What resonated most for me in my role was when I got to meet one-on-one with students, whether they were current students or prospective students. Two years in, I even applied to work two nights a week as a teaching assistant for a popular management and leadership course at the Harvard Extension School. I worked in that role for five years and loved the teaching side of the role so much that I went on to adjunct for two additional colleges in MA and NY as well. I regularly draw on my Harvard admissions, research and teaching experience in my current work with students and parents here at Top Tier Admissions and thankfully, I still get back to beautiful Harvard Yard periodically as well!

You are a published author and hold a doctorate in Higher Education. How does your research background complement your role as a Senior Private Counselor?

Since I was a college student, I’ve had an interest in studying educational trends and students’ lived experiences. I’ve been honored to perform research alongside groundbreaking higher education faculty during my Masters program, PhD program and afterwards as well. I have published journal articles on topics including: BIPOC college student experiences, admissions (including college, graduate, MBA, etc.), and administrative leadership in higher education. During Covid, I finished my book entitled Gender, Tenure & and Pursuit of Work-Life-Family Stability and it draws on my qualitative research study on a topic close to my heart not just professionally but personally. When I chat with my TTA students about how a research foundation is a must in the admissions process (college AND grad school), I practice what I preach and continue to explore new opportunities with researching, writing, and publishing.

You have worked with Top Tier Admissions for over a decade. What have been the biggest shifts you’ve noticed in the college admissions landscape?

With the most recent Class of 2027 data now out for many universities, I would say the answer has to be the drastic change in admit rates and the number of submitted applications. The colleges that today’s high school students are applying to have admit rates that are, for the most part, nothing like the admit rates that their parents, or sometimes their older siblings, were dealing with. A Princeton (or UPenn or UMichigan or Colby) college acceptance means something much different in 2023 than it did in 2015, and even 2020. Your application climbed over the applications of many more students, sometimes thousands more.

For example, Northeastern University in Boston had an admit rate of 18.38% for their fall 2021 class. By last year, it had dropped to 6.7%. That’s Ivy level. In the current admissions year, Northeastern received a record-breaking 96,327 applications. That’s up 49.5% from four years prior and even their binding Early Decision round has grown tremendously: since 2015, their early decision applications have risen from 772 to 5,872!

As the Graduate School Admissions Director, what is one piece of advice you would share with a student considering grad school?

Try not to just research the university and the program you want, but read up on faculty at your targeted programs. Most graduate school applications will require at least a short essay response that is a “Why our program?” question, and most often that is woven into the personal statement. I advise current and future graduate school applicants to start researching the faculty at the programs they’re targeting as early in the process as possible. Almost all faculty CVs are online for public viewing now. Maybe they’re presenting at a conference you could attend in upcoming months. What have they published that you could read this weekend to further gauge your interest in the field? What courses do they teach in the program you’re most drawn to? Check out the syllabus and see if it sounds appealing to you and if the program’s curricular offerings align with not just your ideal graduate degree, but the program’s courses you’re going to take and earn a grade in. These are things I hunt down and work on with my students to show them the scholarly aspects of their field (and how each program is different from others) pre-application.

What makes someone a good fit for the Top Tier Admissions private counseling program?

We love working with students who are engaged and who are open to new ideas when it comes to scholarly pursuits, community activism and volunteering, summer courses and summer programs, award applications that might align with their experiences, and more. That said, I always encourage my students to slice any ideas I propose that don’t work for them. That allows me to re-gear with new ideas that more closely align with their personal preferences and aims.

Every student I work with is different from the next and I love that part of my job. In my almost 11 years working for Top Tier Admissions, I’ve been lucky enough to work with hundreds of siblings, cousins, several sets of twins and even a set of triplets. Every student is truly unique and brings a fresh set of goals, motivations, skills, scholarly aptitudes, and passions to the table. My work is centered in helping students maximize their potential when it comes to college and graduate school admissions, but also to help them feel well-supported, lighten their load, and add a bit more transparency and sense of calm (for them and their families) in today’s very complex and crowded admissions arena.

Want to work with Kristen? Contact us today to reserve your spot.