College admissions, illuminated.
Ten combined years of Bay Area college counseling, paired with proprietary AI tooling we built ourselves. Most counselors give advice from memory — we give it from data.
Recent placements
Where our students go.
A selection of schools recent students have been admitted to — and the scale of our practice behind those outcomes.
0+
Students counseled
0+
Essays analyzed
0
Schools indexed
0+
Combined years counseling
Our approach
We don't guess. We analyze.
Modern admissions is a small-sample, high-variance domain. The counselors who win for their students aren't the ones with the longest résumé — they're the ones who systematically track what actually works and update their playbook every year.
Catalog
Every student is mapped into our database — stats, activities, essays, target schools. The system carries forward everything we've learned from past clients.
Compare
Your child's profile is matched against similar past applicants. We see what worked, what didn't, and where the strategic openings are at each target school.
Strategize
Our tooling reads every school's Common Data Set, factor weights, ED admit boost, and net price. The output is a list calibrated to your child specifically — not a generic ranking.
Execute
Essay strategy. School-specific positioning. Round selection. Activity framing. Every recommendation is grounded in data, then sharpened by counselor judgment.
Why us
What an experienced counselor can't do.
Traditional counselors give advice from memory.
We give advice from data. Every cycle, every student, every outcome — tracked, tagged, queried. The system surfaces patterns no individual counselor can hold in their head.
Most counselors haven't updated their methodology.
AI changed admissions writing. Test-optional changed strategy. The competitive pool changed. We rebuilt our process from scratch for the current cycle, not the one from 2018.
Generic platforms can't personalize.
We don't just plug your child into a spreadsheet. The analysis cites their specific activities, the school's actual factor weights, and the structural moves that worked for similar past applicants.
Two founders, two competitive pipelines we walked ourselves.
Andy graduated Berkeley CS/DS and works in tech. Ethan went UCLA undergrad to UCSF graduate. When we counsel engineering or pre-med students, we're drawing on the paths we lived — not on hand-me-down advice.
Pricing
Transparent rates. We coach — we don't ghost-write.
Pick the tier that matches your application. Every essay is your voice — we run direction, structure, and revision against years of admitted-essay patterns, but the words on the page are always yours.
Per essay
Drop in for a single essay, start to finish.
- One essay, brainstorm → final draft
- Direction proposals from our admitted-essay corpus
- Iterative feedback against admissions depth techniques
- You write it — we coach, never ghost-write
+$25 for the Common App personal statement
Get started4-essay bundle
Right size for one school's full supplemental set.
- Four essays, any combination
- Save $25 vs. à la carte
- All per-essay benefits included
- You write it — we coach
8-essay bundle
For students applying to multiple privates or the full UC.
- Eight essays, any combination
- Save $75 vs. à la carte
- All per-essay benefits included
- You write it — we coach
Full counseling
Everything. We run your application alongside you.
- Unlimited essays — any school, any prompt
- School-list strategy from our proprietary tier model
- Activity framing, awards strategy, ED/EA round selection
- End-to-end application timeline management
- Common App included — no surcharge
Not sure which tier fits? Book a free consult — we'll look at your target schools and tell you honestly.
A letter from the founders
Why we built Illuma.
[PLACEHOLDER: one-line subhead — e.g., 'Why two Bay Area counselors decided traditional college admissions advice wasn't enough.']
[PLACEHOLDER paragraph 1 — the founding story. When did you start counseling? What did you notice was broken? What kept frustrating you about the advice your students were getting from competitors? Be specific and personal — this is the section that makes families trust you.]
[PLACEHOLDER paragraph 2 — the gap you saw. Most counselors recommend schools from memory or generic admit-rate buckets. Most chance-me tools spit out the same list for any 1530/4.0 engineering applicant. Why does the lack of personalization matter for outcomes?]
[PLACEHOLDER paragraph 3 — what you decided to build. We built our own tooling — calibrated against real student outcomes, accounting for 14+ admission factors per school. Not to replace counseling judgment, but to make every conversation about your kid more grounded in data.]
[PLACEHOLDER paragraph 4 — what families get. Strategic recommendations grounded in real data + actual counseling conversations with people who've seen hundreds of cycles. The tool stays internal; what families experience is sharper advice from a counselor who has done their homework.]
[PLACEHOLDER paragraph 5 — your invitation. 'If you're a junior or senior thinking about the application process, we'd love to talk. The first conversation is free, and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit.']
— Andy & Ethan
The team.
Andy [PLACEHOLDER]
Cofounder
[PLACEHOLDER: ~30 words on Andy's background — where he counseled before, what his admissions specialty is, what he likes outside of work.]
Ethan [PLACEHOLDER]
Cofounder
[PLACEHOLDER: ~30 words on Ethan's background — same shape as Andy's.]
The climb so far.
2020
[PLACEHOLDER milestone — earliest counseling start]
[PLACEHOLDER body — what happened, who you worked with.]
2023
[PLACEHOLDER milestone — when you noticed the gap]
[PLACEHOLDER body — the moment you decided the existing tools weren't enough.]
2025
Began building the tooling
Started capturing every case, every outcome, every essay review in structured form. The data corpus that would later anchor recommendations.
2026
Illuma launches
Tier compute calibrated against real outcomes goes live. Essay analysis grounded in real admitted essays. The counseling stays human, the data stays honest.
What's next
[PLACEHOLDER — your vision]
[PLACEHOLDER — where this is going. Geographic expansion? More counselors? Better tooling? Specific outcomes you want to be known for?]
FAQ
Common questions.
We pair traditional counseling with proprietary AI tooling that we've built and validated against real student outcomes. Most counselors recommend schools from memory or generic admit-rate buckets — our tier assignments come from a calibrated model that accounts for your stats, intended major, demonstrated interest, and 14+ other factors. The counseling conversations stay human; the recommendations come from data.
[PLACEHOLDER — fill in: rising juniors and seniors, profile types you accept, geographies, etc.]
[PLACEHOLDER — fill in the typical timeline: discovery → intake → school-list build → essay strategy → application support → decisions.]
[PLACEHOLDER — pricing tiers, package options, or 'we'll discuss on the intro call' if you don't want to publish numbers.]
Yes. We provide direction proposals grounded in our corpus of admitted essays, plus structured feedback against the depth techniques we've codified from years of admissions reading. We don't write essays for students — we coach them to write essays that sound like them.
[PLACEHOLDER — explain the team dynamic, who leads which kinds of cases, etc.]
[PLACEHOLDER — à la carte options, e.g., essay-only review, school-list-only consult.]
Your first consult is on us.
30 minutes, free, no obligation. We'll look at your profile, your target schools, and where we'd focus first. You leave with concrete next steps whether you hire us or not.
Book your free consultOr email counselor@illumacounseling.com