Counselor Profile
Niki is a former Assistant Director of Financial Aid, Senior Admissions Officer, and Director of First Generation Program at Harvard College; Admissions Counselor at Stanford University; Adjunct Admissions Officer at Princeton University; Dean of College Counseling and Post-Secondary Planning at Blair Academy; and Co-Director of College Counseling at Baldwin School.
Reading, rating, evaluating, and voting on applications at Stanford University, Harvard College, and Princeton University only confirmed what Niki has always believed: While the numbers and the data inform, it’s the words and the stories that compel. Stories communicated with authenticity, reflection, and purpose sway people, and — in the case of college admissions — move admissions officers to respond favorably to applications in competitive pools.
While serving as a senior member of the Harvard Admissions committee voting on hundreds of thousands of applications spanning the globe, Niki herself read, rated, and advocated for students from many regions of the U.S., with a focus on California, Hawaii, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. While at Harvard, she relished her role as a reviewer of arts submissions, evaluating performing arts portfolios that could add additional arcs to students’ stories. Niki expanded her expertise in her role as Assistant Director of Financial Aid at Harvard. She helped families determine how to meet the costs of higher education via need-based and merit-based grants. Additionally, Niki felt immense pride in founding the Harvard First Generation Program, an initiative developed to provide college admissions information to potential first-generation students globally and to support the first-generation population at Harvard specifically.
Inspired by the power of tales in her application reading and in her advocacy work with first-generation college students, Niki decided her own next chapter would be supporting younger students in their journeys to develop and write their own compelling tales: She went on to support high school students seeking to craft their own powerful narratives. Niki had started her career as a high school English teacher, so she easily transitioned to the high school side, first serving as Co-Director of College Counseling at a premier all-girls’ school outside of Philadelphia and then to taking the helm as Dean of College Counseling at a New Jersey boarding school.
Niki earned her B.A. in English Literature at Brown University and her M.A. at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. Her affinity for seeing and understanding how the various pieces of tales come together and her expertise in writing are the bedrock of her counseling. She helps students piece together the parts of who they are, no matter where they are in their journeys. She poses questions to increase students’ self-reflection and helps brainstorm ideas for their next chapters, all while aiding in the development of applications that present not just competitive numbers but compelling words — ones that relay nuanced character arcs for admissions officers to love and advocate for in committee discussions.
Niki is particularly invested in helping students find a range of schools that will best support the next page of their unique storylines. Her counsel — from while students are developing their narratives in early high school to while they are finding the most effective ways to convey those choices as 12th graders — aids her students in moving college admissions readers, in swaying their decisions.
While helping IvyWise students piece together their narratives, she happily regales them with her fun-filled adventures alongside her two Japanese Chin puppies, her grueling training as a professional ballet/modern dancer and Ashtanga yoga practitioner, her hilarious foibles as an amateur kayaker and jewelry-maker, and her creative observations as a sommelier-in-training and self-proclaimed fashionista. And she’s always ready to suggest a book or two — and will happily accept recommendations in return.