Tira Harpaz: CollegeBound Advice
Eight years ago, I founded CollegeBound Advice, located in Westchester and New York City, to help students and their parents navigate the college application process. After guiding the first of my three children through the admissions cycle, I realized the value of an informed and caring professional who could streamline and make sense of the process. In my college consulting business, I seek to serve as a sounding board and a voice of sanity amid the proliferation of approaching deadlines, standardized testing requirements and often conflicting advice. I draw on my wealth of experience as both a corporate lawyer and as an educational volunteer, including as an alumni interviewer for Princeton University and a volunteer in my local high school's College Information Center.
I offer a full-service practice based on the needs of each student and family. My students include freshmen first beginning to think about how to craft a coherent narrative through their extracurricular and academic passions and seniors looking for guidance with the nuts and bolts of the application process. I help families create an appropriate college list; develop a standardized testing timetable; assist students in defining and deepening extracurricular and academic involvement; conduct mock interviews; suggest summer programs; and identify scholarship and merit- and need-based aid opportunities. I also provide extensive advice and support in helping students prepare cohesive and compelling applications, with the goal of allowing a student’s personality and interests to shine through and inspiring an overworked college admissions officer to become an enthusiastic advocate for that student.
I work with families throughout the Tri-State area, through in-person meetings, e-mail and Skype, and assist students applying to a wide range of colleges, from Ivy League schools to local public universities. I have particular expertise in aiding students who are engaged in high-level but non-recruited sports (e.g., figure skating), as well as students with musical interests. My strengths include brainstorming about and reviewing essays (I currently blog for The Huffington Post and have written for numerous publications) and helping my students identify, expand upon and communicate their interests and strengths. I also bring the organizational skills and responsiveness of a corporate lawyer to bear on each student’s application cycle, tracking deadlines and application requirements and reducing the burden on families.
As for my own educational and professional background, I attended the Juilliard School of Music Saturday preparatory division for over a decade, graduated cum laude in three years from Princeton University and earned my J.D., cum laude, from Fordham University Law School, where I was an Articles Editor for the Fordham Law Review. I was a senior attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, and I currently volunteer with numerous community organizations, including Breakthrough NY (remote editor and interviewer), Frederick Douglass Academy II (college advisor) and Brooklyn Ice (educational consultant).
Tira Harpaz CollegeBound Advice
cbadviceny@gmail.com
(914) 260-1101
Member: HECA
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