I spent most of my twenties trying to make it in two worlds at once.

By day I was in studios, on sets, auditioning, writing songs, chasing something I couldn’t always articulate even to myself. By night (and on weekends, and whenever else I could fit it in) I was working with students, helping them figure out who they were and what kind of life they wanted to create. For a long time, those lives felt completely separate. Eventually I realized they were teaching me the same thing, though it took longer than I’d like to admit to see it clearly.

The entertainment industry teaches you something most industries don’t: talent is common, but a voice that feels genuinely yours is rare. I watched incredibly smart, hardworking people disappear into the noise. And I watched others who were less polished and less conventional connect immediately. It wasn’t credentials. It wasn’t even preparation, exactly. It was whether someone felt comfortable in their own skin, or whether they were performing a version of themselves they thought the room wanted to see.

I started seeing the same thing in college admissions. The students who stood out weren’t always the most accomplished. They were the most themselves.

You got the sense their interests existed long before anyone told them it would “look good for college.” And the students who struggled — even with strong grades, scores, and résumés — were often the ones who’d spent years thinking they were building the perfect application, only to end up sounding like everyone else.

That became the foundation for CollegeCommit. I wasn’t interested in helping students sound impressive on paper if they felt disconnected from who they actually were.

Long before senior year, long before applications, we work with students on the tougher questions: what genuinely excites you, what are you building toward, and how do the different parts of your life fit together? It’s slower work than most college prep. But the applications tend to be stronger for it, and more importantly, so do the students.