Back-to-School Night: Your Top Admissions Questions, Answered by Experts

Feeling overwhelmed by all the moving pieces of college admissions? Join the College Essay Guy Team for an interactive college planning open house where you can get your questions answered and focus on the topics that matter most to you. You’ll be able to pop into different expert-led breakout rooms, ask questions, hear practical advice, and move between rooms as your interests change. Come with questions, leave with clarity and maybe a little less stress about the college process.

Come get your top questions answered around:

College Lists + Programs
Supplemental Essays
University of California (UC) Admissions
Affordability + First Gen/Low Income Student Support
Course Selection + Academics
Extracurricular Activities
Personal Statements

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MEET YOUR HOSTS

Our Facilitators

Renee Ferrerio

Senior College Counselor • College Essay Guy

Renee (she/her), Senior College Counselor, has spent 30 years navigating college admissions, including the last 6 years as one of the original College Essay Guy counselors. She has worked with students applying to colleges across the United States (and abroad) and loves diving into research to support students’ niche interests and high-achieving goals. She uses the knowledge she’s gained from touring over 200+ college campuses in the US, Canada, and the UK to guide students toward colleges that best fit their aspirations. She helps students understand what their college priorities are and infuses fun and laughter along the way.
Renee’s extensive tenure working in high schools, coupled with her leadership roles with NACAC (Capitol Hill advocacy), SACAC (state initiatives), and the Common App Advisory Board, position her to advise students to maximize their potential while understanding the national landscape of admissions. Renee has supported students to get into almost every top ranked college during her long career as a college counselor.
When she’s not planning her next college tour, Renee is likely tending to her garden, doting on her favorite dog, Pretzel, and plotting her next travel adventure.

Kaila Barber

Assistant Director of Essay Coaching • College Essay Guy

Kaila (she/her) has been helping students prepare for college in various capacities since 2018. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a master’s degree in Global Health, a bachelor’s degree in PreProfessional Science, and a minor in Education, Schooling, and Society, Kaila decided to serve her local school district as an educational assistant. For two years, she worked closely with students who had learning differences, tailoring lesson plans and materials to better suit the needs of her students. When Kaila transitioned into her first college access role, she quickly found joy in encouraging and empowering students to follow their passions and explore their lived experiences. As both an essay coach and now as College Essay Guy’s Associate Director of Coaching, Kaila enjoys walking side-by-side with students, guiding them through their memories and insights, while they discover new ways to make meaning from their lives that can be highlighted in creative and compelling essays. Kaila’s students have been accepted to many selective colleges, including Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Wake Forest, and more.

Hanah Lim

Director of Workshops and Curriculum • College Essay Guy

Hanah (she/her) is a former high school English teacher and essay specialist who is passionate about helping demystify the college admission process for young people and their families. Before teaching English at the high school she attended growing up, she worked as a college consultant for students in Bangkok, Thailand, directed SAT prep centers in Irvine, California and worked with non-profit groups and as an AVID coordinator to help close the achievement gap. She has helped students in the college admissions process from different backgrounds from all over the world and has worked with over 5,000 students in her career. She has helped her students, many of them first generation, get admitted into top universities like Harvard, Yale, Duke, Georgetown, UChicago, Harvard Law, Yale Law, and other great institutions. As a teacher and the Director of Workshops at CEG, Hanah has trained teachers and counselors internationally on how to take seniors through the college essay process. She graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Education and is a credentialed single subject teacher. Hanah also oversees College Essay Guy’s essay and application workshop team and organizes speaking events and college application and essay workshops for students at schools and organizations in the US and around the world.

Erika Coplon

Executive Director, Programs And Partnerships • College Essay Guy

Erika Coplon (she/her) is CEG’s Matchlighters Scholars Program Director. She is a first-generation college graduate and fierce advocate for access and equity in higher education. After earning a BA in English from UC Santa Barbara and spending some time in the world of advertising, Erika earned a Certificate in College Admissions and Career Planning from UC Berkeley and built deep experience in the world of college counseling. Her educator roles included working as a college counselor in the Bay Area, running her own independent educational consulting business for 15 years, and serving as a member of the admissions team at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. With a strong commitment to social justice, Erika seeks out ways to make an impact in her community, including through roles as Board Member of the San Francisco Education Fund and Congregation Emanu-El. When she’s not obsessively thinking about her work with Matchlighters, Erika is hiking new trails, kayaking blue waters and raising two feminist teenage daughters.

Tom Campbell

Senior College Admissions Counselor & Essay Specialist • College Essay Guy

Tom (he/him), Senior College Counselor (Admissions Insider Offering), Essay Coach & Content Specialist, has spent 11+ years helping students and families navigate the college admissions process. He has worked across every side of admissions: first as an admissions officer at the College of the Holy Cross (his alma mater), then as an Assistant Dean of Admissions at Pomona College, and he was a college counselor at a selective Seattle independent school. He has also served four summers as a faculty member at College Horizons, an organization that supports Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students through the college process.
Tom works with deep empathy, rare insider knowledge, and a commitment to authentic storytelling that gets results. He specializes in helping students craft cohesive, compelling applications that stand out at highly selective schools, and brings firsthand admissions committee experience to every application and essay he reads.
A passionate Kacey Musgraves fan (all eras), breakfast burrito devotee, and committed space tourism skeptic, Tom embraces his quirks—and encourages students to do the same as they navigate the college process. Tom splits time between Los Angeles and his roots in coastal Maine.

Tillie Gottlieb

Senior College Admissions Counselor & Content Specialist • College Essay Guy

Tillie (she/her), Senior College Counselor & Content Specialist, has worked with students globally for 15+ years. With a Master’s in Education from Middlebury, she has navigated every side of admissions: first as an Admission Officer recruiting students, assessing applications, and awarding scholarships, then as a counselor in elite boarding schools for a private counseling firm in South East Asia, and then spent 5 years in the San Francisco Bay Area as a Co-Director of College Counseling. Most recently she was an undergraduate application reader for USC (Go Trojans!) and consulted with students and organizations across the globe.
Tillie treats her students like the young adults that they are – working with serious attention to detail, deep listening, and a healthy dose of humor. She is committed to helping students and families reflect deeply, make strategic decisions, and embrace the meaningful exploration inherent in the journey through high school. She specializes in helping students craft cohesive, compelling applications that stand out with rich, authentic specificity.
A filmmaker, trained ballet dancer, gameshow competitor, and guacamole enthusiast, Tillie is a proud Dodgers fan raised in Nairobi, Kenya, who now calls the Pacific Northwest home.

Calvin Pickett

Director of Coaching • College Essay Guy

Calvin Pickett (he/him) is CEG’s Director of Coaching. He studied English Literature at Vassar College and went on to graduate from the prestigious Columbia Teacher’s College at Columbia University. He is a passionate advocate of college access and has guided hundreds of students through the college admissions process and helped students craft essays that have helped them gain admission to some of the most selective colleges in the U.S. He is a passionate reader, writer, and all-around communicator with a deep love of narrative. Having worked in both a classroom setting as an English instructor and through one-on-one college counseling and mentoring, Calvin seeks to leverage structure in writing to elevate students’ stories and help them access their highest college aspirations.