Rob Shaw

Rob founded his education business at the age of fifteen, immediately actualizing his love for tailoring conceptual explanations to individual students, one-on-one. After studying neuroscience and Buddhist philosophy at Middlebury College, Rob resumed his professional education career, teaching math, writing, all science subjects, and test prep. When Rob was given the proposition of college counseling his first client, he drew from his own experience receiving college counseling from a counselor who he had connected with as a member of the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and was a former admissions officer at Yale University. He pushed Rob to detail every image and thought that went through his head as he became consumed by continental philosophy, quantum physics, and consciousness. He guided Rob through reducing redundancies, prepositions, and passive voice as Rob sculpted his writing, scrutinizing diction and employing active voice.

Emulating this process, Rob found immediate success; his first student received immediate admission to UCLA with a nomination for its honors program. Over his eight years of full-time college counseling experience, Rob has developed a college counseling method that expands upon what he gained working with his former college counselor and incorporates the principles he discovered studying neuroscience, coining the term Interview-Style College Counseling. Understanding that the power of essays rests on an individuals’ personal account of their experiences, Rob developed a repertoire of questioning that pushes students to go into painstaking detail. Utilizing it, students not only develop maximally powerful and personal essays but preserve their voice. To date, Rob has helped hundreds of students gain admission to not only Ivy League schools but hyper-selective programs including UCLA Film School, BSMD programs, top medical schools, Psychology/Social Work dual PhD programs, and USC’s Elite Film Acting Cohort.