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About Us

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to empower students to be the most successful version of themselves in college admissions and beyond. To realize our mission we have put these core values in place.

Collaboration

We work together to push our students to be the best versions of themselves.

Impact

We make the process an important learning experience for everyone.

Excellence

We take pride in our work and always aim to exceed expectations.

EMPOWERLY'S CO-FOUNDERS

Empowerly has helped thousands of students get accepted to their top-choice programs. Our team consists of graduates from top US colleges with expertise in a variety of subjects including STEM, pre-med, business and the humanities. We also have diverse work experience, including Teach for America, Goldman Sachs and Riot Games. We’re passionate about building a community that helps students and their families find a path to success in whatever fields they choose.

Hanmei Wu

Co-Founder

Hanmei is passionate about helping students become the best version of themselves - in college and beyond. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in Business Administration and worked at Goldman Sachs and Teach for America prior to founding Empowerly.

Changxiao Xie

Co-Founder

Changxiao studied electrical engineering at Princeton and is co-founder of Empowerly. Changxiao has previously worked on building trading systems on Wall Street, machine learning at Facebook, and researched NLP techniques for disinformation detection.

Our Counselors

Meet some of our awesome college admissions counselors! From helping with course selection to narrative writing, they’re here for you throughout your entire college admissions journey.

Ford Ford is a former Assistant Director at Johns Hopkins University. At Hopkins, he worked with students in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, helping them in their applications to JHU. During his 5+ years at Hopkins, Ford was a member of the admissions committee, helped implement a new reading process, and oversaw both scholarship selection and the implementation of a new Humanities Overnight Program. Ford holds a BA from the University of Mary Washington and is a current Master's student at JHU.

Shahrukh Shahrukh received his BA from Johns Hopkins University. He holds two separate MBA degrees from Columbia University and London Business School. He has been doing college admissions consulting for over a decade. He has helped students gain admission to Stanford, Harvard, MIT Sloan, UChicago, NYU, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Yale, Dartmouth, Duke, UMiami, UC Berkeley, and more. Shahrukh has published research papers and is a former editor with a passion for telling stories and years of experience writing, public speaking, and editing others' work. He is a father of two and resides with his beautiful wife between Toronto & Boca Raton, Florida.

Victor Victor graduated from Middlebury College with concentrations in Japanese, Portuguese, and Education Studies, and is currently a Master's candidate for International Affairs at Columbia University. He worked as an Admissions Counselor at Middlebury for two years, recruiting and selecting each incoming class. He previously lived in Latin America for two years to complete a Princeton in Latin America and Fulbright grant, respectively. Victor will soon enter his third year with Empowerly and eighth year in College Counseling, and he excitedly looks forward to guiding passionate students navigate the college process this year as well!

Michael Michael has been in education for two decades as a teacher, principal, sponsor, and coach in some of the best public schools in America. He earned a Bachelor's and Master's from the University of Virginia as well as a Master's in Educational Leadership and Administration from George Mason University, and is finishing a PhD from Vanderbilt University. He has taught numerous AP and Cambridge courses, focusing on Advanced Academics and Special Education. Michael has 17 years of counseling experience, and has gotten students into the University of Chicago, Berkeley, UCLA, Duke, Penn, and Brown to name a few. His greatest passion is seeing students achieve their dreams and start their careers.

Emma Emma graduated from Purdue University with B.A in English literature. She worked in Purdue's Writing Lab as a writing tutor before working as an Assistant Director of Admissions at Purdue. She reviewed applications for Health and Human Sciences, The College of Science, and the College of Engineering. She will use her experience as an application reviewer and writing tutor to make your application stand out.

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