Coffee with a Counselor: Gelyna P

With a range of science education and experiences in the college admissions field, Gelyna brings a qualified perspective to each student she works with. In fact, all of these unique elements are part of the bigger picture of what makes Gelyna so effective as a college counselor. We can’t wait to have a chat and get to know her better!

Let’s get started. 

This interview is Installment 5 in our Coffee with a Counselor series. To read more profiles like this, check out other posts right here on our blog and subscribe to our newsletter!

Graduating from Stanford in 2015, Gelyna majored in Science, Technology & Society with a concentration in Life Sciences & Biotechnology. She also holds a Notation in Science Communication.

Gelyna is an experienced college counselor who has helped students gain admission to Stanford, Ivy League universities, and UCs. Her specialties are interview preparation, essay editing, and essay topic brainstorming. 

In addition to being an Empowerly counselor, Gelyna is our Marketplace Operations Director. Gelyna currently lives in the LA area. 

“I was a Stanford alumni interviewer right after I graduated, and I got to interview about 15 students in the D.C. area. I just really loved meeting the students, and I felt invigorated about my interests and why I wanted to go to Stanford back in high school because I was able to talk to these students. And so that kind of started my interest in admissions as a whole,” Gelyna said.

“I also really love essay editing, so that was something I would love to work with students on,” she continued. “So I heard about Empowerly through one of the early members who is also a Stanford alum, and I joined Empowerly about six months after I finished doing interviews for the application cycle at Stanford.”

“I received what’s called a Notation in Science Communications at Stanford, and it’s actually a separate program where you get a certificate along with your diploma. It really focuses on editing for science communications specifically,” Gelyna told us. “A lot of that was really focused on science writing, and how to make the best science writing possible. And that’s why I think I’m a great counselor for STEM students. Because when they write about these technical topics, I have a lot of experience in working with people writing on these technical topics, both in my own scientific papers throughout college and also working with other people.”

For instance? “I was also a TA for a course called Ethics in Bioengineering which was a lot of technical editing as well. So I did a lot of that in college and I was interested in doing something like that for my career. Then also being a Stanford alumni interviewer, I definitely have a great idea of what types of questions colleges are asking in the interview process. I often do mock interviews with my students just to make sure they feel prepared and go over their answers to potential questions that are asked throughout the interviews.”

“So I usually counsel seniors,” Gelyna specified, “and my biggest focus is really on essays and extracurricular activities, and how you can make yourself stand out. What I often tell my students is—with how hard admissions standards are now, it’s no longer ‘rare’ or ‘unique’ to have great [test] scores and a great GPA. Lots and lots of students that are applying have those things, and just those things alone will not get you accepted into college,” she emphasized. “It’s really making yourself stand out that’s the most important in the admissions process.”

Gelyna recalled having “one really great student,” who nonetheless “always had the tendency to write extremely long essays that were very far away from the word count. So when they would first draft a lot of their essays, they were over 1000 words, when the word count was between 300 and 650 words for the longest essay… By the end of the application cycle, they were so much better at writing more concisely, which was awesome to see.” 

“One of the biggest things that I learn from my students is just how much they care. We have a lot of high-performing students at Empowerly, and it’s just so amazing how well they’re doing at everything that they’re doing in their life,” Gelyna said. “Especially in their senior year, when there’s so much going on, they just are able to maintain all their grades and also do a ton of work on their essays in a short period of time, and take care of extracurriculars. Some of them have founded companies, and some of them have duties that they have to do in terms of their family, keeping their family going. It’s just really impressive to see all the things that they are juggling at the time and how they are making it work.” 

She continues, “Again, I think college admissions are getting harder and harder, and so students have had to take on more than I had to take on ten years ago when I was applying to college. I’m just really excited by how much they’re able to do and how much they’ve accomplished.” It’s a sentiment that many of us at Empowerly share, watching these students rise to the challenge of the last few years.

“Essays are more important than you think they are,” Gelyna said. “Sometimes students will come to Empowerly and say, ‘Oh I’ve already done my Common App essay, it’s all drafted, it’s ready to go.’ And then, a lot of times their counselor might have some feedback and say, ‘Actually, you should pivot this topic.’ So again, essays are more complex than people think they are. It’s all about setting yourself apart.” 

“For a lot of people, there’s a certain topic that is more quirky or more unique about them that they might not think is the best initial topic,” she said. “But then, when I actually talk to them and get to know them better, there’s some random topic that would be so great for an essay—that I think they never would have thought would be a good essay topic. So I love to have those kinds of conversations with my students, to really get to the bottom of—not just what fuels them and what’s important to them, but what’s a cool random fact about them that we could talk about in a college essay?” 

“I think sometimes the admissions committee wants to see something different from what you might think. They don’t just want intelligent students; they also want funny students, or students they’d love to get coffee with, or [students that] have a specific really funny aspect about them that they could talk about in a college essay,” she continued. “And so really getting that information on your college applications is something that’s going to stand out. When you think of an admissions officer who has to read 500 or 1000 applications a day, saying something that might surprise them is actually really helpful. Because it will catch their eye, versus,” she said, “reading the same essay about a volunteer experience where you went to a developing country that a lot of students write about.”

“A piece of advice that is good for college students is, don’t take on too much. I don’t know who exactly told me that advice, but I think—especially for people who are really Type A and very high achieving—it can be tempting to go to the career fair or the activities fair, and take on everything. Or try to volunteer for everything,” Gelyna said. 

“In college, I quickly realized that wasn’t sustainable. And you never want to be that flaky person who doesn’t show up to things they’ve committed to. And so once I realized that I really honed in on two different activities in college. I loved those activities and performed fully in those two activities rather than trying to stretch myself too thin.” 

The phenomenal counselor community at Empowerly understands the importance of each unique student’s journey. All you have to do is ask. Book a free consultation below to receive a customized recommendation for your college application plan.