Navigate the road to college with confidence.
The destination is up to you. Take the first step with us.
OUR MISSION
To empower students to be the most successful version of themselves.
Through our holistic approach, we help students manifest their greatest college aspirations and provide the tools needed to achieve success, wherever life takes them.
The Empowerly story
Since 2017, we've helped over 5,000 students get into their top-choice programs.
Empowerly’s team members are graduates of top US colleges, with expertise in STEM, pre-med, business, and the humanities.
And beyond college? Our team brings diverse professional experiences from organizations like Teach for America, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Uber, Riot Games, and more. These backgrounds give us a well-rounded perspective when designing products and services that help you achieve your goals.
How It All Started
From experience to empowerment.
As children of immigrants, our founders know how confusing the admissions process can be. After navigating their own paths to top universities, they noticed many students lack the guidance needed to achieve their goals which inspired them to found Empowerly.
We are real people passionate about building a community that supports students and families. Having faced the competitive admissions process ourselves, we are dedicated to helping the next generation expand their horizons and create new opportunities for their futures.
Meet Our Founders
Hanmei Wu
Hanmei’s passion for higher education stems from her desire to help students reach their full potential. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a BS in Business Administration, she gained experience at Goldman Sachs and Teach For America. While teaching in the Bay Area, she frequently assisted students with their college applications. To expand her impact beyond her immediate network, she founded Empowerly, aiming to provide students with more comprehensive college application support than traditional school counselors often offer. Since its inception, Empowerly has helped thousands of students achieve their college goals.
Changxiao Xie
As a first-generation US college student, Changxiao experienced the challenges of navigating the college admissions process firsthand. During this process, he noticed many of his peers facing similar difficulties. After successfully gaining admission to Princeton, where he studied electrical engineering, he worked on Wall Street building trading systems, at Facebook developing machine learning models, and researching natural language processing (NLP) techniques for disinformation detection. Driven by his own experiences, he co-founded Empowerly to help other students overcome common application challenges and achieve their academic aspirations.
Empowerly's Core Principles
01.
Collaboration
We believe in the power of teamwork. Students benefit from the expertise of our admissions specialists and counselors, receiving comprehensive support throughout their college admissions journey. This collaboration builds accountability and confidence, empowering students to reach their goals.
02.
Impact
We create meaningful, lifelong differences in our students’ lives. When students secure admission to a top college, we empower them to thrive in whatever comes next. This ability to thrive gives our work profound meaning and inspires us to support students beyond the admissions process.
03.
Excellence
We strive for excellence in everything we do. From personalized guidance to detailed application critiques and future-focused internships, we are committed to providing exceptional service to our students. Our aim is to help them reach their fullest potential for college and succeed in all future endeavors.
Meet the team
Here are just a few of the stellar people we’re proud to call teammates.
100% committed to you
We're dedicated to guiding students and families through the admissions process.
My kid has been with Empowerly for the last two years, and recently was admitted to Stanford University! Empowerly has not only helped him with essay editing, but also helped him find a focus in 11th grade for what to apply to, and how to create a theme around his application. Having admissions officers with fresh experience look at the application as a whole gave my kid a complete idea of where he needed to improve. His counselor helped him every step of the way and was truly supportive the whole time.
– Raj, Empowerly parent
The resources available at Empowerly are very helpful, but my favorite part about this program is the honesty that everyone in this program has. My counselor is amazing at picking apart her students and finding their strengths that colleges will fight for. She will tell you when an essay is not working well or where your application is lacking, but when she compliments your work, you know that she genuinely means it…honesty like hers is what will get students into competitive universities.
– Jake, Empowerly student
My daughter got accepted into top tech schools like Caltech, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, etc. for Engineering. This wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Empowerly and especially Kate. Kate was a remarkable counselor who clearly understood my daughter’s needs, strengths, and goals, and helped her prepare for and strategize her college application.
– Supraja, Empowerly parent
Careers
We're just as devoted to our students' successes as we are each other's.
If empowering students while also encouraging your team members to succeed resonates with you, we’d be delighted to share more about Empowerly. We invite you to explore meaningful career opportunities with our team.
Interested in joining Empowerly as a counselor? Learn more here.
