It’s another great week at Collegewise, as we have two fabulous new counselors joining us—Lauren Leight in Philadelphia and Sarah Gloo in Washington, D.C. From their soon-to-be-official Collegewise bios:

Lauren Leight
College counselor
Philadelphia, PA
After graduating from Penn State University with both a BA in psychology and a master’s in counselor education, Lauren completed her school counseling internship at State College Area High School, where she expertly guided seniors through the college application process while running a weekly empowerment group for girls. If there’s anyone qualified to talk about empowerment, it’s definitely Lauren. Her undergraduate and graduate GPAs make it a near mathematical impossibility for her to have earned anything but A’s while she was there. Not one to rest on her empowering academic laurels, Lauren also completed the Philadelphia Marathon in 2012, a feat that surprised no one who saw her win the Phys-Ed Award back in high school. While she hails from Philadelphia, Lauren is a diehard Green Bay Packers fan (sorry, Eagles) and has made multiple trips to Lambeau Field to root for her team while wearing the fan-favorite cheese head. She was also a dancer in the annual Penn State Dance Marathon known as “Thon,” a yearlong fundraising effort that culminates with dancers refraining from sitting or sleeping for 46 hours (a feat which, sadly, Lauren achieved sans cheese head). When she’s not counseling, running, rooting, or fundraising, Lauren enjoys reading and scrapbooking, though at present time, she has not chosen to do either for 46 continuous hours.

Sarah Gloo
Director
Washington, D.C.
Sarah double-majored in government and sociology at Hamilton College, where she was also the women’s lacrosse team captain, MVP, and two-time all-American, guiding them to the NCAA tournament semi-finals for the first time in school history. Faced with the unjust reality that it’s difficult to make a post-college living as a lacrosse player, Sarah spent two years as an admissions officer at Wesleyan University, where she evaluated applications, co-led athletic recruiting efforts, and managed a staff of 20 senior interviewers. She then spent three years on the other side of the desk as an assistant director of college counseling at Colorado Academy, an independent school in Denver, before bringing her college knowledge and her mighty lacrosse stick to Collegewise in 2014. While her fierce competitive instincts run deep (she had seemingly perpetual black eyes during her lacrosse days from what her coach described as “leading with her head”), Sarah is also a yoga instructor who is proud of her ability to remain cool, calm, and collected in stressful situations, a skill that serves her well in counseling, but not so well on that dreaded AP Physics exam back in high school. We won’t tell you what her score was, but let’s just say that her father’s response to it was, “Well, Sarah, you don’t have to be good at everything.”

Lauren and Sarah are in (rainy) Seattle this week getting their official indoctrination with both me and Katie Konrad Moore; then, they’ll be heading back east to launch their offices. I love bringing in great additions to our growing family of smart, passionate people who want to do great work. I think these two are going to fit right in. Welcome, Lauren and Sarah!