Upward Path Institute Reviews

UpwardPath Institute, led by Vinnie, is an exceptional resource for high school students navigating the stressful college admissions process. The standout feature of this institute is their college counseling program. The dedicated college counselor assigned to each student is simply the best. They work closely with the student throughout their junior and senior years, offering personalized guidance that is both thoughtful and strategic. This level of support was instrumental in helping my daughter manage her time effectively and craft compelling essays. In addition to the incredible counselors, the writing coaches at UpwardPath are top-notch. They ensure that every student's essays stand out in a competitive admissions landscape. Thanks to the comprehensive support my daughter received, she is now headed to one of the top universities in the United States. I wholeheartedly recommend UpwardPath to any parent looking to give their child the best possible chance at college admission success.

I had Melissa Royal as my counselor during the 2023-24 college application season, and I was very satisfied with the guidance and assurance I received from her. She made sure I started all my essays and PIQs early, which made the school year more relaxed for me. I am glad to say that I ended up at a university that is one of the best for my major and one where I am very excited to kickstart my career.

After more than two years of our family working with Upward Path we are extremely fortunate to have our son conclude the college application process with amazing results. This would truly not have been possible without our exceptional counselor, Melissa Royal as she is a very organized, encouraging and positive mentor, and a genuine expert in this field as a whole. Our son found it very easy to work with Melissa because of her kind-hearted personality and how intuitively involved she is in the process while effortlessly steering him towards due dates and deadlines in a fun manner. She provided him with many online tools to simplify, break-down and eventually excel the very daunting application process. Her multiple sessions to get to know our son's interests in different areas, to familiarizing him with the common app, to creating his own college list, to her brainstorming sessions to prompt his essay writing and quick turn around to edit and feedback to improvise till he finalized his applications all reflect her remarkable management skills and comforting personality. We highly recommend this very thorough and responsive professional who made this college application journey stress-free!

UCEazy was a great experience, and I want to personally thank my counselor, Melissa Royal, for her guidance and advice through the difficult and complex application process. She gave great advice on the do's and don'ts of the UC essay prompts, and made sure to review everything so that I optimized the writing space given. She also gave great pointers when I was stumped with my activities list, or when I was confused about application requirements and what to report to the colleges. In general, the program helped me feel more prepared and confident when filling out my college applications, especially since the counselors were always there to provide feedback or tips when I finished drafts.

After more than 3 years with UPI, I can confidently say that my counselors (Kristen and Nicholle) have made a positive impact on my high school experience and have supported me in my journey of getting to where I am today. As a the eldest child to immigrant parents, I went into high school quite nervous and anxious as I didn't know what to expect. Luckily, my UPI counselors guided me and offered insight in crucial areas such as course planning, extracurriculars, summer programs, time management, and college admissions. I am endlessly grateful for the support I received from UPI. Shoutout to Kristen and Nicholle :)!!!

For my previous kids, the college application process seemed like a sprint, and there were some regrets that they should have planned and done a more thorough job on essays and extracurriculars. So, we know we needed some assistance for our next child to plan for a more deliberate approach. We either spend some money now to give our son a more competitive advantage or let him navigate the application process himself. There is a reason college preparatory services exist, staffed with ex-admission counselors: They work, and those advantages are necessary. We were lucky enough that UpwardPath selected my son to work with them, and we certainly don't regret the money we spent based on his admissions acceptances. His UpwardPath counselor, Anne Semone, had quite a prolific background. She had dealt with stressful juniors who were dealing with hard class workloads and unmotivated seniors with whom writing compelling college essays was the last thing they wanted to do. After removing the SAT/ACT this year from the criteria that universities accept, the subjective nature of essays became the primary means for those to be selected above those more qualified in other areas. Starting around June after his junior year, Mrs Semone's interactions with my son were crucial to getting his essays well-rounded, compelling, and concise. Throughout the essay-writing process, Mrs Semone provided feedback on capturing the reader's attention while still giving the impression that the student is humble and not exaggerating. She recognized the humorous parts of my son's essays while keeping them concise and on the subject of the essay prompt. On the 9th or 10th version of the essays, I know my son was hoping Mrs. Semone would say... "it looks good; I have no other feedback." But they are the best essays he has written, and I know they impacted his college acceptances. Another thing to consider is the major the student is considering. One weakness of the US education system is that schools don't tell the kids what they are not good at. Recognizing your weaknesses is crucial to knowing when to seek help. Our counselor knew writing essays was a challenge for my son, and being an engineering major, there are other things he wants to do than writing essays. Half of the UCs my son applied to sent him acceptance letters, and his profile was only in the lower median when you look at the university's incoming freshman class stats. At his high school, valedictorians who applied to the same college and major as my son did not receive acceptance letters. I know his essays were the primary reason he got in, and without Mrs Semone's assistance, he might only have had one or no choice of his target schools. Was he unmotivated to write these essays? 100% But Mrs Semone's deliberate and planned approach minimized his procrastination so that he didn't sprint the essay. We appreciate UpwardPath and recommend its services. We will miss Mrs Semone for the last year and a half.

The counselors at Upward Path Institute have been great at helping me find extracurriculars that fit my interests, reviewing college essays, finding colleges to apply to, and the rest of the college application process. I highly recommend joining this if you feel like you don't know much about the college application process in the US. You will learn a lot about what to do to get into colleges in the US and the counselors will guide you through the process and help you make your applications as best as they can be.

We highly recommend Upward Path, We engaged them to guide our daughter in 2023. She got accepted to many top-ranked colleges including Georgetown, UC Berkeley, and Boston University. We believe they have a balanced and sophisticated program for helping aspirational families. In addition to 1:1 counseling, they have a creative program for teaching college essay writing. They also offer guaranteed internships. Above all, we were very impressed with the mission drive leadership team. They seem to truly care. Besides working with the students, they offer a lot of information to parents as well. Pradeep and Nidhi Kumar (New Jersey)

I would like to recommend Upward Path Institute to any parents who are facing with the enormous task of preparing for college admissions whether it is planning a proper career pathway, choosing your majors, setting goals, narrowing down the right colleges, writing essays, getting teacher recommendations, giving your SAT/ ACT, making your resume and the submitting the actual college applications. The excellent counselors and college experts at Upward Path Institute had our back and provided the best guidance throughout the process!. They were extremely professional, organized and very well informed about the intricacies of the entire college admissions process and were also very up to date with the changing scenarios and developments in that space. The best part was that our high schooler did not ever feel over stressed or over anxious in his college applications journey and we are really thankful to the counselors for teaching him time management and how to work towards his goals in an organized way so he didn't feel overburdened at any point. Thank you Upward Path Institute!

Aside from all the helpful advice and feedback during my application process, my writing coach and counselor were some of the kindest people I have met. I struggled a lot with writing my personal statement and ended up rewriting it multiple times throughout the process, but rather than urging me to push forward and speed up my writing, my counselors prioritized my happiness with my application and made sure I was submitting something I was genuinely proud of. I felt very supported during a very anxious time.