Meet Jinna!

Jinna Lee, College Counselor

During her more than 15 years as a college counselor, Jinna’s students have attended some of the most selective colleges in the country, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, UPenn, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, University of Michigan, Georgetown, USC, Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Emory, NYU, Barnard, Amherst, University of Chicago, Rice, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, the Air Force and Naval Academies, and all the UC (University of California) schools. With deep experience working closely with both domestic students and international applicants seeking admission to US colleges and universities, Jinna has a keen sense of how students from all over the world are evaluated during the college admissions process. And she brings that insight to her work with each of her Collegewise students.

A student of her craft who’s visited more than 50 colleges and universities, and who regularly attends national admissions conferences to stay informed, Jinna particularly enjoys speaking with her students about the many enriching opportunities available in college. That ability to tie what a student is doing today to what they hope to do—and where they hope to do it—tomorrow is evidence of expert college counseling. The anxiety around the college admissions process can induce a myopic focus on just getting in, one that can cause students, parents, and even counselors to neglect to even consider why the student wants to go to college in the first place, what they hope or expect to gain while they’re attending, and which schools are best suited to fulfill those collegiate desires. These questions are not trivial—they are a critical and necessary component of college preparation, even for those students who claim to be certain about where they want to attend. Applicants who successfully demonstrate—in both essays and interview responses—how they’ve considered these questions are more likely to stand out as compelling potential admits, especially in the most competitive applicant pools.

Asked to name her college counseling superpower, Jinna says she strives to meet each student exactly where they are, without unnecessary and unproductive additional pressure. She works to make each student feel comfortable, to relieve their concerns and anxieties, and to create meetings that are both helpful and enjoyable, so much so that her students actually look forward to them.

An adventurous traveler who’s also a cappuccino devotee, Jinna admits that despite her college counseling-nurtured aversion to clichés, she also really does enjoy “long walks on the beach.”

Education & Experience

Ewha Womans University, B.S.
University of Michigan, M.A.
UCLA, College Counseling Certification
Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Director (1 year)
Fulfillment Fund, College counselor (3 years)
UC Santa Barbara, External application reader (1 year)
Gates Scholarship, Reader and interviewer (1 year)
Admissions advisor for multiple college planning firms (12 years)