Joel Ontiveros, College Counselor
Since leaving the world of admissions and joining Collegewise in 2021, Joel’s students have been accepted to more than 125 colleges and universities, including Stanford, Georgetown, University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis, USC, Colorado School of Mines, Texas A&M, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, Purdue University, Pitzer, Northeastern, University of Miami, The New School, and all of the UC (University of California) schools.
Joel is the co-author of a popular Collegewise resource, Inside the UC App: Tips and Tricks for a Stellar Application, and his regular webinars on UC admissions are among our most well-attended, frequently exceeding 500 live viewers for one presentation. He is also one of a select group of Collegewise counselors who deliver professional development sessions for our colleagues, and he participates with our recruiting team to review, interview, and select new counselors to join our team.
Joel particularly enjoys debunking admissions-related rumors and myths parents hear from friends and neighbors. In fact, he regularly encourages his Collegewise families to reach out to him whenever they hear something new in their circles and want to verify its accuracy. In these conversations, Joel is both direct and encouraging, always helping them separate fact from fiction to ultimately return to one of Joel’s core college counseling principles: focus on the parts of this process you can control.
For more than 25 years, we’ve seen that students who enjoy the most admissions success actively engage in planning their own futures; they do not sit back and expect adults to make important decisions for them. From scheduling their own meetings, to completing their work on time, to answering for themselves about what they hope or expect to gain from going to college, Joel encourages all his students to meet this key moment in their lives as an opportunity to hone important life skills. In this regard, Joel likens himself to a baserunning coach on the baseball diamond—a wise veteran who’s seen every situation before, who provides direction and helps his students avoid mistakes, all without ever doing the work (or running the bases) for them.
As Joel puts it:
I am at Collegewise because we show up to our work differently than other counseling companies do with their clients. We want to put the student front-and-center and help them learn more about who they are, what they care about, and where they want to go in life. Colleges are increasingly seeking students with the maturity to have considered these questions, rather than those who’ve spent four years of high school just trying to fit the mold of what everyone around them was doing.
When he’s not obsessing over specialized degree programs at universities you’ve never heard of, you can find Joel paddleboarding on a lake somewhere in the Pacific Northwest or shredding gnar on his snowboard in the Rockies.
Education & Experience
UCLA, B.A.
University of Vermont, M.A.
Assistant Director of Admissions, UCLA
Regional Admissions Representative, UC Santa Cruz
Independent college counselor
Professional Organization Memberships
NACAC: National Association for College Admission Counseling
Ready to tackle the admissions process?
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