Nikki Specht pattern

Nikki Specht, College Counselor

Nikki brings to Collegewise seven years of college counseling experience as a counselor at Lower Moreland High School in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Her students have gone on to attend colleges across the country, including Yale, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, NYU, Boston College, Boston University, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Bowdoin, Tulane, UNC – Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt.

College counseling works best when students like their counselor and look forward to their counseling meetings rather than view them as yet another college planning obligation. This is where Nikki shines with her students. She’s direct and expects them to take their college planning as seriously as she does. But she presents with an affable, light-hearted personality that leaves her students comfortable opening up to her about their goals, anxieties, and lives. In fact, it’s not unusual for parents to hear their students laughing during meetings with Nikki. But it would be a mistake to misinterpret this as trading focus for frivolity. Nikki’s students are getting the best of both counseling worlds: experienced, expert college planning advice from someone who feels less like a counselor and more like a smarter older sibling (without the rivalry). 

Here's how Nikki describes her college counseling approach:

“I am friendly and easygoing and tend to remain calm in stressful situations. I can build rapport with any student, draw them out of their shell, and work together with them to tackle this head-on. I will encourage your student to follow the trajectory that is best for their future without sacrificing their own happiness. I also love to learn, so if a student happens to present me with a college or related topic where I am not (yet!) an expert, I will dive into it myself on my own time until I know it inside and out. We will get a lot of work done, but we’ll also have lots of fun and laughter in the process!”

In addition to her work as a college counselor and teen-whisperer, Nikki is a mom of three kids, as well as a traveler (20 countries on three continents so far), a bookworm, and an aspiring baker.


Education & Experience
Penn State University, B.A. in Public Relations
West Chester University, M.Ed. in School Counseling
College Counselor at Lower Moreland High School (7 years)

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