Leah worked and taught in higher education for 20+ years, including teaching English composition, literature, creative writing, running a campus-wide writing center, serving as department chair and admissions advisor, designing curriculum used at colleges around the state, and mapping curriculum development and degree pathways. This insider perspective of colleges gives her special insight into navigating higher education.

While helping her own daughter through the college process, Leah realized how overwhelming and stressful this phase could be, even for someone with support. This inspired her to develop an approach that streamlines and empowers students with tools to better plan for their futures.

Leah also works as a college enrollment and retention coach through the nonprofit InsideTrack and has earned credentials in Foundational Coaching, Success Coaching, and Career Coaching that help her to effectively align high school students’ values with their college goals. She has worked with a wide range of students on enrollment and retention strategies, career and long-term goal setting, and pathways to finding schools that fit each individual. She specializes in digging into deeper values to find the right college, demystifying the financial aid process, identifying a major or focus, as well as planning for the next phases with internships, career goals, and additional degrees.

Leah is working towards a certification as an Independent Educational Consultant through UC Irvine and expects to complete her certification in 2024. She is currently accepting juniors and seniors as clients, for both individual sessions on goal-setting, college list-building, or essay writing, as well as holistic consulting packages to help students and parents work through the span of the college enrollment process.

Leah’s unique background offers teenagers a nuanced and thoughtful coaching program that helps learners engage and feel supported in the college process. Her coaching approach supports parents and students in collaborating transparently to discuss a range of factors, including cost, size, location, extracurricular opportunities, and academics, as well as fine-tuning application materials to open as many doors as possible.