This review is about Angela Sun's college counselling abilities. Our experience was exactly the opposite of what's written here and I would give negative stars if I could !! She was an absolute nightmare to deal with and has zero emotional intelligence or tact to deal with young teens !! She preys on parent's weaknesses and has clearly understood parents would do anything for their children as long as she says things like she got admission into MIT, Ivy's and self proclaims that she is the absolute best college consultant who will make your child write the absolute best essays he can ever write !! (I am paraphrasing it but she said something like that to me in our first meeting !). She made it amply clear even before I met for the first time that all she cares about is money and nothing else ! She charged me $300 per hr saying it's "the weekend rate" - whatever that means (although her website only mentions 250 per hr ). She was laser focused on the money in our conversations and showed zero interest in knowing my child before or after the meeting. Her website says parents will get a detailed report within 24 hrs of the first meeting, and we received no such report. The first meeting was a complete disaster. She was so rude (and please don't say she is strict/tough /good etc). No - she was plain rude and not good as a counselor !! My son was so scared of her that after a point stopped answering even basic questions ! She gave as little info as possible in the session and made it laborious by asking my son to type out literally every word that came out of her mouth (all of it was just general info and nothing anyone wouldn't know about college admissions)! Despite all these negative signals, I still tried to go ahead with scheduling a few more sessions, because believe it or not, my son insisted he wanted to try her a bit more before giving up ! I wanted to understand how many sessions my son would need and in her response she had the audacity to say my child was a "non high functioning" kid and hence would probably need many sessions (being vague and open ended of course to milk as much money as possible from me) ! The "genius" in her, inferred all this about my son from just the 1 hr meeting !! Not to brag - Honestly, my child is in a highly specialized gifted track at school and elsewhere and in fact the very reason I was looking for a counselor so early on was to make sure I give him all the advantages possible and guide him using the best counselors ! She quoted a ridiculous number of hours at the rate of $300 per hr and I told her , her website states she will only need 3-4 sessions for coming up with a 4 year plan and her response was "website is outdated " !!! (can you believe that ??) Parents, please be careful when choosing a counselor. Please make sure the counselor has the right emotional intelligence, credentials , experience to deal with your child in this vulnerable yet important stage of their life. Please don't select a counselor based purely on 5 star online reviews or what these counselors say they achieved for themselves. If in your initial interactions you detect the counselor's main focus is money, and not your child or if the counselor is rude, evasive about answering your questions , please take these red flags seriously and run miles away from her/him ! I am very thankful that I was able to detect this problem early on and not expose my child to a horrible 4 year counselling experience ! read more

I agree with S A 's review. Not great at emotional intelligence with teens. I think she's got a method and that works for some kids, she isn't into customizing for how the child learns. I am sharing that his score went down a full 100 points after - full 3 months of tutoring with her. Worst yet when we shared this news she never responded to us again. read more

We have been working with Angela over the last 2 years. We first approached her to help our son in tutoring when he was a Sophomore. We quickly realized that she is not only an excellent tutor, but also a great life coach for high schoolers. She has instilled so many improvements in our son's study techniques, organizational skills and time management that we hope he will leverage these skills in college and beyond. Our son scored an excellent ACT score thanks to Angela's coaching. She puts in extra effort to understand each student's motivations and passions, and adjusts her coaching accordingly. We find that this is hard to find when you go with tutoring companies. Our only regret is not finding her sooner for our older son, but we are counting on not making same mistake with our younger one! read more

My brother worked with Angela for his college admissions, and she was instrumental in the process. College admissions had changed a lot since I applied to college, but my parents wanted me to help anyway. In the end, I realized I was out of my depth and we found Angela who had all the up-to-date information and was able to answer all our questions. Most importantly, she helped with the essays, the most difficult part of the application for us. My brother had issues with comprehensibility, keeping within the word limit, and having a voice that would make him stand out amoung the other applicants. End the end, we had much better essays and he was accepted to many top tier programs. He is very happy with his outcome. My only regret is that we didn't work with Angela sooner; we started late in the process after we realize we were in over our heads and had pretty middling essays. read more

My daughter started going to Angela from her Sophomore year. For us the biggest value was in the fact that she challenged my daughter in a very positive and effective way. She helped us see many avenues/opportunities to develop her profile ( internships, early ACT etc.) all of which we would not have explored or even thought about otherwise. It takes hard work and drive to keep up with the guidance received from Angela, so the results are dependent on that. For us, the results are not just in the college our daughter lands in, but her growth as she explores new horizons. She pushes the child ( young adult! ) to continually challenge herself, plan ahead, critically self-assess and monitor and measure progress through introspection and a systematic data-oriented thought process. She also challenges the parent - so be prepared for some candid feedback on your parenting, if she gleans you should be doing something differently! All in all, she's not inexpensive, but we have derived significant value from her mentoring of my daughter Ankita and have passed on references to my colleagues and will be looking to enroll my son there soon. read more

My daughter struggled with her English and Reading portion of her ACT test and we were referred to Angela through our neighborhood website. After prepping with another tutor and not seeing great results, we decided to give Angela a try. Angela's techniques definitely work, numbers don't lie! During the summer, she prepped my daughter in reading and my daughter brought her score up 12 points! My daughter also spent 6 sessions with Angela on English and raised her score 7 points on her 3rd ACT attempt. If Angela would have had the opportunity to tutor my daughter in Math and Science section, I am confident that my daughter's scores would have increased there as well. My only regret is that we wished we would have found Angela sooner. My daughter is a senior and we just ran out of time to prep her for her last ACT attempt. read more

Angela was a great help to my daughter who is preparing to take the AP Calculus test. My daughter was finding that she was struggling with some problems on the practice tests. Angela was a friendly and approachable presence from the start, but quickly gets to work. When working on the practice math problems, she allowed my daughter to figure out how to do the problem herself by giving little hints rather than just explaining the answers. She also had an arsenal of tips to share, both in terms of approaching problems, but also regarding study habits. My daughter and I agree that she is a competent and knowledgeable tutor! read more

Angela helped me immensely with my SAT with purposeful practice and essential tips. Before I went to Angela, I had taken the SAT twice, and I was struggling with the English sections. With her help and practice, I was able to raise my English score by 50 points. We also worked on ways to relieve test anxiety as I have had anxiety issues that have affected my scores. Angela guided me through multiple steps to relieve my anxiety, and when I took the SAT I was significantly calmer than the previous times. read more

My daughter has been working with Angela for ACT tutoring. If you come across a problem, she just doesn't tell you what to do...she guides you with questions to help you get to the answer. Angela also gives lots of helpful strategies and pointers for taking the ACT test. Angela is always encouraging and a pleasure to work with...she really knows her stuff! read more

I was having a difficult time with a few of my college classes and Angela was (and still is) a great help to me, I always feel so much more confident and prepared for all the tests and quizzes after each tutoring session! Not only is she extremely patient and knowledgable, she is also really easy to work with!! read more

We feel lucky to have found Angela! She's upbeat and very adept at working with teenagers. My daughter immediately responded to Angela's encouraging and practical approach to standardized test-taking. Her subject mastery strategies have been helpful to my daughter not only for the ACT but for multiple AP tests. I highly recommend her. read more

She is wonderful!!! Angela helps you with getting to your best. Love her method and her patience.

Thank you Angela sooooooooooo much for helping my son with his Bio class. He fell a little bit behind being a college freshman first semester but you helped put him right back on track and pulled up his grade. I also appreciate that you took time to talk to him about his career plans and future goals. You are like a great coach! read more

My high school junior wasn't sure she wanted to work with a personal tutor, as she was making good progress with some online tutoring. Her initial scores were good, but she really wants to move to the next level. She wants to apply to TOP schools. I found Angela sort of randomly online, without referral from anyone I knew. She's AWESOME! Angela listened to my daughter's scores and objectives, then worked up a plan to meet a rather short deadline, as the in school SAT was just weeks away. After the first session both my daughter and I had a new outlook on the test. It's not just a measurement of what you've learned, it's a measurement of how well you perform on the test. You need to practice and implement strategies consistently. Angela has a method for this. She's extremely professional, respectful, kind, and she's fun and motivating. Alice's scores on the practice tests improved immediately! She just took the SAT and we're still waiting for results. She feels really good about it. read more

Angela helped me prepare for my second SAT-take. The first time I took it, I got a 1520 and it can be difficult to increase your last few points. But she has been a tremendous help. Upon reflection, I think the most unique thing Angela does compared to the other help I've gotten, is that she never tells you the correct answer. She asks you questions about the question and passage/word problem and your approach, until you understand where you went wrong in your thinking. You begin to think differently about questions because you have thoroughly understood all the different question types that can come up in the sections. So with almost every single question, you are able to look at it and know what they will be asking you and how you will solve it. This was very important for me and boosted my performance. Another thing Angela does is that she never gives grunt work - work that is just random practice that you are not learning very much from. Before this, I had done many, many practice tests and drills but my score was not improving, and the first thing Angela said to me when we met was that she could see that despite all my practice, I had not actually learned from my mistakes. And she made me redo the reading sections and flashcard my missed math questions from every single one of my previous tests. That way I was actually learning from my mistakes and then she would go over them and teach me how to think about the question differently. Angela helped me create an organized schedule for what sections I would focus on and for how long. According to this schedule, she would give me homework so that I would keep practicing. I have this long tip sheet full of really helpful tricks and personalized mnemonics to help me remember everything I've learned. I really appreciate all of Angela's help and I have improved so much! :) read more