Cindy Muchnick, M.A.

Cindy is a graduate of Stanford University with bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Art History and a master's in Liberal Studies. She is a former Assistant Director of Admission for the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago. She has read and evaluated over three thousand applications for college admission to competitive colleges. Cindy is also the co-author of The Best College Admission Essays (ARCO/Peterson's). In her research, she personally conducted interviews with the Deans of Admission of: Amherst, University of Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Grinnell, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, Stanford, Wesleyan, Williams and Yale. She has also written four other books published by Simon & Schuster and Random House.

While at Stanford, Cindy worked as a campus tour guide and a volunteer student coordinator in recruiting admitted students for the Office of Undergraduate Admission. She next completed her Masters Degree at Nova Southeastern University. As an admission director at IIT and University of Chicago, Cindy read and screened applications, interviewed prospective students, recruited and served on the admissions committee to evaluate borderline applicants and appeals cases. She also taught SAT preparation classes for the Princeton Review and later worked as a high school teacher at a private college preparatory school, The University School, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Cindy has conducted numerous essay-writing workshops across the country and works as an educational consultant, privately counseling eighth through twelfth grade students as well as transfer students. Students she has worked with have been admitted to: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Yale, MIT, Duke, Wesleyan, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Vassar, all UC schools, Johns Hopkins, The Claremont Colleges, Brandeis, Columbia, NYU, and USC among others. She lives with her husband, three sons and daughter in Newport Beach, CA.