Meet our (occasionally) fearless leaders.
This section will tell you a little about the people who make up
Collegewise. If you'd like to get to know a counselor in one of our offices, just select Irvine, CA; White Plains, NY; Chatham, NJ; Bellevue, WA; or everywhere else.
This section will tell you a little about the people who make up Collegewise. If you'd like to get to know a counselor in one of our offices, just select Irvine, CA; White Plains, NY; Chatham, NJ; Bellevue, WA; or everywhere else.
Kevin McMullin
Founder and president
Kevin started Collegewise in 1999 and did all the counseling himself for the first 18 months (he also feels awkward penning this bio about himself in the third person but will just forge ahead). Today, Kevin speaks at high schools and conferences, preaches the Collegewise way of doing things, and writes at least one entry every day on the Collegewise blog. He is also the author of Story Finders: How Counselors and Teachers Can Help Students Write Better College Essays (without Helping Too Much). Kevin graduated from UC Irvine with majors in English and history where he answered, "What are you going to do with THOSE majors?" approximately 783 times. He also has a college counseling certification from UCLA. Those collective educational credentials mean that Kevin has somehow managed to avoid doing a single math problem since 1989. When he's not public speaking, writing, and steadfastly avoiding numbers, Kevin runs half-marathons, lobbies for a strict adherence to the rules of grammar and punctuation, and makes sure the office never runs out of coffee.
Arun Ponnusamy
partner and College Counselor
Between the time he graduated from the University of Chicago and the time he became a partner at Collegewise, Arun reviewed the college applications of over 8,000 high school seniors, first as an assistant director of admissions at his beloved alma mater, then in the same post at Caltech, and finally as an admissions reader for UCLA. During the same stretch of time, Ohio State's football team beat Michigan 11 times. This might seem like a non sequitur, but Arun grew up in Ohio and believes there has technically never been--nor will there ever be--an inopportune time to reference a Buckeye victory over the Wolverines. Since leaving the world of admissions in 2004, Arun has helped hundreds of students find and get accepted to the right colleges from the other side of the desk as both a private college counselor and an active volunteer at College Summit. As a partner at Collegewise, Arun speaks at high schools and at conferences, works with Kevin to make new products, and counsels a limited number of students each year in our online counseling programs.
