this is my passion
My name is Colleen Reed, Founder, American College Consulting, and I am doing what I love. Every day I have the privilege of helping young people get into their dream schools.
My journey started when I was a student at Brown University. I loved the diversity of the student body, the intellectually curious culture on campus, the freedom to explore, and the lifelong friendships I still cherish.
After college, I took a job leading educational tours for high school groups in Washington, D.C. and met thousands of young people from across the U.S. I loved connecting with them as individuals, encouraging them to learn from each other, and challenging them to become engaged students. I realized education is my passion.
Along the way I married my Brown lacrosse-playing boyfriend (a Canadian!) and moved to British Columbia and eventually to Ontario. I became a high school teacher and taught Canadian History and English for several years. Watching students become capable adults who believed in themselves was, without a doubt, my greatest reward.
Throughout this time, I kept my connection to my alma mater active. As an admissions interviewer for Brown, I met hundreds of high school students and listened to them talk about why they wanted to attend the University and what they wanted to do with their lives.
After 20 years of interviewing prospective students and 10 years of teaching high school students, I started American College Consulting in Toronto in 2008.
My commitment to you is twofold: (1) to always have your child’s best interest at heart and (2) to be an empathetic figure with whom your child can have open, honest conversations. As an experienced educational consultant, and as a mother who has sent her own daughters stateside to study, I can help take the worry out of applying to U.S. schools.
—Colleen
this is my teaM
RON REED
Ron is Colleen’s husband and a partner in the business. Before teaming up with Colleen, Ron spent 33 years in the Enterprise Software sector working for companies including J.D. Edwards, Progress Software, Informatica and SAS Institute in Sales and Executive Management roles. Ron is also a life-long sports enthusiast participating competitively in hockey and lacrosse. He was recruited to play Field Lacrosse at Brown University where he enjoyed all the benefits of being an Ivy League athlete while completing a BS in Applied Math and Economics. Ron passed along this love of sports to his two daughters who played competitive soccer in Toronto. In order to stop coaching his kids from the sidelines, Ron completed his certification and coached in Ontario for several years.
Ron’s experience attending Brown University, a Liberal Arts institution in the USA, led him to team up with Colleen to find a similar experience for their daughters. As a result, one ended up attending New York University (New York) and the other Elon University (North Carolina). Ultimately, the enjoyment and satisfaction Ron received mentoring and coaching both professionally in his career and personally as a hobby, led him to transition these skills to work with Student Athletes looking to forge a similar path as an NCAA athlete in the USA or USports in Canada.
Ron is a firm believer that academics are equally as important as athletics so he completed a Certificate in College Counseling at UCLA Extension to ensure a balanced approach to the college search for every student. In addition, Ron has researched Canadian schools and the Canadian application process in great depth so he can take the lead with any students focusing solely on Canadian Universities.
ALLISON SHEA REED
Allison Shea Reed is Colleen’s daughter and she is a theatre/film actor, singer, playwright, and producer. Allison graduated from the New Studio on Broadway's Acting and Musical Theatre program at NYU Tisch with her BFA in Drama. Additionally, she is the Founder and Artistic Director of RedWit Theatre. Her recent performance credits include Emily West in Living with Olivia Cadence Donovan at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Jamie in Timebomb as part of the Artists in Residence Festival, Sabrina Daldry in In the Next Room with RedWit Theatre, and Annie in A-Door Me as part of the New York New Works Festival. Allison brings over ten years of teaching experience ranging from Vocal Coaching to Writer's Craft to ACT/SAT prep and College Essay coaching to the American College Consulting team. She furthered what she has to offer our students by completing her Master's degree in Dramatic Writing at SCAD in June of 2023 and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA where she is pursuing her love of writing and acting.
KATIE GILBERT
Dr. Katie Gilbert is an associate professor of English at Drury University, a small liberal arts college in Missouri. She has taught writing and literature for more than two decades. Her essays, poetry, and articles have appeared in books and magazines in the public humanities and her research on nineteenth-century literature has appeared in academic journals in the fields of British Literature and the law. She teaches college courses on essay writing, women writers, British Literature, literary theory, and poetry.
She began working as a writer with her first internship in 1992 at Portland Monthly Magazine while attending college in Maine. Since then, she has worked in editorial departments in both magazine and book publishing in Boston and Chicago. Katie is currently enrolled in the Copyediting Program at the University of California, San Diego. She received her B.A. in English and Spanish from Bowdoin College, her M.A. in English Literature from the University of Virginia, and her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Katie loves working with teenagers to help them think about who they are, what they value, and how they can tell their stories in writing. Katie currently lives in the Ozarks of Missouri with her two teens and her sweet dog, Cub. She loves to be outdoors as much as possible, write, read, and listen to poetry podcasts.
ELLY GRAFF
Elly is a writer and educator based in Ottawa, Canada. Elly holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University in New York City (2022) and a BA in Writing from the University of Victoria in British Columbia (2017). During her MFA studies at Columbia University, Elly received the Felipe De Alba Fellowship, a merit-based award for excellence in fiction writing. Elly was also awarded a Teaching Fellowship and taught in Columbia University’s Undergraduate Creative Writing Program. Her love for teaching and supporting students grew further when she worked for four years as an Instructor in Columbia University’s Pre-College Creative Writing Program. In 2019, Elly worked as a reader/editor for the 2019 issue of the Columbia Journal.
Elly’s fiction has been featured in PRISM International Magazine, The Fiddlehead, and The New Quarterly. Her fiction has been shortlisted and longlisted for PRISM International’s Short Fiction Contest. Her short story “Marshall Friday” was Fiddlehead Magazine’s nominee for the Journey Prize. Elly received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts (2021, 2020), Alberta Foundation for the Arts (2019, 2018, 2017), and received the Alberta Arts Graduate Scholarship (2019, 2018).
Elly is currently completing the Certificate in College Counseling from UCLA and is excited to be partnering with American College Consulting. She is passionate about supporting people to grow professionally and personally and loves to apply her editing skills to student undergraduate and graduate admission essays and personal statements. When Elly isn’t writing or reading, she can be found visiting her family farm in Ferintosh, Alberta, where she grew up along the wheat fields, gravel roads, and her pet donkey, Murphy.
