
Kimberley L.
5.0
Former Stanford & Northwestern Admissions Director | Proven Success
Studied at Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern)

Works at Ascend Education Consulting
Admissions Committee Experience
Available Tuesday at 12:00 AM UTC
If listed times don't align with your schedule, please reach out to me directly at ascendeducationconsulting@gmail.com with a few windows of time. I tend to have flexibility and can work with your schedule.
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Kimberley's Coaching Offerings

Write Powerful College Essays
Expert help to brainstorm, draft, and polish winning college essays
Starting at $1,9605h+ of coaching

Nail Your College Admissions Interview
Practice realistic mock college interviews with a trained expert
Starting at $1,1853h+ of coaching

Get Into Your Dream College — Getting Started
Build a strong foundation and college strategy from day one
Starting at $1,9605h+ of coaching
Pay as you go
Get help with Editing, Recommendations, and .
Kimberley’s College Qualifications
Coaches professionally
60+ people coached for College
I have spent nearly two decades in highly selective educational institutions. My philosophy is to empower individuals to seek their full potential, wherever that may be. I works with students to explore a variety of options ahead of them and helps them reach for their dreams.. Professionally, I have worked at Stanford and Northwestern Universities in a variety of capacities. At Stanford, I worked with international and transfer applications. At Northwestern, I was in the admissions office for 7 years, and oversaw the entire reading and application review process - including training all part-time readers, writing the reader handbook, and directing the application review. As an admissions director, I oversaw applications from around United States and international applications from Europe, China, Singapore, and more. She also directed the transfer admissions process at Northwestern University. After admissions, I was Managing Director, Operations at Kellogg School of Management and the Director of Learning and Development for the Chicago Entrepreneurial Center. Since leaving the admissions, I recognize my wealth of knowledge can help demystify the process for students. I works with individuals to step into their own potential in a space fraught with myths and confusion. I've worked with countless families around the world to help achieve their goals. My work combines a series of 1:1 coaching calls with the student, workshops to craft the strongest sections of the Common Application, and application reviews to help students develop their strongest application.
Kimberley can help with:
Editing
Recommendations
Interviews
Waitlist Strategy
School Selection
Secondary Review
Application Strategy
Essays
Resume
About Kimberley
Kimberley's own degrees are from Wellesley College (BA, Classics), The University of Oxford (MSc., Comparative and International Education & MSc., Education Research Methodologies), and Kellogg School of Management (MBA, Major: Managing Organizations). Professionally, Kimberley has worked at Stanford and Northwestern Universities in a variety of capacities. At Stanford, she worked with international and transfer applications. At Northwestern, she was in the admissions office for 7 years, and oversaw the entire reading and application review process - including training all part-time readers, writing the reader handbook, and directing the application review. As an admissions director, Kimberley oversaw applications from around United States and international applications from Europe, China, Singapore, and more. She also directed the transfer admissions process at Northwestern University. After admissions, Kimberley was Managing Director, Operations at Kellogg School of Management and the Director of Learning and Development for the Chicago Entrepreneurial Center.
Why do I coach?
Kimberley Lindsay has spent nearly two decades in highly selective educational institutions. Her philosophy is to empower individuals to seek their full potential, wherever that may be. She works with students to explore a variety of options ahead of them and helps them reach for their dreams. Since leaving the admissions, Kimberley recognizes her wealth of knowledge can help demystify the process for students. She works with individuals to step into their own potential in a space fraught with myths and confusion. She's worked with countless families around the world to help achieve their goals. Kimberley combines a series of 1:1 coaching calls with the student, workshops to craft the strongest sections of the Common Application, and application reviews to help students develop their strongest application.**
Work Experience

Founder
Ascend Education Consulting
January 2025 - Present
-Providing expert admissions advice for students and families navigating the college admissions process.
Premier Former Admission Officer
Crimson Education
June 2023 - Present
Top FAO (Former Admission Officer) at Crimson Education working with VVIP and VIP clients globally. Provide 1:1 coaching services, lead workshops, and lead global webinars to audiences of 600+ weekly.

Director of Learning and Development
1871
November 2022 - February 2025
- Work with global experts and practitioners to deliver cutting edge learning opportunities. - Led change management process to provide consolidated hub experience for entire 1871 community. - Have consulted with 1871 since August 2021 on their go-to-market strategy for entrepreneurial curricula (PYROS). Employee Learning & Development, Organizational Development and +3 skills
Co founder
SquareOne Consulting
2022 - December 2024
- Co-founded consulting company with former colleague to work with college admission offices on improving their operations, strategic vision, and on-boarding new staff. There is always some objective throughout the year (travel/application reading/recruitment) that leaves little time for staff to step back and assess what changes need to be done to improve the next cycle. Our work focuses on giving staff the tools to improve their offices.

Managing Director, Executive Education
Kellogg School of Management
August 2021 - January 2023
Hiring Manager
- Manage all aspects of program operations for Kellogg's Executive Education. - Supervise 15 full-time program managers and 7 part-time program managers. - Worked with school leadership to revamp academic portfolio offerings to ensure we were meeting the needs to today's clients. - Oversee operational implementation of over 250 Executive Education programs annually. These programs were both open-enrollment (anyone could take a course) and custom (programs delivered for a specific client). - Coordinate with Kellogg faculty, global leaders at international companies, and EE staff to deliver high quality learning development programs. - Led organizational restructuring my team of program managers to provide talent development opportunities for team.
Associate Director of Admission
Northwestern University
June 2019 - August 2021
Admissions Committee Experience
- Direct evaluation process of all undergraduate applications. Oversee strategic overhaul and implementation of a new review process to ensure equitable evaluation of 50,000+ first-year applications and 6,000+ transfer applications. - Constantly run process analysis to ensure operational strategies align with university targets. - Coordinate hiring and training of 30+ additional readers each year. - Impact of COVID – introduced and established test-optional process for Northwestern. Consulted with other universities to inform their own adoption of policy. - Implement all staff training, onboarding, and day to day operations. - Coordinate university’s partnership with Chicago STAR Scholars. - Manage recruitment and make final decisions for team responsible for 6,500 first-year applications annually.
Senior Assistant Director of Admissions & Director of Transfer Admissions
Northwestern University
September 2014 - May 2017
Admissions Committee Experience
- Directed transfer admission process. Grew application number by 150% in two years. - Manage regional admission and recruitment team of 8. - Key member of small team managing processes optimization as new CRM was implemented.
Senior Assistant Director of Admissions
Stanford University
October 2011 - September 2014
Admissions Committee Experience
- Serve as territory manager and review roughly 1800+ undergraduate applications annually from Europe, Central Asia, Russia, India, and part of California. - Work with alumni representatives in Oregon and the UK to facilitate interviews and host events. - Collaborate with another colleague to coordinate the Undergraduate Transfer Admission process at Stanford. - Work with athletic coaches and recruited athlete applications for four sports. - Serve as liaison with UWC students at Stanford and write annual report. - Represent university both on- and off-campus to prospective students, families, secondary school counselors, and all others involved in the college admission process.
Education
Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern)
Master of Business Administration - MBA, Managing Organizations Major; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Pathway, Managing Organizations
2019 - 2022
Internships: Dean’s Consulting Alliance (2020) -Consulted on Executive Education Certificate strategy, oversaw market analysis and developed marketing strategy. Later recruited as Managing Director of Operations for Executive Education; 1871 (2021): Consulted with the CEO to create and implement a go-to-market strategy for entrepreneurial curriculum, which has now been completed by over 5,000 individuals and 500+ startup companies.
University of Oxford
Master of Science (MSc), , Education Research Methodologies
2010 - 2011
SKOPE (Oxford University think-tank focused on Skills, Knowledge, and Organizational Performance) co-authored paper presented to UK Parliament on upskilling in the workforce
University of Oxford
Masters of Science (MSc), Comparative & International Education
2009 - 2010
Internships: Research in Comparative Education directed peer-review for the academic journal. UNESCO: consulted on development of Sustainable Development Goals; OECD: consulted on PISA examinations
Wellesley College
Bachelor's Degree, Classics
2003 - 2007
Activities: Wellesley Varsity Crew, Words on Wheels Volunteer
2 Reviews
Overall Rating
5.0
Kimberley has helped Leland clients get into Northwestern University