Mason Kim
Book a free call with Mason
Mason’s intro
I'm on a pre-law track at Berkeley and I spent high school deep in political organizing. I read applications for what they miss: the person who gets flattened into bullet points, the student who sounds generic because they're trying to sound impressive.
I take students who worry they'll be just another number. Most applications read like resumes with essays attached, every line trying to prove worth instead of showing a person. I work from what makes you specific. If you led a campaign, I want the moment you realized your script wasn't working. If you spent summers at a lab, I want what you were wrong about before you figured it out. The readers who admitted me to Berkeley, Georgetown and UVA weren't looking for perfect; they were looking for real. My students have gone to Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, Georgetown, Michigan, UVA and UCLA, and the ones who got in stopped trying to sound like what they thought admissions wanted.
I'll look at where your child disappears under their credentials, where the application goes from specific to safe. I cap my roster because I write notes on every draft myself, and I stay in an essay until we find the version that sounds like your kid and not like a college applicant. If you're interested, book me for free and I'll give you your child's read.
Common questions
Before you book
What does this cost?
We are flexible, and there is a plan here that fits your family. You hear your number on the first call, before anything is agreed. What changes between plans is the kind of experience in the room: a current undergraduate at a school your student is applying to, someone who interviewed applicants for a university as an alumni volunteer, or a former admissions officer who read files and sat in committee. Every one of them is somebody we would put in front of our own family.
Do we need to know what we want before the call?
No, and most families book before they have decided anything. That is the useful time to talk. An hour, no charge, and you will come off the call knowing what we can do for your student.
How many students does one counselor take?
Few enough that the person you meet is the person who reads the drafts. Every counselor sets their own cap and prints it on their page, so you know exactly how much of their year you are getting. If your first choice is full we will introduce you to someone on the roster who suits your student just as well.
Our student is already a senior. Is it too late?
It is not too late. Several counselors here run compressed engagements and take seniors into the autumn, and there is usually more still open in a file than a family expects. Tell us where your student is on the call and we will tell you what we can do with it.
Book a call
How the call is booked.
Mason reads your student’s file and builds the plan. The call is an hour-long video call and costs nothing.
Book a free call with MasonMason reads what you tell us about your student before the call, so it starts there rather than at the beginning.
If something changes
The agreement is held by Aristo Scholars rather than by Mason personally. If Mason cannot finish the cycle we move your student to another counselor on this roster at the price you were already quoted, and everything written down so far moves with them.
Where Mason’s students got in.
Aristo Scholars is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by UC Berkeley or any other institution named on this page. Mason Kim is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, speaking only as an individual, with no role in its admissions office and no influence over any admissions decision.