YAN’s intro
I finished my Cornell bachelor's degree in three years while logging more than 1,500 volunteer hours at food pantries and hospitals, which taught me exactly where the social safety net fails. I'm now a first-year Master of Public Health candidate at Brown, concentrating in Health Economics and Policy.
I started college on the pre-med track and worked in Cornell's Life History Lab and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but wet-lab research and clinical medicine turned out to be the wrong paths for the impact I wanted to make. What I saw volunteering was that SNAP doesn't cover hygiene products, so families choosing between food and soap get neither. I organized hygiene drives through Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Pennsylvania and collected 70 pallets of personal wellness supplies from grocery retailers. That work led me to Feeding America's Healthcare Partnerships team and then to strategy internships with Food Systems Foresight and Process First, organizations focused on Food is Medicine initiatives and medically tailored meals. I also got into Columbia and Brown for grad school, and I chose Brown for its focus on health equity and policy interventions that can scale.
I help students who are pivoting from one track to another, because that's harder to write about than a straight line. A file that starts with pre-med research and ends with health policy needs a throughline that isn't just "I changed my mind," and I can show you how to make the pivot read as intentional from the first draft. I've helped students get into Caltech, Cornell, WashU and Northwestern. 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. We share pricing on the free call, it is the same for every counselor, and it is in writing 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 free call?
No, and most families book before they have decided anything. That is the useful time to listen. It costs nothing, and you leave 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. Ask about your student in the small room and we will tell you what we can do with it.
Free one-on-one call
How the call is booked.
YAN reads your student’s file and builds the plan. The first call is one-on-one on Google Meet and costs nothing.
Meet YANOr text YAN firstYAN 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 YAN personally. If YAN 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 YAN’s students got in.
Aristo Scholars is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Brown or any other institution named on this page. YAN YU is an undergraduate at Brown, speaking only as an individual, with no role in its admissions office and no influence over any admissions decision.