"Krystle is in the top 10 students I've ever taught at Columbia. That's a high accolade, since I mainly teach 30-year-old grad students, and she was an undergraduate freshman when I taught her."

--Columbia University Entrepreneurship Professor

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     In 2005, Donna DiCristofalo started homeschooling her 5-year-old daughters, Krystle and Ash, after discovering that no local schools were providing them with the kind of education they needed. As students labeled “gifted,” Krystle and Ash were capable of higher-level learning than the schools would assign them. The schools’ classes were not challenging enough, and the administrators either refused or just didn’t know how to improve their curricula. Burning with the desire to see her children thrive and grow academically, Donna dove into crafting her own academic curricula, drawing from a variety of online resources and courses designed to match their learning styles and help them achieve their full potential. Most of all, she made learning fun, inspiring her children to become lifelong learners.

 

     Over the next thirteen years, she continued to create their individualized curricula, analyzing thousands of online, hybrid, and in-person educational materials, resources, and courses to optimize their educational success. Her efforts paid off and sent both daughters to Ivy League universities. Krystle graduated cum laude from Columbia University in three years instead of four, and Ash is enrolled in the Accelerated Master’s Program in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. 

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     As Donna designed her daughters’ academic paths over the years, she not only discovered what classes existed that matched their needs, but other resources that supplemented and boosted their academic pursuits… and their college resumes. She emerged with an in-depth knowledge of countless summer programs, competitions, internships, scholarships, research paths, and other academic opportunities, in subjects from STEM to the humanities to the social sciences, for middle and high school students. 

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     When Krystle entered high school, she began researching programs to support her passions as well. Fascinated by the concept of developing individualized educational paths and armed with a talent for not only discovering opportunities, but also for how to win those competitions and get accepted to the most prestigious and exclusive programs, Krystle joined Donna in a comprehensive research project to crack the code of how these opportunities fit into their upcoming adventure: getting admitted to the college of Krystle’s dreams and setting herself up for lifelong success. 

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     Thousands of books on education and college admissions–and thousands of hours spent doing everything it took to solves the admissions mysteries, from talking to admissions officers to interviewing other successful students–later, Krystle and Donna got Krystle accepted to her dream college of Columbia University as well as numerous summer programs, many of which have <3% acceptance rates. Along the way, they found themselves acutely aware of the various problems students face today in education and in navigating the wild waters and seemingly endless confusions of college admissions. Secure in Krystle’s educational and career path post-acceptance, Krystle and Donna knew the ways of academic success and the secrets of college admissions, and they were ready to embark on a new mission: uplift other students to their own greatest potentials. 

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     Krystle took a gap year before her freshman year at Columbia, during which she and Donna created My Ivy Education, a wholly unique and fully personalized college counseling, tutoring, and extracurricular and passion development boutique. At My Ivy Education, our founders’ journey inspires our consulting strategies. The center of our philosophy is making learning, and the college application process, fun and stress-free for students and parents, all while making their academic dreams a reality. We are the only college consultants who work with students as young as seven years old to discover and build their interests, also specialize in gifted and homeschooled or online-schooled students in addition to traditional students, and, in our consulting sessions, cover everything a student needs to delve into their individual passions and succeed.

 

     Our innovative approach to tutoring that goes above and beyond filling in the gaps left by most education systems, including both brick-and-mortar (or in-person) schools and homeschool or online school systems. Meanwhile, our college admissions sessions produce stellar applicants, with 99% of MIE students getting into one or more of their top three dream schools. Krystle heads our consulting and tutoring departments, and as a MENSA member and Davidson Young Scholar Alum (the top 0.1% of intelligence nationwide), Krystle is an elite and unrivaled counselor who is able to synthesize tremendous amounts of information and make connections that propel our students to greatness.

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     We know the struggles of school and of college admissions, and we’re here to take the burdens off of you and help you soar. We take students to greater heights than they imagined, instilling in them the confidence of the exemplary young scholars we know they can become. There is only one academic consulting firm that helps students get into extremely competitive universities while nurturing their passions, confidence, and self-esteem. There is only one college counseling company that offers both near-peer mentorship to connect with and relate to students alongside education professionals with years of experience. There is only one My Ivy Education.