I applied to US universities from an ordinary school in Belarus. Paid consultants took several thousand dollars from my family and got me nowhere — I was rejected everywhere. So I did it myself: flying to Dubai to sit the SAT, reaching out directly to students who'd gotten into Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, and studying admissions from the inside.
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Admissions mentoring & personal brand
Your application starts with who you are.
I'm Masha Tsvirko — Notre Dame student and founder of Dream World Glow Education. Personal branding, application strategy, and the research work that gets top-20 admissions officers to remember your name, built from my own path through the process: rejections, self-teaching, and eventually offers from Notre Dame, Minerva, Berea College, and Simmons.
A few of the places my students go
BrownGrinnellMount HolyokeCambridgeYale
Get in touch
How this started
How I work
1. Diagnosis
Finding what's genuinely yours — interests, values, the intersection where a real personal brand starts.
2. Personal brand & self-presentation
Turning that into a brand — how you talk about yourself, what you lead with, the story that makes you memorable. Not a template everyone else applying is also using.
3. Building the application
Taking everything you already have and building it into one complete, compelling application — every section described in a way that shows its real strength. Work starts in spring, not August 1st, so it's close to done before the Common App even opens.
Results
Brown University
~5% acceptance rate · aid beyond full tuition
Grinnell College
14% acceptance rate · full ride
Mount Holyoke College
36% acceptance rate · full tuition scholarship
Simmons University
50% scholarship
Research placements
Cambridge and Yale PhD-mentored projects
Pre-college roles
CMO at a NY startup, research assistant at UNC & UChicago
In their words
"Every minute of the consultation was pointed at a result. I clearly knew where point A was and how to get to point B."
— admitted to Grinnell College, full ride
A note from me
I genuinely love what I do. Every case is an incredibly interesting story that I dive deep into. I care deeply about every teenager I work with. I love changing people's lives for the better.
About
A path I had to build myself.
I decided to apply to US universities the summer before my senior year of high school, from an ordinary school in Belarus. I paid several thousand dollars — close to what my parents made in a few months combined — to consultants who turned out to have no idea what they were doing. I got rejected everywhere.
So I decided to do it myself. There wasn't even a single SAT test center in my country — not a shortage of good prep, an actual absence of anywhere to sit the exam. So I flew to Lithuania alone to take it once, and then to Dubai to take it again, working part-time on the side to pay for it myself. I couldn't even afford the sixteen-dollar CSS Profile fee — I applied everywhere on fee waivers and handwritten financial documents, piecing together a process no one around me had ever gone through.
I reached out directly to Belarusian students who'd gotten into Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton and asked them, essentially, to teach me everything they knew. I wrote to admissions officers at different universities. I read everything I could find on the psychology of perception, on how a person gets remembered in a stack of ten thousand applications. I turned myself into the expert no one had been for me.
There were nights I genuinely thought none of it would work — that I'd spent everything my family had, alone in two countries, for nothing. And then the offers started coming in.
Where it led
University of Notre Dame
My alma mater · #20 National Universities (US News)
Minerva University
Full funding · ~3–4% acceptance rate
Berea College
#40 National Liberal Arts Colleges (US News) · 5% acceptance rate
Alongside Notre Dame, Minerva, and Berea, I was also admitted to Simmons University with a substantial scholarship, two Erasmus exchanges with full funding — in France and Hungary — and a research program mentored by PhD candidates from GWU and UNC.
As I went through my own admissions cycle, I started writing about it publicly — and people began reaching out for advice. What started as informal consultations turned into a full mentorship program within a year.
I'm currently a student at the University of Notre Dame.
How I work
A method, not a formula.
1. Diagnosis
Before anything else, I need to understand what's genuinely yours — your interests, your values, what you actually want to build. The most memorable personal brands usually sit at the intersection of two or three different things, not one single passion. That's what makes them yours and no one else's.
2. Personal brand & self-presentation
Turning that diagnosis into a brand — how you talk about yourself, what you lead with, the story that ties everything together. This is where I spend the most time, because it's the part almost no other consultant actually teaches. Most applicants collect activities; very few turn them into a story an admissions officer remembers.
3. Strengthening activities
Most applicants don't know how strong their activities could actually be, or the ways to build them further that nobody ever tells them about in school. I know a lot of these — the small, specific moves that separate a good activities list from one that genuinely stands out.
4. Building the application
Taking everything you already have — academics, activities, essays, interviews — and building it into one complete, compelling application, with every section described in a way that shows its real strength. Work starts in spring, not August 1st, so the application is close to done before the Common App even opens.
5. Interviews & support
Interview prep, and the part people don't always expect: real emotional support through a process that's genuinely difficult. I studied psychology alongside all of this, and I know how hard and how frightening this road can feel — so that's built into how I work, not an afterthought.
These are results from my students — my first cohort, a small group from my first year of mentoring. My second cohort is underway right now, which is part of why research placements and activities outnumber admits so far: most of that group hasn't finished applying yet.
Admissions & funding
Brown University
#13 National Universities (US News) · ~5% acceptance rate · ~$328,000 in aid over 4 years
Grinnell College
#13 National Liberal Arts Colleges (US News) · two students, full ride · 14% acceptance rate · ~$800,000 combined over 4 years
Mount Holyoke College
#29 National Liberal Arts Colleges (US News) · 36% acceptance rate · full tuition scholarship · ~$283,000 over 4 years
Centre College
Full ride · ~$400,000 over 4 years
Simmons University
#33 Best Value Schools (US News) · 50% scholarship · ~$200,000 over 4 years
Maryville University
$56,000 in financial aid
Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
Admitted
Kyoto University of Advanced Science
Full scholarship + living allowance · ~$100,000 over 4 years
Research & academic placements
Lumiere Education, Yale-mentored research
Later admitted with 30% merit scholarship
Lumiere Education, Cambridge-mentored research
Later admitted with 50% merit scholarship
Oak Ridge National Lab lit review
With University of Tennessee professors
Cambridge faculty collaboration
Joint research project
Cambridge PhD collaboration
Second joint research project
Research assistant, UNC
Undergraduate research role
Research assistant, UChicago
Undergraduate research role
Beyond academics
Chief Marketing Officer
At a NY startup founded by a Columbia professor
Pre-college internship, tech
Before starting university
Pre-college internship, engineering
Before starting university
Pre-college internship, marketing
Before starting university
Physician shadowing
Local hospital, surgical department
Erasmus exchange
Two full-ride placements, same student
Youth Diplomatic Academy
Fully funded summit
LeanGap
Startup program mentored by Stanford, Harvard & MIT MBAs
John Locke Competition
Finalist
Results
Where my students have gone.
These are results from my students — my first cohort, a small group from my first year of mentoring. My second cohort is underway right now, which is part of why research placements and activities outnumber admits so far: most of that group hasn't finished applying yet.
Admissions & funding
Brown University
#13 National Universities (US News) · ~5% acceptance rate · ~$328,000 in aid over 4 years
Grinnell College
#13 National Liberal Arts Colleges (US News) · two students, full ride · 14% acceptance rate · ~$800,000 combined over 4 years
Mount Holyoke College
#29 National Liberal Arts Colleges (US News) · 36% acceptance rate · full tuition scholarship · ~$283,000 over 4 years
Centre College
Full ride · ~$400,000 over 4 years
Simmons University
#33 Best Value Schools (US News) · 50% scholarship · ~$200,000 over 4 years
Maryville University
$56,000 in financial aid
Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
Admitted
Kyoto University of Advanced Science
Full scholarship + living allowance · ~$100,000 over 4 years
Research & academic placements
Lumiere Education, Yale-mentored research
Later admitted with 30% merit scholarship
Lumiere Education, Cambridge-mentored research
Later admitted with 50% merit scholarship
Oak Ridge National Lab lit review
With University of Tennessee professors
Cambridge faculty collaboration
Joint research project
Cambridge PhD collaboration
Second joint research project
Research assistant, UNC
Undergraduate research role
Research assistant, UChicago
Undergraduate research role
Beyond academics
Chief Marketing Officer
At a NY startup founded by a Columbia professor
Pre-college internship, tech
Before starting university
Pre-college internship, engineering
Before starting university
Pre-college internship, marketing
Before starting university
Physician shadowing
Local hospital, surgical department
Erasmus exchange
Two full-ride placements, same student
Youth Diplomatic Academy
Fully funded summit
LeanGap
Startup program mentored by Stanford, Harvard & MIT MBAs
John Locke Competition
Finalist
Testimonials
In their own words.
"After a rough '29 season, I had almost given up. Self-prep felt like torture, plus no system and no real understanding of where I stood as an applicant made it worse. We started working together in April. During that time I gained the best study buddy, advisor, and just a caring mom for my application. Over our time together I managed to: seriously level up my personal brand (yeah, some grifters ruined that word, but without it you're not getting into a top 20), learn every tip and trick of the Common App, get a strategic framework to approach my prep — we worked on every part of the application following a clear plan, and found myself in a network of genuinely amazing people from all over the world I still talk to today. The most important part was that at any moment I could share everything I was thinking and feeling. Masha knows how brutal this road is like no one else, so her support always hit exactly right. Overall, I'm so happy I ended up with Masha specifically. Her approach is deeply personalized and caring — even in the moments she pushed me hardest, you could feel the genuine care and worry about my results."
— D., admitted to Brown University with aid beyond full tuition
"Oh my god, Masha, I wanted to say thank you again. You're the first person out of everyone I've worked with who actually laid it all out clearly in my head. Before this I genuinely didn't understand how to format things, how to make it sound impressive, what to include and what not to. I had no idea there were this many details to think about. Right now I'm sitting here rewriting my courses section (figured I'd start there to warm up) and the picture is already coming together so much better. The difference working with you made was honestly massive — I'm still a little in shock. Just... the best."
— M., admitted to Mount Holyoke College with a full tuition scholarship
"What I liked most is that I genuinely understood — every minute of the consultation was pointed at a result. I clearly knew where point A was and how to get to point B. Before the consultation I considered Awards the weakest part of my application. I can't tell you how surprised I was that it became my strongest section. Thanks to Masha I added 2 international awards I hadn't even thought were relevant."
— A., admitted to Grinnell College, full ride (14% acceptance rate)
"My son is planning to apply to university in the US, and we had a ton of questions. How do you even choose the right school? How do you prepare the documents? Where do you even apply? Before meeting Masha I had only scattered pieces of knowledge and honestly no real understanding of how to approach this given our situation. In just an hour and a half, Masha structured every step needed for applying to US universities and colleges. She walked us through the key criteria schools use to select students, how admissions committees actually work, the possibility of up to 100% funding, essay-writing specifics, and a lot more that turned out to matter down the line. We finished the call in a great mood, with a clear action plan and an understanding of every nuance of the process. One consultation replaced what felt like an entire series of webinars from various admissions agencies. We're so grateful for this help."
— parent of a mentee
"I want to leave a review about the career session. Thank you so much for this chance to actually figure myself out — I understood so much about how important freedom in my work is to me, and that I wouldn't be able to fulfill myself in regular engineering like I originally wanted. I couldn't imagine how you'd manage to combine my dream of being a vet with engineering, Masha. Just — thank you, truly."
— N., on a career-direction session
"Masha, this is honestly an unbelievable feeling. I couldn't have imagined you'd be able to unpack me like that and come up with this media project idea to combine with public policy. I'm still processing it. Thank you for the career session — I now know so clearly what to major in, what minors I need, and what to do next with my project."
— R., on a career-direction session
"Hi, Mary! I'm so glad I found you to mentor me on this application journey. I want to thank you again — your feedback on my essay is always so specific and detailed, and I appreciate the effort you put into helping me make my essays 10/10 instead of 3/10. My activities, and honestly my whole case, now look connected and purposeful because of your vision. With you, my confidence in this process is so much higher. Thank you, Mary!"
— E., admitted with merit scholarship
"I wanted to thank you again for the consultation at the start of the year. With your guidance in the admissions process, I was able to get into Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (KUFS). Right now I'm just waiting for my visa documents. That's the one thing still ahead of me. If I'm ever fortunate enough to visit the States, we'll definitely meet up at your university!"
— J., admitted to Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
"I took three consultations with Masha plus a personal statement review, and it was a real game-changer. You can tell from how Masha runs consultations that she genuinely wants to help — always precise, thorough, and no wasted time. In just one Common App session, Masha made every section significantly stronger — the gap year essay, school change explanation, future plans — and by the end nothing was left unfinished. We also went deep into activities and honors, and she pointed out exactly which parts were weak or strong and how to show real impact. For the personal statement, she sent me a ten-minute voice memo going through every sentence and every idea, explaining exactly why to change or keep something, plus dozens of comments in the Google Doc on how to improve the wording. Everything was so clear I didn't even need to ask a follow-up — I just sat down and started rewriting. When I reread it, I realized it was the best essay I'd ever written, and I know that's thanks to Masha."
— K., admitted to Simmons University with a 50% scholarship
Contact
Whatever you're thinking about, write to me.
I'll only be glad to hear from you — whether you're ready to start or just have a question.
mtsvirko@nd.eduAlso on Telegram — @mtsvirkko