College Counseling Experts | College Admissions Expertise

Jayson Weingarten

Senior College Admissions Consultant, Ivy Coach

Jayson Weingarten served as an admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania.

Within the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Jayson rose through the ranks from Admissions Counselor to Regional Director of Admission to Assistant Director of Admission over the course of four years.

Jayson cuts through the perceived complexity and simplifies the admissions process for students and families. Jayson has been quoted in The New York Times Magazine on how Affirmative Action is still in effect — for men and in US News & World Report on pre-law programs. He’s made solo and roundtable media appearances discussing the elite college admissions process on News Nation, Scripps News, Newsy, and many more. And he even proposed this fun idea for an SAT question with Penn’s Dean of admissions in The New York Times.

Jayson holds an MBA from The Wharton School as well as a Master’s in Education from the Graduate School of Education in addition to a Bachelor’s from the University of Pennsylvania.

Justin Neiman

Senior College Admissions Consultant, Ivy Coach

Justin Neiman served as an undergraduate admissions officer at Harvard University and as an Assistant Dean at Stanford University. With over a decade of experience working at two of the nation’s most competitive universities, Justin brings to Ivy Coach a unique understanding of the highly selective college admissions process.

As an Admissions Officer at Harvard, Justin reviewed and participated in committee meetings covering thousands of applicants worldwide, including students in Northern California, the Northeast, and the Midwest.

Justin also served as an Ombudsman at Harvard Medical School, working closely with faculty, researchers, and students across the Harvard scientific community.

As a Dean at Stanford, Justin worked under the Vice Provost for Student Affairs to support and advise first-year students as they began their academic careers at Stanford. He also served as the Residence Dean for several Stanford Overseas Study Abroad Programs, including the Stanford in Oxford Program.

Justin received his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and his master’s degree in Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies from Stanford University.

Ben Schwartz

Senior College Admissions Consultant, Ivy Coach

Ben Schwartz served for three years as an Assistant Director of Admissions at Dartmouth College.

In the Dartmouth admissions office, Ben was responsible for evaluating applications and recruitment for applicants from the mid-Atlantic, the Midwest, sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to other regions.

During his time in the Dartmouth admissions office, Ben read and evaluated over 3,000 applications for admission.

He holds an undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College as well as an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and an MPA from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Fran Bigman

Senior Tutor, Ivy Coach

Dr. Fran has over 20 years of ACT and SAT tutoring experience. In addition to a vast amount of one-on-one tutoring, Fran has taught SAT classes at British boarding schools and tutored students in the ACT through the Fulbright Commission.

Fran provides her students with just the right blend of encouragement and challenge. On the math side, she makes sure they have a solid foundation in the strategies they need to succeed, such as testing out the answer choices. When it comes to reading comprehension, Fran helps students focus on the big picture and understand how the style of a text — punctuation, word choice, structure — helps it accomplish its meaning. Fran’s approach is highly personalized for each student, and her homework assignments draw on their natural interests.

Fran holds a BA in History from Brown University and a MPhil and PhD in English from the University of Cambridge.

Brian Taylor

Managing Partner, Ivy Coach

For nearly 20 years, Brian has been helping students at Ivy Coach gain admission to highly selective colleges. The son of the Founder of Ivy Coach, Brian is a graduate of Dartmouth College.

If you’re a regular reader of the most widely read college admissions blog, Brian, a member of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, writes much of this content, serving as a tell-it-like-it-is thought leader in highly selective college admissions.

Brian has been quoted in The Daily Pennsylvanian, sharing insights on topics ranging from the impact of connections in admissions to why to choose the Ivies. Read his quotes in The Harvard Crimson on the waitlist or the elimination of SAT Subject Tests. Or in The Yale Daily News on why Yale’s applications dipped one year. Or in Barron’s on the topic of college tours, The New York Times on summer courses or first-generation status in admissions, or Le Monde on how great grades aren’t enough.

So much of the highly selective college admissions process comes down to students’ ability to share their unique stories with admissions officers. Brian knows how to shape great stories. He won a Peabody Award for producing the acclaimed Showtime series The Good Lord Bird, which earned an Emmy win and featured a Golden Globe-nominated performance. The American Film Institute honored the series as one of America’s greatest screen stories for its “contributions to America’s cultural legacy.”

Brian helps Ivy Coach’s students — through his unapologetic, straight-shooting approach — present themselves in the most interesting way possible to admissions officers. Hollywood is about storytelling to folks with limited time and attention. So too is college admissions.

Bev Taylor

Founding Partner, Ivy Coach

Bev Taylor, Ivy Coach Bev Taylor’s name is synonymous with helping students beat colleges at their own game and earn admission to the colleges of their dreams. A trailblazer in private college counseling, she’s debunked the myth of need-blind policies, called for an end to Asian American discrimination in admissions, and demystified so many other hot topics in elite college admissions. Over the last 30 years, there has been no more outspoken, ubiquitous, and candid voice in highly selective college admissions.

Bev, a member of NACAC, is a former longtime high school college counselor on Long Island. She regularly conducts workshops on college admissions — presenting seminars to school counselors, admissions officers, students, and parents at Columbia University, the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, NACAC, Peterson’s, NYSACAC, NJACAC, College Week Live, and more.