Team

Over the past ten years of working in Graduate Medical Education, Ali has reviewed thousands of applications from future physicians and interviewed several hundred more. She has personally counseled dozens through the application, interview, and selection processes and works closely with physicians who interview as part of UCSD's School of Medicine Admissions Committee.

Amol is a 2nd-year medical student at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. He also conducts student interviews for the College of Medicine and serves as an advisor to first-year medical students. After graduating from UC Riverside, Amol enrolled with Passport Admissions for his own application cycle and loved working with his advising team. He hopes to offer the same excellent support and guidance that he received when he was just a young and hopeful applicant!

After returning stateside in 2018, Andrea became a college essay coach for all kinds of college, graduate school, and professional school applicants. Now a seasoned essay editor, she can boast that some of her recent students were admitted to Cambridge, Cornell, Boston University, and Carnegie Mellon. For her, the best part of essay coaching is getting to be a teacher who is also part cheerleader and part counselor.

Originally from the west coast where he was raised in Arizona, Bryce then completed his undergraduate degree at UCLA in biology before moving to New York City to attend medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. I now live in Philadelphia where I am completing my residency in Anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Carol grew up in Queens, New York, earned her BA at NYU, and then moved to Iowa to study at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. During graduate school, she taught creative writing to undergraduates and volunteered as a one-on-one instructor in the Patient Voice Project. Two years later, MFA in hand, she moved to Philadelphia and worked as a writer and editor in nonprofit communications.

China graduated with a BA in Creative Writing from Florida State University and a MA in English from University of Texas Permian Basin, where she edited undergraduate papers and peer/graduate work. She loves encouraging others, particularly with the hope that they will find their way to writing their own great pieces of work.

Gabe grew up in San Diego, attended Bishop's and went on to graduate from the University of Notre Dame. After 4 years of theater, entrepreneurship, and copious side projects (ask him about building a desk from scratch!) he moved to Raleigh, North Carolina where he lives now. He loves to work on tough problems and could spend hours poring over spreadsheets if his friends didn't remind him to get out of the house once in a while.

Jacqueline has spent nearly two decades in higher education in both administrative and teaching faculty roles at University of Delaware, Delaware Technical & Community College, Cecil College, and Delaware State University. In addition to faculty-administrative leadership, Jacqueline served as Program Coordinator of several health science programs sponsored by the National Institute of Health (NIH), Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and the Department of Defense (DOD).

Jason was born and raised in Queens, New York, earned his B.S. at NYU, and is currently an incoming medical student at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. Armed with fresh memories of writing (and rewriting) sections of his own application to medical school, Jason is determined to support and uplift other applicants!

Jodi was born and raised in a small town in Iowa. She was a first-generation college student who was accepted into physician assistant (PA) school right after completing her associate’s degree, back at a time when PA training was at the bachelor’s level. She went on to complete master’s degrees in healthcare administration and public health and a PhD in higher education.

In Joshua's senior year at Brown University, he became a teaching assistant for an introductory computer science (CS) course, where he discovered his passion for working with students one-on-one. Excited by the prospect of CS transforming clinical medicine, Joshua has become passionate about helping other students integrate interdisciplinary interests into their medical training.

Lisa received a Bachelor’s in Biology from Kenyon College and a Master’s in Microbiology and Immunology from Emory University. She was then lured to San Diego by the great weather and top scientific research community, where she worked over a twelve-year period as an immunological research associate for institutions including Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, Johnson & Johnson and Viagene, Inc.

Lyn studied Psychology and Biology when she attended Yale. She started with The Princeton Review as an Assistant Director in 1999 and after 12 and a half years, the last three spent as Regional Vice President of the West Coast, Lyn decided to work with students directly to help them navigate the increasingly competitive and difficult college and medical school admissions processes, as well as providing much-needed emotional support for students and parents.

Mara Cobb is an English major pursuing a Master’s degree from Indiana University East (IUE). In 2019, Mara earned her B.A. in English, Professional, and Technical Writing from IUE. She has spent the past three years serving as a genre editor for the IUE literary journal, Tributaries. In that role, she has read and copyedited nearly 200 poems, fiction stories, and narrative essays. Mara is also a current member of the English honor society Sigma Tau Delta.

Mary Pagones is the author of more than 12 novels. Storytelling is her passion. At Wesleyan University and Harvard Divinity School, Mary studied fiction with creative writing teachers such as Annie Dillard and Jill McCorkle.

Mika is a recent graduate of Harvard University and has spent the past few years as a personal advisor and essay editor for students applying to college. They studied visual art and is passionate about photography, music, and poetry—they love to support young people in exploring sources of inspiration and creativity in their own lives.

As an Advisor and Interview Prep Coach, Nate loves learning about students’ unique experiences and guiding them through the lengthy application process. By fostering their writing skills and helping them strategically present their stories, Nate works to help students create the strongest, most compelling application possible. 

Niki Cunningham has been a pre-health advisor for the past 17 years. She has a BA from Brown University (Women's Studies and Modern Culture and Media) and graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin (MA, English and Comparative Literature) and Columbia University (MPH, History and Ethics of Public Health and Medicine).

As a teacher and tutor for The Princeton Review, Rob found joy in helping students overcome their anxiety about standardized tests. Over the years, Rob's students started to ask for help figuring out how to tell their story in their application essays. Once word got out, Rob started to get more requests than he could handle, so his boss kicked him out (lovingly, of course). She told him to start a business, and thus in 2007, Passport Admissions was born.

Ryan earned humanities degrees from John Carroll University, Ohio University, and San Diego State University. Before working full-time for Passport, he worked in dozens of editing, tutoring, and instructing roles at five different colleges. He has also worked extensively as an editor for various literary journals, such as Narrative Magazine, New Ohio Review, and Fiction International. He has a strong affinity for words and feels genuine delight when the right ones are found.

Sam was born and raised in Derry, New Hampshire and moved to the Greater Bangor area in Maine for school and work. Attending the University of Maine, she played Division I basketball and was the fourth generation to play a sport at UMaine. For over five years between her work as the Career Counselor in STEM/Health Professions at the University of Maine and the Health Professions Advisor at Stetson University, Sam has helped countless students pursue their career goals and prepare competitive applications for various professional programs.

Stu first discovered Financial Planning while attending Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. His company, Open Doors FP, helps people with their finances whether it relates to investing, taxes, estate planning, student or general debt management, preparing for college, preparing for retirement, living in retirement, and really anything that requires making a financial decision.

Talulla graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a B.A. in English Literature. She loves the English language and feels it is a privilege to support clients as they hone their authorial voices and find the most authentic way to describe their identities, experiences, skills, and values.