Advising Year is a year-long, personalized advising program designed to help college students make the most of college and prepare for what comes next. Through regular one-on-one guidance with YJ Heo, students develop and execute a long-term strategy for pursuing competitive internships and careers, admission to leading graduate and professional programs, and national and international fellowships such as the Rhodes, Fulbright, Marshall, Schwarzman, Luce, Gates Cambridge, and others. Drawing on more than 15 years of advising experience, from first-generation college students to Rhodes Scholars, YJ has helped students connect the decisions they make today with the opportunities they hope to pursue months or even years from now. Rather than leaving that development to chance, Advising Year provides students with consistent strategy, candid feedback, and individual attention throughout one of the most consequential periods of their lives.

College can offers extraordinary opportunities, but navigating them can be difficult and fragmented. Academic advisors, professors, career centers, and college staff may each help with individual experiences, but it's rare for one individual to observe the whole picture with you. Advising Year provides that continuity, connecting decisions about academics, summers, internships, research, mentors, and extracurricular opportunities to a student's longer-term ambitions.

Students come to me with very different goals. Some want a competitive internship and an exceptional first job. Others are preparing for law, medical, master's, or Ph.D. programs, a Fulbright, or highly selective fellowships such as the Rhodes, Marshall, Schwarzman, Luce, or Gates Cambridge. I have advised students competing at the very highest levels—including eventual Rhodes Scholars—and bring that same level of strategy and attention to every student I advise. You do not need to aspire to become a Rhodes Scholar to benefit from the kind of advising that helps produce one.

The most successful graduates aren't successful overnight. They develop over time through careful decisions about academics, summers, internships, research, relationships, and how they spend their time. Students generally have the opportunity to meet with me weekly during approximately 40 advising weeks each year, allowing us to solve immediate problems while continually working toward longer-term objectives. My approach is individualized and candid: I do not do students' work for them, but help them develop the strategy, judgment, communication skills, and independence to do it exceptionally well themselves.

My understanding of higher education also began long before I began advising young people. I grew up as the son of a university professor, hearing about and observing the enormous differences between students who took full advantage of college and those who, despite having access to many of the same resources, did not. Over more than 15 years, students I have advised have been admitted to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Wharton, Cambridge, and leading medical, law, master's, and Ph.D. programs; won the Rhodes, Marshall, Schwarzman, Gates Cambridge, Luce, and Fulbright; and gone on to organizations including McKinsey, BCG, Amazon, Google, Meta, Tesla, Stripe, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs.

I attended Swarthmore College, where I studied Biology and Public Policy, served as Student Body President, captained the men's track and field team, and founded an international public-health nonprofit that operated for seven years. I later earned an MPH with honors from University College Dublin, was selected for the Fulbright, Luce, and Mitchell Scholarships, and received a National Public Service Award from President Bill Clinton.

Advising Year is not about reproducing my path or anyone else's. It is about understanding an individual student and helping them make better use of the opportunities in front of them. Whether the destination is a great first job, graduate school, a Fulbright, or a Rhodes Scholarship, the goal is to help students make better decisions throughout college and prepare effectively for exceptional opportunities long after our advising year(s) ends.

This Program is a year-long engagement, with possibility for renewal each year. The cost varies based on a student's objectives and the level of support required. Students in an active application year, for example, would require significantly more advising than students preparing one or more years in advance. Every engagement begins with a complimentary introductory call to understand the student's goals, determine if the Program is a good fit, and establish appropriate scope before enrollment.