Founder

Teachers College Columbia University
M.A., Education

Williams College
B.A., English Literature

As owner and expert, Paisley brings over a decade of professional experience in college counseling, college essay development, classroom instruction, program development, and test preparation to Awaken Education. An exceptional and empathic communicator, speaker, and mentor, she has established a record of helping hundreds of domestic and international students gain admission to their dream colleges. Paisley has been a featured speaker for organizations including the Williams Club and Princeton Club, the NYC Department of Education, the Stuyvesant Parent Association, and Korean Community Services of Metropolitan NY.

A lifelong New Yorker, founder Paisley attended some of the most competitive educational programs in New York and the U.S. She attended schools including Hunter College High School, the Brearley School, and Manhattan School of Music Precollege. After her B.A. in English Literature at Williams College, she completed her M.A. in Education at Teachers College Columbia University. She began her first small-scale tutoring business while still in middle-school, helping peers with their writing and standardized tests. Throughout high school and college, she continued, even tutoring music theory and art history in addition to test prep and writing at both the college and high school levels.

During her first years at Williams, younger peers from her competitive hometown of NYC requested her help with their college applications, and the foundations for Awaken Education were laid. Her students gained acceptances into their top choices which included Ivy League colleges and prestigious engineering programs, and this began to build her reputation and credibility among New York, New Jersey, and Long Island parent groups. Before long, Paisley had gained a loyal following of students and parents, even having to create waitlists for her services during several cycles.

By the time she graduated from Williams College, Paisley had decided to make education her full-time career. She continued to coach high school and college students on their college and graduate applications and essays, and Awaken Education was born. She also taught English Literature, Reading, Essay Writing, and Creative Writing in public schools in Massachusetts and New York City before and while completing her MA at Teachers College Columbia University.

Paisley is unique amongst her peers in the college consulting industry because of the broad perspective and personal experience she has within the New York City education landscape in addition to her deep knowledge of college admissions. Because she is a native New Yorker, she has an intimate insight of what life is like for students within the pressure cooker environments of elite city schools. Having personally attended both the top public high school and top all-girls high school in the U.S., as well as one of the most prestigious high school music and visual arts programs, she understands well the college counseling programs at a broad range of schools and what they do and do not offer. Because her connection to a large network of admissions officers at several top colleges, she is always up-to-date on just how more competitive college admissions become each year.

Through Awaken Education’s college consulting and tutoring, students have been pushed to achieve what they previously thought was not possible. Not only have Paisley's students gained admission to colleges like Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Swarthmore, Williams, and Middlebury, they’ve also founded their own companies while still in high school; won awards in science, math, writing, music, and art; completed prestigious internships; learned new languages; achieved new goals in sports; and gained leadership positions at both their high schools and colleges. Coming from NYC, Westchester, Long Island, NJ, upstate NY, Boston, LA, China, and South Korea, several have gone onto pursue MDs, JDs, MBAs, and MAs at elite institutions after attending their top choice colleges.

In 2017, Paisley also began a partnership with the non-profit Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York, which aims to serve as a bridge between the Asian immigrant community and American society. She created a program offering lower cost test prep, writing, and subject classes at the Bayside, Queens KCS branch. In the past few years, dozens of first- and second-generation students have gone through the program, many scoring above 1550 on their SAT and gaining admission into competitive colleges. She personally teaches one of the classes in addition to administrating the program.

When she is not working with students and parents, Paisley is an avid swimmer and reader who loves to cook, paint, and travel to Italy. She is bilingual, fluent in Korean as well as her native English, and she is currently learning Italian.