About Marla Platt

Marla Platt offers college consulting services to help students identify their interests, skills, learning style and social fit as they navigate their high school years and create their individual path toward college admission. 

For over twenty years, Marla has coached and tutored a broad range of students in a variety of settings, from middle and high school through college. Her clients have included high schoolers managing learning challenges or differences through high-achieving students bound for the most highly-selective colleges and universities.

By visiting dozens of college campuses each year, meeting with admissions representatives and attending professional conferences, Marla continually develops her college knowledge and insight into the landscape of college admissions today. Her goal is to educate families by bringing clarity and guidance to what can fee like an overwhelming and confusing process. 

In her role as an alumni interviewer for Cornell University, having connected with scores of applicants, Marla brings perspective to her student clients on putting their best foot forward through their college application as well as in person. In addition to holding an MBA from Boston University’s Questrom School of Management, Marla is trained as a Personal Coach, bringing highly-developed skills in communication, collaboration and organization in working with students and parents. 

Marla volunteers pro bono services as a “friend”of Babson College, providing coaching to Babson undergraduates via the schools’s acclaimed Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program. As a CLTP Coach, Marla helps students recognize their individual performance strengths and target areas for development. 

To educate parents on today’s college landscape, Marla has taught hundreds of parents through Community Education seminars on topics relating to college admissions, including How to Manage the College Process; Building a Winning College Application; Selective College Admissions; The Parent Role; and more. 

Finally, as a parent of recent college graduates, Marla brings to her consulting work an awareness of the demands our youth face during their growing-up years and hence the value of supportive and structured teamwork during the college application process: 

“Considering what I believe to be two of our most precious gifts in life —our children and the opportunity we have to turn them into educated, thinking adults —it is a privilege for me to provide a calm and informed perspective throughout the college process.” 

As a graduate of the Independent Educational Consultant’s Association (IECA) Principles and Practices Institute, Marla fully subscribes to the professional and ethical guidelines of college consulting. Additionally, Marla is a member of NACAC.