Joel Ontiveros
Former UCLA Assistant Director of Admission & Collegewise Counselor
Joel Ontiveros has been reading UC applications for eight years. He attended UCLA and got his first job out of college working as an Admissions Officer and then as an Assistant Director for his alma mater. Eventually he joined the Banana Slugs at UC Santa Cruz where he worked as a Regional Admissions Representative and primarily recruited out of state. Joel was pleasantly surprised to find out that UCLA (the most applied to university in the country) actually has humans read every application at least twice. He believes in the transformative power of the UC system - even with all its quirks and issues.
Margo Macready
Former UCSD Admissions Officer & Collegewise Counselor
Margo Macready fell in love with college admissions as a tour guide at the University of Redlands. She decided to turn that passion into a career and never looked back. She served as an Assistant Director of Admissions at her alma mater and as an Admissions Officer at University of California San Diego. While at UCSD, she trained and managed a team of 30 evaluators for freshman application review. Margo’s worked with students across the globe and has read nearly 20,000 applications, including freshman, transfer, and international files. She channels her experience with a liberal arts college and a research institution to help students find a great college fit
