Episode 285 | Kevin McMullin | Collegewise | The EdisonOS Podcast

Key Topics Covered

• From nine students at kitchen tables to 30,000 families - How Kevin used his last paycheck from the Princeton Review to launch Collegewise in 1999, grew it from a one-person apartment business to several offices within two years, and built the nation's largest admissions counseling firm on a foundation of genuine relationships rather than scalable systems
• Why students today are under more pressure than ever - Kevin's candid take on how the admissions process has spiraled out of control, why the belief that the hardest schools to get into are automatically the best is one of the most damaging myths in education, and what it looks like when well-intentioned parental pressure quietly does serious harm to teenagers
• The savvier families problem - How the explosion of available information has fundamentally shifted what families expect when they arrive at Collegewise, why communicating the basics is no longer enough to justify hiring a professional counselor, and what that means for the entire industry's standard of expertise
• Kids like us, parents trust us - Why Kevin believes the relationship between a student and a counselor is the most important variable in the entire process, how leaning into personalization rather than removing it has been the counterintuitive engine of Collegewise's growth, and what it means for a family to feel genuinely accompanied rather than just serviced
• What to do before you hire anyone - Kevin's three-part framework for families considering private admissions help, why social pressure is never a good reason to hire a counselor, why no independent advisor is a replacement for a school counselor, and the one question to ask friends who have been through the process that reveals whether a referral is actually right for your family
• The blueprint for individual admissions counselors - How Kevin advises independent counselors to define who they serve, what they offer, and what makes them different before thinking about scaling, and why saying yes to every paying client is often the fastest route to losing the focus that made the business worth building

Conclusion

This conversation is a masterclass in what 26 years at the intersection of education, entrepreneurship, and genuine human service actually teaches you. Kevin's journey from a one-man operation working at kitchen tables to the steward of the largest college admissions organization in the country reveals a truth that no admissions strategy can replace: parents will never care less about their kids, and the counselors who honor that reality are the ones who build something lasting. But the deeper frameworks, how Collegewise trains and evaluates its counselors, what Kevin's internal webinar series teaches families about why their counselors give the advice they do, and how he thinks about equity and access in a process that increasingly favors the privileged, are only touched on here. Listen to the full episode for the complete methodology and actionable strategies that could transform how any family and any admissions professional approaches the road to college.

‍