Top Tier Admissions Team

Top Tier Admissions provides families with a personalized strategy to gain a competitive edge for elite college admissions.

Management Team

Dr. Michele Hernández

CoFounder/Chief Experience Officer (CXO)

Michele has been featured in hundreds of newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs including Newsweek, Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, The Today Show, CNN, and MSNBC. As Assistant Director of Admissions at Dartmouth College for four years and the academic dean of a private high school in South Florida, Michele has crafted a unique angle for assisting students in gaining admission to the most selective colleges, incorporating her “inside perspective” on the admissions adventure.

Dr. Michele Hernández has written the best-selling books: A is for AdmissionThe Middle School Years,  Acing the College Application and Don’t Worry You’ll Get In which she wrote with Mimi Doe. Her new book on hiking all the Northeast mountains over 4000 feet is now available on Amazon.

Mimi Doe

CoFounder/Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Mimi Doe is the award-winning author of Nurturing Your Teenager’s SoulBusy but Balanced, and 10 Principles for Spiritual Parenting, which was awarded a Parents’ Choice Approved Seal and was a finalist in the Books For a Better Life Award. Mimi and Michele coauthored Don’t Worry You’ll Get In!

Mimi holds a Master’s Degree in Education from Harvard University. Dubbed a “parenting guru” by Ladies Home Journal, Mimi was featured in weekly segments on The Hallmark Channel’s New Morning TV for a number of years and has appeared on Oprah and the CBS Early Show and her work has been covered in such publications as  Parenting, USA Today, The London Independent, Forbes, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post.

It is Mimi’s mission to make admissions less stressful by fully informing students as well as supporting them in presenting their true selves.

liz senior college admissions counselor

Dr. Elizabeth Doe Stone

President

A veteran college admissions consultant, Liz has over a decade of experience working with Top Tier Admissions. As President, she is responsible for managing all content, recruiting, product development, and partnerships to maintain Top Tier’s standards of excellence. In her capacity as a Senior Private Counselor, she has helped hundreds of students successfully navigate the college admissions process to earn spots at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and other selective schools. Liz pairs her extensive knowledge of the college admissions process with her experience as an educator to provide in-depth guidance with an empathetic approach.

Liz graduated Magna Cum Laude with high honors from Dartmouth College and earned her MA and PhD in Art History at the University of Virginia, where she taught undergraduate courses, earned the All-University Graduate Teaching Award, and received a Fulbright Research Grant.

Deanna Proto

Director of Operations & Application Boot Camp®

Deanna brings 20+ years of experience in the fields of operations, education management, project management, educational research, and marketing and event planning to Top Tier Admissions. Deanna is responsible for overseeing Application Boot Camp® and Top Tier’s day-to-day management and processes to ensure efficiency and an overall quality experience for our families.


TTA Team

Kristen Wilmott

Dr. Kristen Willmott

Senior Private Counselor & Graduate School Admissions Director

Having worked as an Admissions and Financial Aid Officer for Harvard University for four years, Kristen brings a depth of experience to Top Tier Admissions. She has over 20 years of experience working in higher education. Kristen has a PhD in Education with a concentration in Higher Education from the University of Rochester, an M.S. in Business Management from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and a B.A. in English from Ithaca College. Her PhD dissertation won the International Susan B. Anthony Institute Dissertation Award. In her role at Harvard, Kristen oversaw admissions for 17 departments and was also responsible for distributing funding from the National Science Foundation Fellowships Program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Student Research Fellowship Program. Kristen has previously worked as a substitute K-12 teacher, as adjunct faculty at three universities in MA and NY, and as an educational researcher having recently (Oct. 2020) published a book on faculty in academia and in academic journals such as the Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student AffairsAcademic Leadership Journal, and the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences Journal.

Dr. Eliza Fox

Senior Private Counselor

Eliza has years of experience at Top Tier Admissions, helping students gain admittance to top-flight colleges and pioneering the Writing Center. She holds a B.A. in English with Honors and Distinction from Stanford University, where she was a two-time recipient of Stanford’s Rebele Journalism Fellowship. She earned her MA and PhD in English Literature at the University of Virginia. Prior to working at Top Tier, Eliza taught in UVa’s English Department and its Academic and Professional Writing Program. The effectiveness of her teaching and her commitment to her students earned her multiple awards, including the All-University Graduate Teaching Award and honors from UVa’s Seven Society. Eliza’s own writing has appeared in publications ranging from academic journals to The Philadelphia Inquirer. She also has experience in publishing, digital humanities, and study abroad programming.

Maria Laskaris

Senior Private Counselor

Maria Laskaris joins Top Tier Admissions as one of the most experienced admissions deans in the country. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 1984, and served as Director of Admissions at Dartmouth for over a decade where she evaluated tens of thousands of applicants. From 2007-2015 she served as the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Dartmouth, overseeing all facets of the admissions and financial aid processes. She played an integral role in developing key enhancements to the Common Application, serving on the 14-member Board of Directors. With over 25 years of admissions experience at one of the most selective colleges in the country, she provides an insider’s perspective like no other, with deep knowledge of selective college admissions.

In addition, Maria is proud of her long-term volunteer work with Opera North (Lebanon, NH) in fundraising, marketing and audience engagement. She is an avid masters rower with the Upper Valley Rowing Foundation (Hanover, NH) and also serves as a member of its board of directors.

Anita - college admissions counselor

Anita Doar

Senior Private Counselor

Anita has devoted over 15 years to mentoring and motivating students to realize their goals. She taught and coached students in every grade 7-12 in top private schools before founding her own successful business providing personalized support for college and graduate school applicants. Anita’s high standards and skill in connecting with young scholars proved paramount in her students’ admission to undergraduate and graduate programs at selective schools such as UChicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Harvard, UPenn, and Stanford.

Anita holds a BA in Philosophy from Princeton, where she is an alumni class officer and former interviewer, and an MA in English from Middlebury. At Princeton she also contributed her drive and competitiveness to the women’s lacrosse team, winning an NCAA Division I National Championship and three Ivy League Championships while earning national scholar-athlete academic distinction and the Connie McAllister athletic department award for “effort, selfless dedication, enthusiasm and heart.” She brings these qualities to her relationships with students as she helps to bring out the best in them.

Heidi Steinmetz Lovette

Senior Private Counselor

As Assistant Director of Admissions, Heidi evaluated and made executive decisions on 7,000+ undergraduate applications to Cornell University’s College of Arts & Sciences. With additional experience in the admissions offices of Dartmouth College and Temple University, she brings deep insight into the review process at highly selective institutions. Heidi’s admissions experience is complemented by a 15-year career in communications and publishing. As Medical Editor at Cambridge University Press and Science Editor at Cornell University Press, Heidi collaborated with STEM faculty and physician authors to bring dozens of books to successful publication. Heidi now enjoys using both her firsthand admissions experience and editorial skills to advise students on how to distinguish themselves in the admissions process.

After attending Castilleja School in Palo Alto, California, Heidi graduated cum laude with an Honors thesis from Dartmouth College as a double major in Classical Archaeology and Comparative Literature. At the University of Pennsylvania, Heidi was a Williams Fellow in the graduate program of Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World. She has conducted archaeological field work in Sardinia, Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey.

Nellie Brennan Hall

Senior Private Counselor

Nellie has spent her entire career in teaching, admissions, and counseling. As Associate Director of Admissions at Brown University, she spent nearly a decade recruiting and evaluating applicants. In her role as chair of selection committees, Nellie made executive decisions on applicants and also served as a central member of the athletics committee. Armed with a nuanced view of the review process in highly selective institutions, Nellie moved into college counseling at independent schools, helping students craft essays and guiding them through every stage of the college search and application process. Nellie’s students have gained admission to the top schools in the country, among them Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, UPenn, Northwestern, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Amherst, and Middlebury. Nellie graduated from Harvard and holds an M.Ed. from Notre Dame in Secondary Education and an Ed.M. from Harvard in Higher Education, where she was awarded the Pforzheimer Fellowship.

Dr. Tina Brooks

Senior Private Counselor

Tina joins Top Tier Admissions after five years serving as Associate Dean of Admissions at Pomona College. Her career in higher education has included extensive experience as both a faculty member and admissions professional. Tina worked as Assistant Director of Admissions and Transfer Coordinator at Scripps College before joining Pomona College, where she oversaw all communications and directed transfer admissions, in addition to her role evaluating first-year applicants in the admissions office. As a professional writer and editor, she has published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fodor’s guide to Los Angeles, and many college alumni magazines. Having served as a mentor for Scholar Match, a scholarship evaluator for the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, and an interviewer for the Gates Scholarship and the Posse Foundation, Tina loves working directly with students on their writing, academic and outcomes goals. She holds a B.A. in English with Honors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.

Carolyn Garbati

Enrollment & Tutoring Manager

Carolyn is the understanding voice you will hear when you call TTA and she will be able to connect you with the counselor and program that best suits your family’s needs. Carolyn has spent 10+ years in management, with a strong focus on customer service.

Kim McLeod

Information Research Specialist

Kim’s focus is on managing, organizing and disseminating data through the website, newsletter, reports and various Boot Camp products. Previously she worked for Mercer Management/Oliver Wyman as a Business Analyst. She also has many years of experience developing and maintaining information systems for large Fortune 500 companies including GE.