Leo Cao
Book a free call with Leo
Takes ten students a cycle, capped.
Leo’s intro
I came to this work as a researcher. For two years I sat with admissions officers, mostly from Stanford, Berkeley, USC and NYU, and asked what stayed with them after a day of reading. It was rarely the achievement. It was the paragraph that taught them something, and that is the essay I teach.
That finding runs everything here. A reader who learns something from a student becomes that student’s advocate, and advocacy is what carries a file through the room. The craft of writing that way can be taught, and teaching it is the part of the work I would keep if I had to give up all the rest.
I cap my side of it at ten students so that every draft comes back with my own notes on it. And when a first call tells me your student would do their best work with somebody else on this roster, I make that introduction myself, on the first call rather than after you have paid me anything.
Common questions
Before you book
What does this cost?
We are flexible, and there is a plan here that fits your family. You hear your number on the first call, before anything is agreed. What changes between plans is the kind of experience in the room: a current undergraduate at a school your student is applying to, someone who interviewed applicants for a university as an alumni volunteer, or a former admissions officer who read files and sat in committee. Every one of them is somebody we would put in front of our own family.
Do we need to know what we want before the call?
No, and most families book before they have decided anything. That is the useful time to talk. Forty-five minutes, no charge, and you will come off the call knowing what we can do for your student.
How many students does one counselor take?
Few enough that the person you meet is the person who reads the drafts. Every counselor sets their own cap and prints it on their page, so you know exactly how much of their year you are getting. If your first choice is full we will introduce you to someone on the roster who suits your student just as well.
Our student is already a senior. Is it too late?
It is not too late. Several counselors here run compressed engagements and take seniors into the autumn, and there is usually more still open in a file than a family expects. Tell us where your student is on the call and we will tell you what we can do with it.
Book a call
How the call is booked.
Leo’s assistant is booking the three remaining places in the 2027 cycle. The call runs forty-five minutes on the phone.
Book a free call with LeoLeo’s assistant works from what you tell us about your student, so the call starts there rather than at the beginning.
If something changes
The agreement is held by The Scholar’s Bureau rather than by Leo personally. If Leo cannot finish the cycle we move your student to another counselor on this roster at the price you were already quoted, and everything written down so far moves with them.
Where Leo’s students got in.
The Scholar’s Bureau is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by UC Berkeley or any other institution named on this page. Leo Cao is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, speaking only as an individual, with no role in its admissions office and no influence over any admissions decision.