Hirko Consulting

Amanda is an outstanding guide, mentor, and college counselor! She helped our son navigate the daunting college application process with professionalism, knowledge, and such calm! She clearly has the student’s best interest in mind and goes above and beyond in helping them find the best ‘fit.’
She was always available for my son. (And us!) She kept him on schedule, returned his emails/calls promptly, made suggestions about his classes, helped him develop his own voice (HUGE!), etc. We could not have asked for more!
Amanda’s organization and communication throughout the entire process made it so much more enjoyable for not only our son but for our whole family as well. It was such a relief to know that she was always on top of things. (We knew she would not let our son miss a deadline. Such a relief!) Thanks to Amanda…our son found his perfect fit!
We will continue to recommend Amanda and her invaluable services!

Amanda is amazing. She was a perfect match to my son's needs throughout the entire college evaluation, selection, and application process. We could not have been happier with our decision to partner with Amanda. My son respected her opinions, appreciated her guidance and thoroughly enjoyed working with her. She was a true gift to our family.

Amanda is an incredible college counselor! She is dedicated and goes above and beyond. I was brand new to this process, and overwhelmed. After our very first meeting with Amanda, my son and I walked away with loads of valuable information and great insights. She helped us with essays, shared her extensive, first-hand knowledge of colleges across the US, and provided much needed support in making a key decision. I can't recommend her enough to anyone who will have to go through the college application process, which is loaded with so many moving parts, but Amanda is always calm and organized, and she kept us on track.

Amanda was HUGE in terms of helping my daughter in her college application process. Her knowledge base, and warm and caring personality make her a natural for this! My daughter heard her comments because she knew how to give feedback, and she was able to stay on her about important dates/ etc. in a way that might have not been "received" as well coming from her parents. She helped her with the application process and gave her input that truly improved her essays. I highly recommend Amanda & feel very lucky we enlisted her help to navigate the complexities as well as the anxieties of the college application process.

My family can’t speak highly enough of Amanda, professionally and personally. Her college counseling services made all the difference in our two kids’ academic futures. She provided invaluable insight, recommendations, and follow-through on countless levels. She displayed incredible understanding of my son’s and daughter’s academic, philosophic, and social needs and goals, which were entirely different from each other. This required Amanda to mindfully individualize her approach, so that she was not providing generic services, but those which most closely matched the specific needs of her clients. She immediately gained respect from our son and daughter, allowing a constructive, unified relationship, for effectively approaching the college preparation process. Amanda is truly gifted in her interpersonal skills and communication, in what can be highly stress-driven and emotional process for the entire family. Her grace, confidence, wisdom, and compassionate ways allowed both our son and daughter to very successfully complete the process of college application and acceptance to the best of our hopes and dreams. Not only are her professional fees extremely reasonable, but most importantly, one of the most worthwhile investments I feel we will make towards our kids’ futures.

Some of the best money we've ever spent was for Amanda's services. My daughters were admitted to their first choice colleges...reach schools for both of them. However, that was only a small part of why Amanda was so worth it! Early in the process Amanda counseled them on making the most of their extra curricular activities and high school class choices. During that time Amanda learned who they were...likes, dislikes, personalities, etc. She then helped them develop a list of reach, range and sure thing colleges, counseling them on what the various colleges were like, from her vast knowledge and experience visiting so many of them. Perhaps the most valuable part was helping them through the very stressful and overwhelming application process...putting them on a schedule of completion, assisting with essay ideas, reviewing each application before it went out, offering advice and feedback along the way, and so much more. My daughters did not take feedback well from me during this time, but respected what Amanda had to say. She was there for both of them as acceptance letters came in, and as they made those important decisions, and she has even been there for them once in college. Cannot recommend enough!

We are very very happy having hired Hirko Consulting to review my daughter's vitae and to recommend colleges customized to her wants and needs. Amanda also recommended some steps she could take to improve her high school 'resume' and strongly suggested taking the ACT a second time. (I would have loved to get my daughter into the UC essay classes Amanda offers in August but we had schedule conflicts with all of the dates due to a lengthy international exchange program) The only schools my daughter chose not to apply to were the all women's colleges- ha! It was a great experience and I am looking to sign up again for my soon-to-be sophomore! Loved assistance with organization and more!

Amanda is fantastic! We interviewed several college counselors, and we feel Amanda is far superior in her knowledge plus her approach - she quickly bonded with our daughter and made us feel totally comfortable with her quarterbacking the process. Amanda is transparent in her process, empowering for the kids, and gives parents peace of mind. Thanks to Amanda, our daughter found a perfect fit and is very happy. I have referred Hirko Consulting to several friends.

EXTREMELY SATISIFIED - We were referred to Amanda from other satisfied parents - each had only excellent things to say about Amanda's services. Amanda helped us navigate the college applications maze, which can be overwhelming. Amanda's professionalism was evident, but she also went the "extra mile" in many situations to ensure that the entire process was thorough and clear for us to follow.

All in all, I can honestly say that we have been extremely happy with Amanda's services as my daughter found the right "fit" and is now thriving as a college student.

I can't rave enough about Amanda, even though technically she is a competitor. I have worked as an independent counselor for 11 years and have gotten to know Amanda well during that time. She co-hosted several application workshops with me back in 2009-10, and my organization has referred several students to her and vice versa for our various specialties.

Amanda is one of the rare independent counselors who can connect well with today's high school kids (it helps that her two kids are high school aged) but who is down-to-earth and approachable. She deliberately keeps her prices lower than the market average even though she routinely fills up a year in advance of the college application deadlines. She even has gone above and beyond other local independent counselors by getting her certified educational planner credential.

My every interaction with Amanda has shown her to be ethical, compassionate, and easy to work with. In a world of stressed out parents and students, Amanda is a wonderful voice of reason, and I can't recommend her enough.

As a current student athlete on the men’s tennis team and bioengineer major at UCSD, I can gladly say that Amanda contributed immensely to where I am today. She provided me with extensive research on colleges of my major, guided me through the essay writing portion, and overall was very nice and understanding of the whole process. Also, because I was able to finish all of my college applications over summer, by the time my senior year came around, I was stress free and did not have pile on my apps with my school work. My older brother who has recently graduated from UCSD had used Amanda as well and now my younger brother will be soon using her for his college search. I would definitely recommend Amanda to anyone looking for guidance in the stressful college process, as she walked me through it and made everything smoother for me.

I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science about a year ago from UCSD and I can say with confidence that a large part of my success can be attributed to Amanda. When I started, I was completely lost as to where I wanted to go to school. Amanda helped me research and decide which schools were relevant to both what was important to me and what made sense for my situation. I was interested in over ten universities and she then not only guided me through the process of applying to each one but critiqued several unique essays they required. With her help, I was able to finish my applications early and get into most of my reach schools. Amanda made the process easy and efficient and I would certainly recommend her to anyone looking for help with the process.

We highly recommend Hirko Consulting. She worked with our son 5 years ago when he was a junior in high school and recommended the COSMOS program, which my son attended at UC Davis summer after his junior year. This camp helped solidify his love of Physics. She advised him regarding testing to assure that his limited time was focused on efforts that could use improvement and avoid wasting time on subjects he had already mastered. We found her suggestions highly valuable and he was accepted to many schools and ultimately chose majoring in Physics at UC Berkeley.

Our daughter is a high school senior and has benefitted from Amanda’s suggestions since her freshman year. Amanda advised our daughter which classes would meet college requirements and also be aligned with her interests. Amanda mentioned the Idyllwild Summer Arts program which our daughter attended for 2 sessions. Amanda helped pare down the list of schools and suggested several colleges we were not familiar with. Our daughter was accepted at many schools and ultimately has chosen to attend UC Santa Cruz.

We highly value Amanda's services -- she really got to know our kids and help them identify schools which matched their interests and aptitudes. She helped them identify essay topics which had meaning for each of them, and each essay was were entirely different and individual. She is wonderful!

We have personally recommended Hirko Consulting to our friends and colleagues. There are so many considerations and activities and testing/application deadlines — and we were reassured and able to relax knowing that Amanda was “on it” and kept us all on course. Amanda is friendly, knowledgeable, professional, organized, and compassionate. We are grateful for her help and we highly recommend her services!

Working with Amanda was amazing! When I started the college search process it felt so overwhelming and it was taking over me, but with Amanda's help I felt on top of it and confident when submitting my applications. She was able to answer all of mine and my family's questions and gave us some amazing suggestions. The time and effort she put in with me didn't go unseen. She went out of her way to do whatever it was to help us! We couldn't have done it without Amanda! I highly recommend her!

We hired Amanda Hirko to help both of our boys with their college application process. She was very knowledgeable about the application process, helped them identify what type of college was a good match for them, spent hours editing their many essays, set out a timeline for getting all of their materials in on time, and supported them and us through the entire process. Amanda demystified the procedure and allowed us to enjoy our boy’s senior years. Both of our boys are very happy with their college choice. I would recommend Amanda Hirko Counsulting to anyone. Her services were priceless!

As parents of three son’s that’s have all worked with Amanda Hirko as their college counselor, we couldn’t be more pleased with her skills and services. Over the last 9 years, she has been extremely accommodating and helpful navigating us through the college preparation process. Her expertise are invaluable as she has a tremendous ability to bring out the best in her clients college essay writing capabilities. Two of our three sons were accepted into highly regarded programs at the Jacobs School of Engineering on the UCSD campus. One in Computer Science and the other in Bioengineering / Bioinformatics which is ranked #3 in the nation. Our third son has just started working with Amanda and we are very confident he will be equally successful under her guidance. Amanda has given our son’s the competive edge by helping them to stand out from other applicants. She is also very fair with her fees as we have done the research. We highly recommend Hirko Consulting - she is the best! Randy and Cindy Ermert.

Full disclosure: Elouise and I live in the same community, and have been friends with, Amanda and her family since Brett's kindergarten days; no way we were going to use anybody else! Nevertheless, we couldn't be happier, because she turned us on to a couple of schools that hadn't been on our radar at all, but were great fits for Brett. It was great having someone to talk to our student about his long term goals and review his essays and make sure we didn't miss any of the nit-picking steps required for the college application process. Highly recommended!

I definitely recommend Amanda Hirko/Hirko Consulting without reservation. Her consulting services were outstanding with both of my children. We really appreciated her responsiveness and her extensive knowledge about her field, a field which, at times, can seem overwhelming to both parents and students alike! She is a true professional and helped my children find their perfect fit!

Amanda was an amazing consultant! Loved every meeting and she provided a lot of help with my college applications. Definitely recommend to all others unsure about the whole process.

Phenomenal counselor. I have been with Amanda since my freshman year in high school. She has been a fabulous resource for my mother and I. Long story short, I honestly don't think I would have gotten into UC Davis if it weren't for her.