About Us

Our Vision

We are a down-to-earth team that firmly believes in helping students through every step of the college application process, regardless of the resources available in their home cities or schools. In providing comprehensive guidance throughout the daunting application process for every student, we strive to live up to the trust of every family we serve. We sincerely hope to drive the development of the education industry through our own efforts, become a breakthrough within international application services in China and the United States, and break the information barrier that widely exists in the industry for study-abroad families, in order to provide high-quality and cost-effective services in a practical manner.

Through our collaborative, team-based approach, each student will receive personalized assistance from multiple counselors to guide them through each step of the application process.

Who We Are

Over the past decade, members of the YouRise Team have helped over 300 students receive admission from top universities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Singapore for undergraduate, transfer, and graduate programs. Each of our team members—graduates of top colleges and universities—has more than five years of experience in the education industry. Based in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Charlotte, and New York, our consultants have a wide range of educational backgrounds, from STEM to humanities and social sciences, bringing a wealth of academic resources to meet students' individual application needs through comprehensive and detailed services.

We believe in the power of comprehensive education to build character and grant wisdom, and we believe that through inspiration and companionship, we can give our students more than just a college offer. Aside from the application process of each individual student, we maintain the highest reverence for education itself. As the famous Chinese educator, Ye Shengtao, said, "The art of teaching does not lie in cramming students with knowledge, but in fostering their interests in learning.” In this field of helping youths apply to top universities around the world, we prefer to be the inspirers and guides for students and families, so that everyone we serve can receive access to the opportunities they deserve.

Strengths and Talents

Members of our team, with roots in the Hangzhou community and global insights, use their own international education experience and familiarity with top universities in the UK and the US to help students comprehensively understand the process of admissions to top universities around the world.

YouRise hopes to provide students with all-round preparation for their study-abroad applications through personalized educational services, focusing on each and every step of the application. In addition to test preparation, school selection guidance, and essay feedback, our team of counselors provides GPA management, reading programs curated to student interests and reading levels, academic planning advice, recommendations on creative activities that complement application profiles seeking admission to top universities, and general guidance to help students explore their full potential.

Meet Our Team

Bonnie Wang

Bonnie Wang

Founding Partner

Bonnie was one of the first students from China to study abroad. She went to Singapore for her undergraduate studies, where she majored in Business Management and underwent several internship experiences in K-12 education, inspiring her passion for the education industry. After completing her undergraduate program and returning to China, she joined a high-end US-based study-abroad consulting institution during its emerging stages of development, and since then she has accrued more than ten years of experience working on US-based college applications. Her years of experience in the education industry have made her more and more determined to fulfill the goal she developed when starting her career: to realize the ambitions of students who dare to dream, and to show the way forward for those who are still disorientated. She believes that all of the students she meets have great value in themselves, and with reasonable guidance, every student has the potential to reach a higher level.

Bonnie has helped more than a dozen classes of students from different school systems and academic backgrounds, ranging from academic elites with high academic achievement, to student leaders with outstanding activity skills, to thinkers with a fascination for literature and history, to logicians with analytical mindsets. She specializes in using her experience to help develop individualized application plans for students with different interests and personalities. In addition, Bonnie is a great listener, an excellent communicator, and serves as an effective bridge between students, parents, and advisors to build a solid foundation for each stage of the application planning process.

In addition to her role as a college planning consultant, Bonnie is the mother of a 7-year-old. Through this role, she can empathize with parents, understand their concerns at all stages, and ease their anxiety through timely communication during the stressful college season. Bonnie has helped students from major colleges across the United States, many of whom work for well-known companies, and they have built a strong network of resources that continue to provide academic, internship and work opportunities for younger students. This is also a valuable resource that YouRise can provide to our students as a congenial family.

Anya Zhang

Anya Zhang

Founding Partner

Duke University Fuqua School of Business | MBA Candidate
Vassar College | Undergraduate Economics and Russian Literature (Double Major)

Anya graduated from Vassar College, one of the country’s top liberal arts colleges, majoring in economics and Russian literature. She attended Hangzhou Foreign Language School for high school and participated in an exchange program in her sophomore year to study at a Texas high school, gaining an early understanding of the American education system and culture. During her college years, Anya also studied literature and art history at Yale University and St. Petersburg State University in Russia, and participated in two professors' research projects on economics. Anya has been involved in the education industry since 2012, from acting as an SAT and AP teacher, to being a study-abroad application counselor. She is committed to providing students with professional and effective information on how to make the transition between Chinese and American education.

Anya specializes in guiding and inspiring students in terms of academic interests, and planning various academic activities around their interests. For students whose academic interests are unclear, she provides sufficient academic resources to help them gradually find their academic direction; for students who already have a clear academic direction, she makes full use of the team's resources to suggest more in-depth academic background-enhancement activities to further improve the competitiveness of their applications. She is a good communicator with students, especially during brainstorming, where she helps students become exposed to more in-depth thinking. Because of her years of experience in the education industry, Anya is able to accurately target different groups of students and create precise application profiles so they can gain ideal admission results. Through her experience in traveling to different nations, learning different languages, and being exposed to different cultures, she has developed unique insights on how to communicate students' strengths and characteristics to admissions officers.

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton

Founding Partner

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | MBA Candidate
Brown University | Undergraduate Neuroscience with Honors

In conception of the name, “YouRise”, Alex was focusing on two aspects other educational companies lack: the personalized attention to “You”, the student, as well as comprehensive growth to help students “Rise”. In developing YouRise’s academic programs, including English workshops and reading lists, he tailors learning to students’ talents, abilities, and most importantly, interests. Based in Charlotte, a stone’s throw away from universities such as Duke, University of North Carolina, and Wake Forest, and a two-hour flight from the universities dotting the Northeast, Alex anchors YuRui’s North American presence, guiding students in U.S. high school and college visits, and ensuring that students in the United States are always supported, even when away from home.

Alex is a bit of a night owl, so he also enjoys giving his students in China morning and afternoon pep-talks. Committed to experiencing all education has to offer, he is passionate in various fields; aside from neuroscience at Brown, he explored English literature, Chinese, organic chemistry, and other fields. He also served as president of Brown’s China Care Club chapter to support Chinese adoptees and fundraise for those suffering from cleft palate, netting him many Chinese friends in the process. Alex’s interest for education began to take off during the two years he served as a neuroscience TA, where he taught hundreds of students, many of them first-years, as well as through his neuroscience research into child development.

In the several years he has spent in the field, Alex has devoted himself to helping students understand their weaknesses in English and academics in order to further develop their potential. In working with students, he takes a personalized approach to communication, fostering students’ interests and skillsets before starting endeavors, believing that having passion toward a field complements one’s learning. Similarly, one must truly get to know the universities of their interest before they apply.

In his free time, Alex likes to write and play basketball, and he enjoys chatting with students to help them decompress from the stress of applying to college. His goal is to spark and cultivate every student’s enthusiasm for the learning process.

Xinyang Wang

Xinyang Wang

Partner Advisor

University of Oxford | Master of Economics
Vassar College | Undergraduate Economics

Xinyang received undergraduate scholarship acceptance to Vassar College to pursue a major in economics. While maintaining a near-perfect GPA, he earned graduation honors and was accepted as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the national prestigious undergraduate honors society. During his undergraduate studies, he participated in an exchange program at the Toulouse School of Economics, Europe's top-ranked economics research institution, for his first year of graduate studies, becoming the first official exchange student from an American university there. After his undergraduate graduation, he chose to pursue an MA in Economics at Oxford University, completing a research master's degree and achieving single subject honors in Econometrics, Behavioral Economics, and Microeconomic Theory, graduating top of his year for behavioral economics.

Xinyang attended a public Chinese high school in the International Division and has taken many AP courses including Biology, Psychology, and Human Geography (11 in total), and has been a part-time subject teacher for many years. Thus, Xinyang is very familiar with various international curriculum systems, and can arrange reasonable study goals according to students' individual plans. Xinyang also has a wide range of hobbies, and has developed a habit of being curious and respectful in every discipline in liberal arts education. He studied French, geography, politics, Japanese pop culture, rock history, and other areas. He is also a lover of pop culture, and enjoys e-sports, K-pop, and jokes from the Internet, so he can quickly get close to his students. Xinyang's sense of humor helps students who are facing obstacles during the stressful application season.

Xinyang adheres to the educational philosophy of "mental practice, character development and intellectual growth" mentioned by famous educator Henry Newman in "The Idea of a University.” He respects each student's individual expression and focuses on the development of their abilities in the application process. He has worked as an intern in finance, economic research, and marketing, and has worked at other head companies before becoming a full-time college application counselor, where he has dedicated himself to helping Chinese students apply to top UK and US universities.

Jing Zhang

Jing Zhang

General Counsel

Vassar College | Undergraduate of Economics

Jing graduated from Vassar College, a top liberal arts college, with a full scholarship to study economics. Jing grew up in New York City and is a Chinese-American. As a native English speaker, she is also fluent in Chinese and has an East-meets-West background to help students better understand the nature of college applications. In addition to her major in Economics, she possesses extensive experience in computer science, financial engineering, and art and design, and supports students by sharing widespread academic knowledge.

Since joining the study-abroad consulting industry in 2014, Jing has tutored several classes of students from Hangzhou Foreign Language School, some students from A-Level curriculum, and many students from US high schools. She has explored and planned several extracurricular activities for students to increase their competitiveness in their applications. In one case, she helped a girl create the Hangzhou branch of Girls Who Code (a program for girls who are interested in computer science), demonstrating her motivation for social impact and leadership skills. Girls Who Code has remained an active organization up to this moment. Jing also inspired one of her students to use his talent in photography to complete a high-quality portfolio and combine his photography work with his main application profile, leading to his acceptance at Emory University despite a relatively low standardized score. Jing's biggest talent is in inspiration, encouraging students in their creation of personalized essays that reflect their strengths.

In addition to counseling high school students through the undergraduate application process, Jing also has extensive experience in the areas of undergraduate transfer and graduate applications. Through her understanding of students' majors and career planning considerations, Jing specializes in finding a more appropriate direction of development for students.

Services

Work with our experts, step by step, in applying to your dream school.

Personalized Application Plans

Whether you’re looking at undergraduate, graduate, scholarship, or summer program applications, receive an academic and extracurricular plan tailored to your schedule and interests in the application process.

Essay Feedback

Gain insight into each step of the essay-writing process so you can learn how to effectively and concisely express yourself and your interests.

Test Preparation

Work with an experienced advisor to master the skills you need on your assessment, from the SAT and ACT, to the TOEFL and IELTS, and even to a variety of AP exams.

Interview Practice

Receive one-on-one practice and feedback in mock interviews so that you can approach Initialview and college interviews in confidence.

Chaperoned Tours around U.S. Colleges

Join a counselor on a visit to a school of your interest to gain a hands-on glimpse into student life.

Tutoring and Supplemental Coursework

Get ahead and stay ahead academically by learning from our expert advisors in a variety of subjects.

Stop by our office:

Suite 1702 Building G, Huanglong International Center, 77 Xueyuan Road, Xihu District, Hangzhou, PRC 310013

Reach out to us！

+086 571-8738-5082

contactus@nowyourise.com

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