Dr. Ellie Hara

I taught at BriteMinds Learning Center before I transitioned to private tutoring. I continued to tutor while completing my degree at University of Southern California, and while working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I am now in the 5th year of my PhD at University of Colorado Boulder where I study the chemistry that could have led to life and life detection on other planets. My greatest joy is seeing a student's face light up when they master a tricky concept and build their academic confidence. 

Despite my decade of experience teaching, I continually educate myself on the latest pedagogy research so I can best serve my students. I take pride in my ability to explain difficult concepts in a multitude of ways and leverage my experience to know about and pre-emptively address common misconceptions. This ensures that students build knowledge from a strong foundation that will carry them as they continue their academic path. 

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My second passion is helping students write college applications, not just to gain acceptances but to important writing skills that they will use throughout their career. I’ve written many successful applications that have gotten me accepted into top schools, scholarships, and fellowships. For undergraduate, I was accepted to all UC schools with scholarships, top liberal arts schools such as Wesleyan, Vassar, and Hamilton with scholarships, and University of Southern California with scholarships. In addition, I continued to win internships and additional merit scholarships throughout my undergraduate career. For graduate school, I was awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Student Fellowship which provides funding for 3 years. Only 10% of the top U.S. graduate students are selected. Let me use my experience to help you craft the your most compelling and unique applications that are bound to have admissions staff scrambling to put together your acceptance letter.