About Your Team

Patty Garza

Patty found her interest in educational consulting when assisting her own daughters with their college search, and then began to guide other students through the admissions process as a volunteer in the nineties. She founded a college mentoring and life skills program for high school students called VIBES, Volunteers Interested in a Better Education for Students, for which Governor Rick Perry honored her with The Texas Heroes Award for Children for Outstanding Contributions in Education. Visiting over 119 colleges, graduating from the Independent Education Consultant’s Summer Training Institute, and Coach U’s Certified Life Coach Training Program, she has fine tuned her knowledge and skills to better assist students to obtain acceptance to the most competitive colleges in America; but more importantly, helps them find their best college fit. Whether you are deciding which colleges to apply to, what to write about in your essay, or asking for college recommendations, Patty helps you with every detail, deadline, and choice. Her experience as a mother, teacher, successful manager, and strength in organization skills make her a valuable asset in the college evaluation and application process.

My goal is to analyze your needs, develop a plan of action, and maximize your strengths to help you create a stand out college application with less stress and more powerful results!

• BA, University of Florida 
• High School English Teacher Certification 
• Graduate studies in Communications, University of Texas Pan American 
• Independent Education Consultant’s Summer Training Institute 
• American College Consulting for International Students - UC Irvine
• Independent Education Consultant Ethics Course
• Coach U’s Certified Life Coach Training Program 
• Past Higher Educational Consultant Association Member 
• Past Independent Education Consultants Association - Associate Member 
• Region Manager for a fortune 500 company, interviewing, training, and managing hundreds of employees throughout the country for over 13 years 
• Seven Habits of Highly Successful Teens – Instructor 
• Franklin Covey - 4 Roles of Leadership Training 
• Making Your Dreams Come True Seminar Training 

Brooke Shaffner

Brooke personally knows what it takes to wow college admissions officers with a unique, attention grabbing, and articulate essay that will emphasize your personality and make you a standout. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Columbia University, where she was a Dean’s Fellow. She is a published, award-winning writer, with a decade of experience in education—teaching writing and English literature to private and public high school students and writing literature and composition courses for Pittsburgh, Chicago, Lynwood, and Clayton County public high schools. Brooke has  has taught at Rutgers University, written curriculum for the college application essay for Kaplan and tutored students on application essays for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Rice, Notre Dame, MIT, Stanford, and the University of Texas, among other schools.  Brooke works one on one with you by telephone or in person to help you find your voice, never writing your essay, but guiding you to make a powerful and lasting impression.

You may see student testimonials at her website: http://betweenthelinesnyc.com/servicesandtestimonials.html.

Angela Guajardo

Angela began tutoring for standardized tests in 2006, initially working for the Princeton Review, and working her way up to Master Tutor designation.  She has worked with all levels of students, including those with learning disabilities.  She really enjoys helping students reach their maximum potential and guiding them through the testing process. In fact, tutoring comes naturally: back when she was in middle school she was asked to tutor students in Math. On average, her students have gained 200 points on their SAT scores, the most popular tutoring requested.  

Angela graduated cum laude with degrees in Accounting, Finance and Business Honors from the  University of Texas at Austin. She worked for the State Comptroller and a private accounting firm for several years, and currently holds a valid CPA license. 

Although Angela’s tutoring methods can dramatically increase scores, students improvements are in direct proportion to how much time they spend on homework, practicing problems and reviewing errors.