The Ivy Scholars Team
Meet our team of expert college admissions consultants, mentors, and tutors. Our team members have extensive experience in all aspects of college admissions and come from top universities. From experience, our team knows what universities are looking for in an application and how you can make yours stand out.
Meet the Team

Sasha Chada
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
“Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding is like a blind man on the right road” – Plato
College & Major
Johns Hopkins University – BA in Philosophy, 2013, Pre-Medical and Humanities Honors
Specializations
College application coaching, candidacy building, test prep, time management & organizational coaching, special projects… pretty much everything related to college admissions.
Fun Fact
I love teaching my Great Danes new tricks!
To Sum it Up
Patient, driven, motivated
After learning about the admissions process firsthand at the Johns Hopkins University, Sasha founded Ivy Scholars in Houston, Texas in 2015. Having watched hundreds of students and their families get lost in the admissions process and endure the stress of denial, he dreamed of providing a crystal-clear journey of self-reflection and coaching to help students craft great applications. Four years after he’d started, hundreds of his students had been accepted to their top-choice school – and enjoyed themselves in the process.
Sasha guides the vision of Ivy Scholars, oversees the hiring and coaching of mentors, and acts as the first point of contact with every student and parent. With over half a decade of experience in college counseling, Sasha has shepherded a diverse group of students – from genius coders to journalistic refugees – successfully through the admissions process.
Sasha is driven by a desire to change students’ lives through the college admissions process. Higher education is a cornerstone of advancement in today’s society, and Sasha wants nothing more than to see our students in the college that best sets them up for future success.
Sasha’s vision for Ivy Scholars is to educate, enable, and empower student to achieve the best versions of their lives by exploring their intellectual curiosities, proving their talents, and telling their stories to top-tier admissions committees.
To learn more about Sasha, read his interview.

Jennifer Garrison
Director of Candidacy Building
The movements of our hands help build the Unseen. We add to the universe by our efforts. Whatever we do, we should never think it is irrelevant; whatever we do, we should not conclude it is so important either. Between those two poles find your balance; between those two regions your talents will bloom.” Hafiz
College & Major
Columbia University – BA in English, Special Concentration Jazz Studies
Specializations
Candidacy building, time management & organizational coaching
Fun Fact
I climbed a mountain in Yosemite for 18 hours straight!
To Sum it Up
Direct, supportive, connector of ideas
Jennifer began working with middle school students 14 years ago as an acting coach at Oaks Christian and continued working with elementary to early high school students as a tutor, assistant teacher, and behavioral aide at The Help Group and with the New York City public school district. She familiarized herself with Individualized Education Plans (IEP’s), managing the classroom, preparing curricula, and helping students with behavioral change, using the whole-person approach. She helped with the initial launching of the Emily Shane Foundation’s Successful Educational Achievement Program, collaborating with the program founder to identify the needs of the student community to better serve the growth of the nonprofit. She is a writer with a strong background in research and APA style. She has worked as an editor and content proposal writer for film production companies and undertook independent research at Columbia in Ethnomusicology. She uses her creativity and artistic background to help students with public speaking and developing their self-articulation for college applications. Her avid interest and self-study in life coaching and interpersonal skills give her many tools to offer her students for Candidacy Building.

Alex Nelson
Director of Test Prep
“The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” – Bertrand Russell
College & Major
Rice University – History
Specializations
Test prep, all subjects, time management & organizational coaching
Fun Fact
The first time I played the “Simon” memorization app on my phone, I got the world record.
To Sum it Up
Driven, devoted, diligent
Alex has been a full-time mentor and tutor for twelve years. After scoring a perfect 1600 on his own SAT in high school, he joined The Princeton Review, where he worked as a college admissions mentor and tutor for the SAT, ACT, ISEE, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT. Over nine years, he became their highest-level “Premiere” tutor and teacher trainer for all of Houston.
Alex joined Ivy Scholars in 2018. He specializes in improving organization and study habits, and he is a master of helping high-scoring students raise their SAT and ACT scores to the top 1%.
Alex had an unusual college admission process. Ever since 7th grade, he had his sights set on the best college within 1,000 miles of his hometown, Rice University, in Houston. With a perfect SAT, a funny personal statement, and hundreds of service hours tutoring his peers in math, Alex applied early to Rice and was admitted before needing to apply to other schools. Due to his success finding scholarships, Alex was able to attend Rice for only $900 a semester.

Nick Madincea
Director of Business Development
“Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley.” -Sun Tzu
College & Major
Baylor University – Finance
Specializations
Growing Ivy Scholars while ensuring we deliver exceptional results for our families
Fun Fact
I set two world records for flying drones.
To Sum it Up
A strategy-centric leader obsessed with delivering the best customer experience possible.
Nick Madincea is a seasoned entrepreneur with over half a decade of experience leading startups. In 2016, Nick co-founded Drone Parks® Worldwide: a startup dedicated to building indoor drone centers. In 2019, the Houston Chronicle named Nick “one of the most influential people in the emerging drone industry.” Nick contributes strategic and operational insights to Ivy Scholars with a focus on the customer experience, marketing, and business development. Nick believes that any decision made by a startup begins and ends with you, the customer.
“Ivy Scholars exists to empower students through mentorship and academic coaching, to grow intellectually into the kind of candidates that their target universities want to accept.”
-Sasha Chada

Antonio Cruz
Mentor
“All that is gold does not glitter; not all who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkein
College & Major
University of Chicago – BA/MA in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Specializations
Test prep – English, Math
Fun Fact
Thanks to a ritual offering I took part in while in Peru, I am protected from ghosts.
To Sum it Up
Insightful, determined, easily amused.
Antonio graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA/MA in Near Eastern archaeology, and worked as an archaeologist and as an educator before coming to Ivy Scholars in 2020. He now works as both a mentor and a researcher, creating many of the documents used in the curriculum and on this site. He is also in charge of the Ivy Scholars blog. A strong writer both now and in high school, it was his personal statement and supplemental essays that got him accepted into the University of Chicago. He now focuses on helping students improve their own writing, and teaching them to self-edit. Helping students tell their own story through their essays is easily his favorite part of this job. In his free time, he plays DnD with his friends, and dances classical ballet.

Nick Popow
Mentor | Rutgers University, BA in Philosophy
“We fill preexisting forms and when we fill them we change them and are changed” – Jorge Luis Borges.
College & Major
Rutgers University – BA in Philosophy
Specializations
College Application Coaching, Test Prep
Fun Fact
I am addicted to reading books that have no practical relation to my life.
To Sum It Up
My approach to college essay writing with my students is to find a spark of interest in something unique, outside-of-the-box, or just plain odd.
I have been teaching SAT and ACT reading, writing, and English sections for five years. In the last two years, I have been heavily involved in writing coaching; I help students construct and polish English essays, college personal statements, supplements, WHAP assignments, and more. My approach is two-pronged: 1. I get the student involved in the formation of comprehensible, grammatically correct sentences that “sound right.” 2. I try to liberate and nurture the sense of excitement and freedom that comes when the student begins to see writing as, not merely an arduous task, but as a means of personal expression, as a medium for the display of their own personality.

Matthew Gasda
Mentor
“I feel lucky to have a job that genuinely helps people get where they want to go.”
College & Major
Syracuse University – BA in Philosophy, Lehigh – MA in English
Specializations
Writing, tutoring, and college essays
Fun Fact
In my free time, I enjoy reading, writing, dodgeball.
To Sum it Up
Passionate, expressive, and helpful.

Ari Schwartz
Mentor | Northwestern University
College & Major
Specializations
College Application Coaching, Candidacy Building
Fun Fact
I performed at Madison Square Garden when I was ten years old
To Sum it Up
Creator, story sculptor, compassionate
Ari Schwartz joined Ivy Scholars on the heels of three years working as an applications consultant and test prep tutor with companies such as CollegeVine and Mindfish, where he helped numerous students gain admission to top-ten universities. Ari graduated from Northwestern University with a B.A. in Economics (which made his parents very happy) and Radio, Television, & Film (which produced a slightly different parental response), with a focus on screenwriting. His strong background in dramatic writing uniquely positions him to help his students compose the most compelling applications narrative possible. In his spare time, Ari can be found writing screenplays, reading Harry Potter in a foreign language (Hebrew and German down, French up next!), making music on Logic Pro X, and spending an inordinate amount of time trying (and failing) to correctly solve those Captcha things. Ari believes that everyone is the protagonist in their own story, and he is driven by the ethic of giving every student the necessary tools and platform to have their story heard.

Andy Catanese
Mentor
“What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” –Hamilton, by Lin-Manuel Miranda
College & Major
University of Connecticut, Mathematics and Secondary Mathematics Education
Specializations
Test Prep
Fun Fact
I have memorized the first 314 digits of pi
To Sum it Up
Determined to dispel math’s reputation as the least liked subject