Meet Your New Best Friends, Our College Admissions Experts.
Emily Grey Goldman
The founder of Grey Guidance, Emily Grey Goldman, created the practice with an understanding that the college exploration process is an individual one. Each client brings a unique set of experiences, skill-sets, personal and academic aspirations, and expectations. The services provided by Grey Guidance honor this uniqueness and individualized approach for each client.
Emily earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education from New York University, M.A. in Higher Education from Columbia University, and B.A. from Duke University. She also completed her Certification in College Counseling through the University of California- Los Angeles. Emily is currently a member of the Higher Education Consultants Association (HECA), recently conducted alumni admissions interviews for Duke, and teaches as an Adjunct Instructor in UC Irvine’s College Counseling program. In 2018, she won the Distinguished Instructor Award from UCI.
Emily brings 8+ years of experience working at several colleges and universities. She has worked as an administrator at Columbia University doing career counseling for undergraduate students, graduate students, and alumni. At New York University, Emily taught in the M.A. program in Higher Education, as well as served as a career consultant for NYU’s Stern School of Business. As an adjunct faculty member at both Montclair State University and Baruch College, she taught freshman seminar courses to first year students.
Emily is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area where she returned after living in New York City for 8 years. She enjoys sports (go Giants and Blue Devils!) and spending time with her husband Jason, daughters Brooklyn and Skylar, and identical twin sons Hudson and Dylan.
Jacqueline Schaefgen
Jacqueline (Jacquie) Schaefgen graduated eons ago from the University of Notre Dame cum laude with a BA in Economics and Business/ concentration in Philosophy, Politics, & Economics. She worked in banking for almost 20 years specializing in credit and risk management. Jacquie stepped away from the banking industry when her husband’s job took the family to the east coast for several years and the timing was perfect to leave one crazy fun stage of life for another, raising her three young children.
Jacquie came into her own as a ‘hands on’ helper to teens over the last decade, holding numerous leadership roles in school-based and youth service groups, discovering that mentoring young people as they planned their futures was incredibly rewarding. Jacquie began formally educating herself to expand her “college knowledge” to support her own children’s needs, as it became clear that college admissions can become a complicated, time consuming, and stressful process for both the students and the parents!
Jacquie loves to visit colleges because she feels the passion and hope of the student community when she steps on a campus, and it is an incredible view into our collective bright future! She has visited more than 40 college campuses over the past 5 years on both coasts and in the Midwest.
Jacquie is a devoted fan of Notre Dame football (go Irish!) and is looking forward to the newly created college basketball rivalry in the household between her daughters’ schools (Go Zags and go Blue Devils). Her 15- year old son helps her keep a pulse on what it’s really like in the post-Covid trenches of high school!
Brent Goldman
Brent brings twenty-five years of professional experience to his counseling work at Grey Guidance. After graduating from Cornell University with a BA in Government, he began his career at Score! Educational (a subsidiary of Kaplan), before migrating to Wall Street. He traded derivatives at Susquehanna International Group (SIG) for eight years, and most recently spent thirteen years as a Managing Director at Bluefin Capital Management. Brent’s career took him from the trading pits of the American Stock Exchange and Chicago Board Options Exchange, to off-floor roles in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. Brent spent the vast majority of his career interviewing, hiring, and managing undergraduate and graduate students for trading and quantitative positions. This afforded him unique insight into the evolution of elite students from aspiring undergrads, to summer interns, to potential full time hires.
After retiring from trading in early-2023, Brent pursued a certificate in College Counseling from the UCLA Extension Program. He has long taken an interest in higher education, and has found numerous parallels between the derivatives markets and the sometimes-opaque world of college admissions. He looks forward to sharing these insights with students, and helping them to define and pursue educational goals that maximize their chances for career success and personal fulfillment.
Brent grew up in Marin, and returned in 2019 after twenty-five years in New York and Chicago. He currently lives in Kentfield with his wife Lauren, and children Brady (10), Gemma (6), and Jonah (3). Brent conducts applicant interviews for Cornell University, and previously worked as a volunteer mentor for at-risk boys in Chicago. He also serves on the board of Prader-Willi Homes of California, and coaches in the Ross Valley Little League. When he is not chasing a kid or touring a college campus, he can be found biking, gardening or hiking on Mt. Tam.
Sally Treanor
Born and raised in San Francisco, Sally Treanor has been helping students write college essays for over twelve years. She enjoys helping students find their voice and tell their authentic stories, ensuring they land at the college that’s right for them.
She earned her Bachelor’s at Stanford University, where she studied Creative Writing and Religious Studies. She then attended graduate school at UT-Austin, earning a Masters in English Literature and Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry. She taught high school English, specializing in teaching students with learning differences, and worked at several education start-ups that seek to make literature more accessible in the digital age.
In her spare time, Sally loves to travel, whether it’s spending six months road-tripping around the states, six weeks on the beach in Hawaii, or six days on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. She volunteers as a mentor for first-generation college students and as a reading partner for adult literacy students. She also enjoys reading science fiction, hiking with her dog, Cleo, and spending time with her niece and nephew.