Our Story

A drawing compass looks like the letter A and represents our niche in STEM education & career counseling.

AmberEd College Counseling was founded in 2017 in New England by Amber Zichao Li. We provide customized college counseling services for college-bound students and their families. We specialize in application strategy and process counseling for STEM education & career, international students, and first-generation & new immigrant family students. On top of that, we also provide a superb project management platform tailored for college applications.

Amber came to the U.S. as an international student in 2007. Her first stop was the State of Sunflower, Kansas! She later started her career as a data scientist in California. In 2017, Amber relocated to Connecticut to join her family. She soon built up her own business and became an independent educational consultant (IEC). Amber now lives with her family in an idyllic college town called Storrs, home of UCONN and Jonathan the Husky.

The idea of founding AmberEd came up when Amber started her college town life for the second time in 2017. Her data-based and career-oriented insights were quite popular among college youngsters, especially among STEM-major students, and students whose family members are not familiar with U.S. college education (aka. international, first-gen, and new immigrant kids). She soon realized the value of her unique background, knowledge base, and network; and most importantly, her passion for counseling as a professional. On a mission of helping students with shared experiences and be their advocates, Amber began to work as an IEC and established AmberEd College Counseling.

Amber Li - Founder & Principal Consultant

Education

Certificate in Independent Educational Consultant, University of California, Irvine, CA, 2019

M.S. in Statistics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, 2011

M.A. in Political Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2010

B.A. in Economics, Chu Kochen Honors College, Zhejiang University, China, 2007

Work Experience

2017 - Present, AmberEd College Counseling, LLC. Founder & Independent Educational Consultant (Storrs Mansfield, CT)

2015 - 2017, PicsArt Inc. Senior Data Scientist & Analytics Lead (San Francisco, CA)

2012 - 2015, LinkedIn Corp. Senior Associate (Mountain View, CA)

2013-2015, Consumer Marketing & Product Analytics at LinkedIn Higher Ed team

2011 - 2012, Warner Bros. Senior Data Analyst (Burbank, CA)

Invited Talks

2022 Apr, UCLA IEC Alumni CAPClass Group, guest speaker (Virtual)

2022 Mar - Apr, Collège du Léman International School at Geneva, Switzerland, IB Career-related Programme (IBCP) class guest lecturer (Virtual)

2021 Sep, EducationUSA Pakistan - Islamabad, guest speaker (Virtual)

2021 Jul, International ACAC 2021 Annual Conference, lead presenter (Virtual)

2020 Jan, CollegePoint 2020 Midyear Convening, roundtable panelist (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA)

2019 Aug, CollegePoint 2019 Convening, presenter (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD)

Association Affiliation

2022 - Present, Western Association for College Admission Counseling (WACAC), Community-based Organization membership via ScholarMatch

2021 - Present, National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)

2021 - Present, Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), Associate Member

2020 - Present, International Association for College Admission Counseling (International ACAC)

2019 - Present, New England Association for College Admission Counseling (NEACAC), Independent Member & NEACAC IDEA Committee Member

Pro Bono Service

2022 - Present, WACAC Language Access Committee Chinese language translator.

2021 -Present, New England ACAC Annual Essay Contest reviewer.

2019 - Present, CollegePoint via ScholarMatch. Work with high-performing, low to medium-income domestic students.

2019 - 2020, Matchlighters Scholarship Volunteer. Work with high-achieving, low-income international students.

Sammy vanValkenburg - Essay Specialist

Sammy is a recent graduate from the University of Connecticut's Neag Integrated Bachelors/Masters Program for Secondary English Language Arts Education. During her time at UConn, Sammy worked as a Writing Center tutor and Outreach Coordinator, traveled to various states and countries for community service, "marched" in the UCMB in the front ensemble, and gained a wide range of teaching experiences from schools across Connecticut.

Having been 'student' and 'presenter' for the last 5 years, Sammy is ready to officially take on the role of 'teacher' and be part of a positive, supportive community this coming academic year 2022-23 at Timothy Edwards Middle School in South Windsor. She feels extremely fortunate and excited to take part in building a better future for college-bound students and to make good use of her Writing Center research with Amber.

Professional Conferences & Training

[last update: 07/18/2021]

Lead Presenter at International ACAC 2021 Annual Conference (Virtual), July 2021 - it was one of the most popular sessions and we hit the room capacity during the live demo!

CollegePoint 2020 Mid-year Convening @ Georgia Tech, Jan 2020

Landmark College (for those who learn differently) Professional Visit Days, Nov 2019

Independent Educational Consultant (IEC) Certificate issued by UC Irvine, Sep 2019

Amber's Presentation for CollegePoint 2019 Convening @ Johns Hopkins, Aug 2019

Attended 2019 NCES STATS-DC Data Conference, Topic about dual enrollment & vocational education Washington DC, Jul 2019

Attended 2019 NCES STATS-DC Data Conference, Topic about SAT Adversity Score, Washington DC, Jul 2019

ScholarMatch HQ Visiting & Networking in San Francisco, Jul 2019

ScholarMatch 2019-2020 Coaches @ Mission High School, San Francisco, Jul 2019

ScholarMatch 2019 Convening Training @ Mission High School, San Francisco, Jul 2019

HECA (Higher Education Consultant Association) 2019 Annual Conference @ Providence, RI Jun 2019