We’re Natalie and Ryan,
cofounders of felix college prep.
So…Who’s Felix?
Felix is the persona that captures 2 things
that make our approach unique:
1. OUR DYNAMIC, JOYFUL TEACHING STYLE
Let’s be real. College prep is usually (at best) a snooze fest. Yet, we’re known for our ability to infuse this process with a joy that empowers, motivates, and even excites students.
We needed a name that captured how students describe us:
High Energy, Passionate, Walking College Databases,
Nerds who are funny … sometimes on purpose
2. AND YOU
Everything we do forms around our students and families: every lesson and every recommendation is personalized to the whole-student context.
To us, the name “Felix” personifies the relationship that forms when we join forces with students and families at this pivotal moment in the lives of emerging adults.
our story
natalie
For over 28 years, I’ve been passionate about helping all students achieve theIR fullest potential. Whether low-income/first gen, LGBTQIA+, Ivy bound, athletic, academic late-bloomers, over-comers, students who are neurodivergent or have learning differences. I don’t just want to help students get into college. I want to see them access their fullest potential to lifelong success, meaning, and purpose.
In many ways, I can say that my success as a teacher, student advocate, college expert are entirely due to a series of personal misfortunes I wished to help all students avoid. And now, so many years later, I wouldn’t trade a single struggle or hardship. I, do, however, manage any regret over missed opportunities by pouring my all into emerging adults on the verge of walking through the door that opens the most doors.
As a recent expatriate from Texas, a first generation, low-income student, I was determined and tenacious. But that didn’t save me from financial disaster that could easily have been avoided had I access to a single adult advisor.
My plan to afford college was thus:
- Live and work in California to establish in-state residence.
- Take out zero student loans so I can pursue dream jobs in education non-profits.
- Begin at community college.
My elation at attending my dream school on a full scholarship turned south with one surprise $8,000 bill ($16,000 in today’s money). Apparently, there was a change of heart about my in-state status. Owing to the fact that I didnt’ have a driver’s license (owing to the fact that I didn’t have a car).
I would lose my scholarship if I didn’t enroll continuously. But I didn’t have the money to re-enroll.
College was starting to feel like a bit of a scam…
The irony was that after a meteoric rise at The Princeton Review, I had helped hundreds of students access Ivy + schools. I started the Pusan, Korea franchise as a solo teacher the summer I turned 20 in no small part due to my achievement record.
I had both the highest student improvements and the highest student evaluation ratings in the nation. I believe these numbers were causal more than correlative. Additionally, I taught multiple tests, trained teachers, and helped develop curricula. All while attending community college.
On the side I gave it all away for free. I sought and taught any first gen, low income student I could, even while working two official jobs – my dream “vow-of-poverty” non-profit jobs and tutoring.
After leaving The Princeton Review for a higher quality learning environment, I repeated my record of success at a competing Big Box Education company. I was offered a tempting executive position.
I knew even with executive power, I could never reform Big Box Education to my standards. The heart of my success lay in the fact that I broke the rules and went off-script. It was 2005. I knew it was time I started my own company.
I set myself free as a teacher and wrote my dream curriculum designed to be adjusted in real-time for each student in response to how they were learning. I also formalized my unique approach to college essay writing in a revolutionary writing course that got powerful, cliche-free content from beginning writers.
I called my company Admission Accomplished and tripled my pro bono hours. It was 2005.
Fast forward to 2013: Many years after I recruited Ryan for The Princeton Review, he and I decide it’s time to power up together. We changed the name to Felix Personalized Prep to reflect our partnership with each other and with our students.
ryan
I love to see the look on my students’ faces when they learn of my “useless” B.A. in Film Studies and M.F.A in Screenwriting. After all, I’m not a famous screenwriter.
I’m a case study in what it means to extract value from a good education. I love how my students’ delight gives way to minor disbelief when I explain that I use all of what I learned from my college experience – Every. Single. Day.
I’m a trained master in story, and everything I do with students and their families is story: reading, analyzing, and telling.
I help students rewrite the story they tell themselves about who they are. This changes everything.
I help parents understand the story of each college on the list. What’s the story the college wants you to know? What’s the story the data tells? How can we read between the lines?
Finally, I help students harness their life’s experiences into the components of their college application: the most important story they will ever tell.
My life’s purpose is to help young people lock into their life’s purpose. I know firsthand the importance of not just getting into a good college, but making the most of it once you’re there.
Unlike Natalie, I came from a large family with an established generational record of attending excellent colleges. I made my folks proud when I accepted my offer to attend UC Berkeley. The only problem was that I had no clue why I did anything I did.
I was good at doing the things that got me into a good school: captain of varsity soccer, making excellent grades, featured player in many theatrical productions, clubs – you name it. But in hindsight, I was not “activated” even as the main character in my own story. Even though I chose these things because I enjoyed them, that was a far cry from getting on a path of my life’s purpose. I was still doing things because I was supposed to, because it was just what people do.
It was not until I arrived at Berkeley that I suddenly realized getting good grades didn’t equate to being meaningfully smart. Not yet. Though, again, I made the grades, it still took until the halfway point of college before I started doing things to beyond what was required, things I pursued in out of my own true curiosity and passion. I graduated with departmental honors and a senior these 4x as long as was typical. But in many ways, it wasn’t enough. I still lacked a road map for my next chapter.
Looking around, I saw this was true for almost all my peers, except for a few who chartered their own path. Upon graduating, too many of us discovered the hard way that a prestigious name on a diploma was not enough. Everyone needs a plan: a rough draft to start that you write and rewrite into a better story as you go.
I also discovered the importance of mentorship. Luckily, one of the few peers I knew who was continuously writing her own story saw something in me that put me on a path to one of my lifelong passions: Natalie insisted I consider teaching for The Princeton Review.
Under her mentorship, I was promoted to Master Tutor in under a year and ⅓ of the typical time and matched her track record of success with both score improvements and student evaluations.
She and I were in on a secret: our success was due to breaking all of the prescribed training. Natalie showed me how to change the prescribed manual we were all issued, how to abandon the scripted talking points written on the margins of the teacher’s editions, and how to teach the problems in a completely different way in a completely different order – all according to how the student learns.
I eventually left the Princeton Review for another Big Box Education company, developing curriculum, participating in teacher trainings, and once again earning top tutor status, all while attending a MFA program in Screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University, where I assisted in professor research, led undergrad discussion sections as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, and graduated on the Dean’s list and was selected as the Screenwriting Sony/TAG fellow.
the felix mission
In 2010, Ryan and Natalie became partners and opened the Felix Learning center in Alameda.
1. Increase access to higher quality higher education.
2. Work with a full spectrum of students by ability and income. We will never “cherry pick” students or families to favor a specific kind of applicant profile or prospective college list.
3. Build a student-centered learning experience and bring joy and acts of community to the college journey.
4. Learn from students and parents. Let their needs, and the dictates of the changing world, guide how we help.
