Liz Durham

DCA founder, Liz Durham, brings 15 years of experience working in university admissions to her consulting practice. With a well-established reputation for easing stress and helping students create a competitive application, Liz founded DCA with the vision of personalizing and simplifying the application process for the whole family. Each family has specific goals and needs, and with overwhelmed guidance counselors managing 50-60 students, Liz saw an opportunity to support students in a more customized way. Durham College Advising specializes in 4-year, undergraduate, university applicants.

Liz’s career began on the admissions team at her alma mater, Villanova University and then continued on to New York City. At Wagner College and Sarah Lawrence College, she was not only responsible for making admissions decisions on hundreds of applicants each year, she also saw it as her personal responsibility to guide families through the overall process. This attitude is what led her to found DCA.

Staying up-to-date on current admissions trends, Liz spends about 20% of her time visiting university campuses, meeting with admissions professionals and attending industry conferences. She is a Professional member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA).

When asked about her favorite part of the admissions process, Liz answered, “It’s simple. There is no greater joy than reading the final draft of a student’s college essay. There’s a reason colleges haven’t done away with the essay portion: it’s the one opportunity left for a student to show their individuality to the admissions committee. The final draft of that essay is like a trophy of all the work and soul searching they put into the application.”