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Irena Smith is a former Stanford admissions officer, independent college counselor, and public speaker. She emigrated from the former Soviet Union with her parents when she was nine years old, and in spite of her fierce insistence that she would never, not ever, learn English, she went on to earn a PhD in Comparative Literature and taught literature and composition at UCLA and Stanford before transitioning to college admissions work and writing. She has spoken about humanizing the college admissions process at the Pebble Beach Authors and Ideas Festival as well as in a 2024 TEDx talk and, when not writing or speaking, enjoys reading three or four books at one time, championing the Oxford comma, and routinely infuriating her family by pointing out the difference between "less" and "fewer" at every opportunity.
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