Our Mission
Our mission is simple, to eliminate the financial barrier to college admissions.
We want to provide every student with the guidance, support, and confidence they need to take their next step toward college, career, and a brighter future. To achieve this we created we created three models: one partnering with schools to remove the cost burden of help from students and to lower the workload put on high school counselors, our second model consists of classes that provide information and guidance at an extremely affordable rate for students who don’t fall into our partnership program. Our third model provides the benefits of private tutoring at a fraction of the cost through small groups.
Why I Found NextStepEDU
Dominique Csehill, Founder & CEO
In high school, I was a high achiever: 35 ACT, National Karate Champion, Varsity Badminton, Greenhouse president. But when it came time to apply to college, I was completely lost. I didn’t know how to showcase my potential, and I ended up settling for less, not because I lacked ability, but because I lacked guidance.
My journey into admissions started unexpectedly during college. I offered to write two of my friends transfer applications to other colleges (which I now know you should never do). When both of them received offers from Harvard, word spread and I eventually had multiple clients a week. I was soon recruited by an ivy league application consulting agency and worked with them for a few years where I maintained a 100% top 3 choice admittance rate. From there, I was even invited to do a special graduate program at MIT Sloan for our company. To further improve myself as a consultant, I wanted to know the admission process from the admission officer’s perspective. For the past year I have worked as a part of the graduate admissions team at Boston University’s business school to gain an insider perspective on how applications are reviewed.
After years in this field, I’ve truly become sick of the injustice I’ve witnessed in higher education. I saw countless F students pay more than $10,000 to consultants, every single one of those students went on to attend a top 10 school. One of my feedback reports was to “sell fear to parents more” as a strategy to increase sales. At my breaking point one of my students with a 2.6 GPA and 1 internship told me they paid a $15,000 bribe to get in to a prestigious school in NYC, and they received their offer letter 2 months later. Even working in admissions, I have noticed that students with less talent can get seats at competitive schools not because they had better grades, test scores, or robust extracurriculars, but because they had consultants who knew how to nail a college application (trust me I was one of them). In this system I have been the struggling student, the high price tag ivy league consultant, and the admissions reader. I understand this system well because of how integrated I am in multiple areas.
My mission is to remove the cost burden of help, and by partnering with schools eliminate 100% of costs for students. That’s why I created NextStep EDU: to remove the thousand dollar cost barrier and make expert guidance accessible to every student. Our goal is simple—bring the same information and support students usually pay thousands for directly into schools, where it belongs. Every student deserves the opportunity to dream big and receive the tools to get there. I’m committed to helping make that a reality.
If you want to help me, this is your call to action. Whether you want to bring this resource to your school, join our team, receive guidance/ help, cover our story, or have a quick question, please shoot us an email, text, or call.