Dr. Angelina Sylvain is a Graduate Coach with InGenius Prep and a Princeton-trained neuroscientist with over a decade of experience as a senior administrator at leading research universities. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Neuroscience from Princeton University and her B.S. in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine, where she received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research. She was also selected as a Neuroscience Scholars Fellow by the Society for Neuroscience.
Angelina’s admissions expertise is grounded in years of working at the institutional level — not as an outside observer, but as someone directly responsible for shaping how universities evaluate and select their students. As Vice Dean for Graduate Education at the University of South Carolina, she oversaw admissions strategy and academic experience for 8,000+ students across 240+ programs, serving as her institution’s primary resource on holistic review, applicant pathway development, and admissions equity. At Washington University in St. Louis, she led the university’s shift to GRE-optional admissions and redesigned the recruitment strategy for the Olin Fellowship for Women in Graduate Study, driving a 184% increase in applications and improving yield from 40% to 60% through targeted profile coaching and personalized advising.
Beyond her institutional work, Angelina has mentored students at every stage of their academic journeys. As a Graduate Researcher and Teaching Fellow at Princeton, she directly supervised 12 undergraduates and 2 graduate students, leading discussion sections, providing written feedback on student work, and mentoring junior researchers on academic writing and application strategy. Through the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni, she developed and led the Career Profile Series, Women in Negotiation Series, and LinkedIn Like a Pro — workshops on career positioning, professional identity, and application narrative building for graduate and postdoctoral alumni. She also interviews prospective undergraduates as a Princeton alumni interviewer, giving her continued firsthand exposure to the qualities and narratives that stand out at highly selective institutions. Her expertise has been recognized at national conferences, and she has a forthcoming book chapter contribution to “Reclaiming the Graduate Student Experience,” published by the John N. Gardner Institute.
A former varsity tennis player and chapter president of the California Scholarship Federation, Angelina brings a firsthand understanding of the pressures and priorities that shape a student’s academic journey. As a Graduate Coach, she is especially effective with students who need help turning a broad or scattered set of interests, experiences, and goals into a cohesive application strategy. She specializes in supporting students with Learning Differences and Transfer Admissions, and her coaching style is analytical, direct, and deeply student-centered — helping every applicant identify what is most distinctive about their background and build materials that feel focused, authentic, and compelling.
