Sara Urquidez
Executive Director
Sara Urquidez’s passion for college access led her to the Academic Success Program (ASP), which works with students, parents, teachers, counselors, administrators, and college admissions officers to ensure that students from all backgrounds can access an affordable college education.
She first started as an ASP volunteer and took over as the Hillcrest High School college advisor in November 2012. Sara’s students earned more than $6 million in scholarships within 6 months, including the prestigious Gates Millennium Scholarship. Sara’s students were successfully admitted to UChicago, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Duke, Columbia, Rice, Stanford, and many other universities.
Shortly after her seniors graduated from high school, Sara took over as Executive Director. During her tenure, she has expanded the ASP network from 3 high schools in the Dallas Independent School District to 27 schools throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and Houston, serving more than 30,000 students each year.
Sara advocates for all students throughout the country by participating in multiple professional associations and scholarship committees. She serves on Executive Board of the Coalition for College, as well as the counselor advisory boards of Caltech, University of Pennsylvania, The University of Texas at Austin, and the Common Application.
Sara presents regularly on college admissions, access, and student issues at the National Association of College Admissions Counseling (NACAC), the National College Attainment Network (NCAN), College Board Forum, AP National Conference, College Board’s Dream Deferred conference, and the Texas Association of College Admissions Counseling (TACAC).
Brittany Leisy
Director of Curriculum Development
Brittany Leisy started her career as an English teacher at Moises E. Molina High School in 2013. Two years later, she eagerly took an opportunity to start at the groundbreaking of a new charter at ILTexas Keller-Saginaw High School where she advanced in leadership roles on the campus and in the district. With her nine years of educational leadership experience, Brittany eagerly joined the ASP team as the Director of Curriculum Development empowering advisors to be the best leaders they can be, and help as many students as possible find success and opportunity in their futures.
Brittany attended the University of North Texas and attained her Bachelors of Arts in English Literature. A year later, she attended Concordia University to earn her Masters of Educational Leadership. Education is not only important to Brittany personally, but she also sees the growing need of motivated, brave people to continue fighting for students’ right to have the education they want and deserve in life.
When Brittany is not working with advisors or developing SAT curriculum, you can find her reading in her library with over 1000 books, pulling her hair out on a challenging puzzle, loving on her numerous fur babies, or finding any and every opportunity she can to bring joy and humor to herself and those she loves.
Sarah Snyder
Director of Strategic Initiatives
A native Texan, Dallas ISD graduate, and lifelong DFW resident, Sarah Snyder has been working in education through most of her career. Sarah is acutely aware of the importance of equity, access, and affordability in college admissions. From working in the college counseling office of a private Dallas high school to being an admission counselor at her alma mater for 7 years, on both the freshman and transfer side, Sarah is extremely excited to join the ASP staff and advocate for higher education for all students.
Sarah received her B.A in psychology and exercise & sports science from Austin College in Sherman, TX, and earned a Master of Education from the University of North Texas. Prior to joining ASP, Sarah collaborated with ASP on presentations for NACAC (National Associate of College Admissions Counseling), TACAC (Texas Association of College Admission Counseling) and the College & Career Readiness Summit at Rice University.