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
Chief People Officer
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 is excited to serve as Chief People Officer for the ASP team, 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.
Kaimen Goudy
Director of Strategic Initiatives
Kaimen Goudy is excited to serve as the Director of Strategic Initiatives. Previously, Kaimen served as the Lead College Advisors at W.T. White High School and loved working directly with students and their families. With her team, she was able to help students apply and get accepted in schools across the country and earn over $20 million dollars in scholarships in one year.
As an ASP alumni, she graduated from The University of Texas at Austin where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Government. Kaimen passionately believes that every student should have an equal opportunity to receive a higher education; she co-founded the Equity and Inclusion Committee on her college campus.
Growing up, Kaimen moved around a lot. Due to this, she attended 13 different K-12 schools. This upbringing allowed her to attend schools in various geographical, cultural, and educational settings. This transient beginning afforded her the opportunity to acquire a unique perspective of the education system. After witnessing the lack of equity for underrepresented and low-income students across the country, she became passionate about challenging the institutional systems and being a part of the solutions. As an ASP alumni, she has first-hand knowledge of how significant an individual college advisor is to a student during the college application process. Through ASP, Kaimen had that much-needed support in high school and is overjoyed to now be that support for students, families, and the ASP Advisors.
Larisa Kliman
Director of Special Programs
Larisa Kliman has been with ASP for 8 years and serves as the Director of Programming and oversees the ASP Ambassadors. The ambassadors are a student-led organization that focuses on peer-to-peer mentoring about the college process. The ASP Ambassadors are now at every ASP campus! Additionally, Ms. Kliman supports advisors to work more efficiently and effectively to ensure as many students are guided through the college process.
Ms. Kliman holds a B.S in Psychology and an M.S. in Higher Education Administration and has been in college admissions for over a decade. She is extremely passionate about higher education and making sure every student has an affordable college option. When she’s not editing essays, Ms. Kliman enjoys traveling, cooking, and spoiling her dog, Rosie.