Comprehensive College Counselors
ESTABLISHED 2011 | BASED IN GREENVILLE, SC | SERVING FAMILIES EVERYWHERE
Founded by a selective college admissions expert, Hope College Counseling helps students and parents confidently navigate every aspect of the college admissions process together through comprehensive, expert guidance, essay writing support, interview preparation, and more.
(Formerly known as Murtaugh College Consulting)
Our Core Values
As your counselors, we partner with your family throughout your journey.
These five core values drive everything we do with you and for you.
Patience
We aim to be supportive, calming, and patient as you go through a tough, complex, sometimes stressful process.
Personal
Our process is a personal one - and one that honors your strengths and is true to who you are.
Potential
For students, we’re here to help you see and realize your tremendous potential, and discover your light.
Partnership
Whether you are the parent, guardian or the student, we’re on the same team. We seek to provide the guidance that enhances and holds your team together to cross the finish line successfully.
Peace
In all that we do, we strive to bring as much peace to your journey to college as possible.
Meet our team
With more than 40 years of combined experience, our team is here for you and your student, every step of the way.
Over the years, we’ve physically visited more than 75 colleges, including international universities. We’ve walked the campuses, reviewed thousands of essays, prepped for hundreds of interviews, and celebrated countless acceptance letters!
And we’re ready to help you navigate that process as your dedicated partners. Let’s work together towards your student’s success.
Valerie Shafer Bynum
President
Valerie has a deep belief in the power of self-empowerment when it comes to college applications or interviews. With over 20 years of experience working with young adults, she has helped many individuals develop and enhance their communication skills to put their best selves forward.
Valerie holds a degree in marketing and has spent over a decade working in customer service and sales, which has helped her understand the importance of self-marketing. As the President and Lead Interview Specialist at Hope College Counseling, Valerie is committed to empowering students to achieve their goals. She is also the founder of Best U Interview, a Greenville-based company that serves clients globally.
Valerie has a track record of excellence in her work and is a three-time recipient of Merck & Company’s Vice Presidents’ Award. In addition, she has received the National PTA Life Achievement Award, which is the highest honor from the largest child advocacy organization in the nation. With her passion for empowering students and her proven success, Valerie is an asset to the field of college counseling and interview preparation.
Hope Murtaugh
Founder, Strategic Advisor
Hope is passionate about guiding students and their parents to college admissions success. She’s a selective college admissions expert and the founder of Hope College Counseling, an independent college admissions counseling practice.
Over the last 20 years, Hope has taught tens of thousands of students around the world how to optimize their college applications to top US colleges and universities. In her private practice, she’s guided more than 1,000 high school and middle school students to admissions success – consistently seeing a 25% higher overall acceptance rate to Ivy League schools compared to the national average. A former assistant director of admission and alumna of Princeton University, Hope knows what it takes to put your best application forward.
Hope currently lives in Greer, South Carolina, and often speaks on college admissions.
Michele Woodall
Director of Operations, Social Media
Michele has always been known as the listener, the encourager, and the person that helps people get “unstuck.” She’s learned, as so many of us do, that life is really a series of seasons that test us. High school and applying to college is just one such season. At times like this, we are left with two options: grow or stop blooming. At Hope College Counseling, Michele’s passion is to support students in this season (and their parents) and help them keep blooming.
Professionally, Michele has been developing and leading teams for over 35 years. She has spent 20 years as a Vice President in a banking environment, building teams and leaders across several states. Prior to banking, Michele owned a personal training and massage therapist business for 14 years in which she helped clients work towards achieving their personal and physical goals. Michele’s passion to help people achieve their goals has been a theme throughout her life. After leaving her corporate career, she has continued this passion by becoming a Certified Life and Grief Coach through her practice, Michele Woodall Coaching.
Michele's experience of guiding others through life’s transitions extended naturally to helping us guide teenagers through their transition from high school to college, and her planning and organizational expertise have added a valuable dimension to Hope College Counseling’s operations.
Angie Boyce
Student Organizational Support
Angie is a multi-talented researcher, strategist, and motivator who is always ready to answer any question. At Hope College Counseling, she plays a crucial role in ensuring that students and families stay on track throughout the complex college application process. Angie is gifted at multitasking while maintaining precision and thoroughness, a quality that she has honed through years of experience.
With a degree in Political Science, Angie is a proud representative of the South Carolina Gamecocks. However, as her twins attend Clemson University, she is also a devoted Clemson Tiger fan. Angie has extensive experience in project planning and execution, both professionally and as a volunteer. She is a wealth of information that is incredibly useful and effective for both students and counselors. Angie is passionate about making a difference in the lives of children and young adults and has received several awards and recognitions for her outstanding work, including the PTA Volunteer of the Year Award (Greenville, SC, District 1) and Allstate - Personal Underwriter of the Year for Washington, DC (Capital Region).
Angie has always been engaged with students, respected by her peers, and sought after by decision-makers. From conducting tours to creating training manuals to providing tutoring, she enjoys researching any topic and delving deeper into any college major, summer program, or campus to help students find the perfect fit. Angie works collaboratively with everyone at Hope College Counseling to streamline procedures, ensure efficiency, and help students meet their deadlines and achieve their dreams.
Our Mission
We believe that getting into college isn’t about looking like a great applicant – it’s about becoming one.
Setting your child up for success isn’t about writing a great essay. It’s about empowering them to make their greatest choices at this important time in their lives. We want your student to not only “get in,” but to feel ready to thrive wherever they go.
That’s why we partner with you and your student on everything related to their college admission – and we do so through a guided process of self-discovery.
For so many students, applying to college is the very first opportunity they have to engage in self-awareness and reflection.
With this in mind, we take a much more comprehensive and personal approach than most college counseling practices.
As experts and accountability partners, we empower our students to choose their own best-fit colleges, prepare for interviews, and (yes!) write essays. In work that’s critical to reaching those goals, we also show students how to better understand their weaknesses, leverage their strengths, and develop their unique skills along the way. We help them uncover their spark and intentionally put it into action through powerful projects, activities, and more.
During our proven process, students both improve their applications and create positive impact for themselves and their communities during their high school careers. In short, they don’t just look like a perfect fit for their ideal schools – they fully become one.
Our team has led more than one thousand students (and their families) through the college admissions process, and we’re ready to help you have the best possible journey, too.
100% of our students have received admissions acceptance and have completed applications to their entire college list. And we’re thrilled to share that our acceptance rates have been more than double the average at highly selective colleges.
But most importantly, we love that our students (and their parents) grow through this process. Students go from worrying about essays and deadlines, to planning their futures with intention and - dare we say it - hope.
Every time we help a student discover their own light, we all celebrate. Because we believe that applying to college shouldn’t be so stressful – it should be your student’s time to shine.
- Hope Murtaugh & Valerie Shafer Bynum
College-searching families share …
“We will be forever grateful to our HCC counselor for helping our son gain admission to his first and second choice colleges, both highly selective. With her expert guidance and skillful prodding, he came to understand what he wanted from college, what he had to offer, and how to craft essays that described both in the best possible way.
What could have been a torturous experience was instead a journey to a level of self-awareness, and maturity, that is serving him well in college. Our counselor also gave us parents greater peace of mind!”
— Maria W., Parent (Mom of Princeton University Graduate & Wake Forest Junior)
“I was having a lot of trouble starting my essays, but my counselors guided me and helped me produce strong, unique, and competitive essays.
They were always available to review my essays. And even though I was late starting the application process, I was able to get everything done on time with their help.
I’m very thankful and so excited I got into my first choice school!”
— Caroline S., Student (Vanderbilt)
“My counselor went above and beyond to help my son. She spent countless hours talking with him and correcting essays.
She made the college application process less stressful and kept him on track.
She was even available very late one night to help us get an application in to secure good housing. We have two younger children and we hope HCC will help us with their college applications, too. We can't thank them enough!
— Melissa V., Parent