About Us
We work with students and families at every stage of education, from early learning through the college process. Combining our experience in preschool–high school guidance and college consulting, we work together so every family gets the full benefit of our team.
DR. JOANNE CARRIS
Director of Preschool - High School Support
For almost thirty years, Dr. Joanne Carris has helped families with educational challenges and transitions confidently and compassionately. Joanne applies a holistic perspective to difficult educational decisions and questions, always considering the full context of a child’s learning experience. By integrating her carefully cultivated knowledge as a learning specialist and naturopath, Joanne provides families with specialized guidance that maintains an eye for the big picture within a strengths-based approach. When necessary, she also draws on her comprehensive network of practitioners to refer families for integrated support.
In preschool-through-college admissions for both neurotypical and neurodiverse children, Dr. Carris understands how overwhelming the process can be for families. With her extensive expertise of the NYC independent school landscape, she helps parents navigate the complexities of the admissions process, shaping her guidance by their short- and long-term hopes and goals. In admissions counseling with older students, especially college applicants, Dr. Carris roots the process in self-discovery--helping each student arrive with confidence and enthusiasm at a school where they will thrive.
Prior to founding Map the Path, Joanne was an in-school learning specialist for over a decade and, after attaining her Doctorate in Education, founded and directed Premier Tutors, which provided tutoring, homeschooling services, and college application consulting to children throughout the East Coast and California. For over fifteen years, the organization was the trusted referral partner to independent schools throughout New York City, collaborating with teachers, administrators, and psychologists to meet each student's needs. Premier Tutors brought Dr. Carris and Map the Path's Director of College Support, Kiran Rikhye, together in 2014, as they shared a passion for through every stage of their educational path.
Dr. Carris earned her PhD in Education and a MA in Philosophy of Education from the CUNY Graduate Center, as well as a MA in Bilingual Special Education from the Bank Street College of Education. Early in her teaching career, she trained and studied extensively with the Light Harmonics Institute, an Energy Medicine Clinic and Education Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to understand students' learning and school challenges through a physiological lens as well as an academic one. During her own PreK-12 days, Joanne attended the Town School and Trinity School in NYC.
Joanne is the author of The Ghosts of No Child Left Behind, winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award, which critiqued how policy reforms were undermining effective reading instruction and which predicted many of the systemic breakdowns we are confronting in education today.
KIRAN RIKHYE, MA
Director of College Support
Kiran Rikhye has been guiding students and families through the transition from high school to college for over twenty years. She has worked with students at independent schools, public schools, and in homeschool settings, shepherding students with diverse strengths and temperaments into the next stage of their education.
With a nuanced understanding of how students mature through the college process and a long-term familiarity with how admissions climates shift over time, Kiran partners with each family to help students choose colleges that are truly the right fit. to craft applications that are strategically savvy, authentic and cohesive.
She supports students through all aspects of the college process, from academic planning to school selection to school selection, while also helping families navigate the emotional and logistical dimensions of the process. She not only simplifies and demystifies the college process but helps students emerge from it feeling confident and clear about who they are and where they're headed.
Having spent many years as a tutor in academic subjects, test prep, and executive function, and as a private English teacher for students of all ages, Kiran understands how prior learning experiences shape students as they approach the college process. She has also designed interdisciplinary homeschool curricula and Individualized Home Instruction Plans (IHIPs), giving her deep familiarity with alternative educational pathways and nontraditional transcripts.
Drawing on Kiran’s prior college consulting experience and expertise as a writer, when she joined Premier Tutors, she created and led a Writing Initiative Program for high school students, honing their writing skills for both college application writing and their future academic work. Within this initiative, Kiran also strengthened students’ executive function abilities—essential skills for moving through the college admissions process. Students benefited tremendously from this one-on-one instruction, as they gained refined writing skills, beneficial organizational strategies, and enhanced knowledge for handling the admissions process with precision and purpose.
Kiran's own college application process brought her from The Dalton School in New York to Swarthmore College, where she received her BA in English Literature. She received her MA in English & Comparative Literature from Columbia University.