College Admissions Counseling

Goal setting and finding strengths:

What fields of study or careers are you interested in pursuing? With some schools offering more than a hundred majors, choosing a major can be incredibly daunting. However, with the support of our college counselors, we can help you find the best academic fit, whether it be economics, engineering, politics, or medicine. You will work with our counselors to assess your academic strengths and weaknesses. What classes do you enjoy most? What subjects do you feel most comfortable in? What academic areas have you not been able to explore quite yet? By assessing your performance so far, we can offer insights into some potential fields of study or careers that may be of interest to you. With these options in mind, we have connections with students and workers in a wide breadth of disciplines. Thus, we will be able to connect you with mentors and advisors that can be incredibly helpful in better understanding what a career in a particular field will look like. Once you find a potential academic fit, we can help you figure out which activities to partake in to make you stand out as an applicant for your field of study or potential career path. For instance, we will advise you on which classes to take, which summer programs to apply for, and which extracurriculars to prioritize. 

Making your college list:

Which colleges should you apply to? International schools? US schools only? Public or private universities? In-state or out-of-state? Should prestige or fit be prioritized in the college search? These are all questions that we will work with you to answer and find the colleges that will be best for your future. We will help you narrow your search from the 20,000+ colleges and universities around the world to a select few on which you can focus your attention. Through this process, you focus on becoming the most competitive applicant to the schools that truly matter for you. With our many years of experience, we will help guide you in determining which schools are reach, target, or safety schools, so all three types of schools can be included on your college list. We can also work with your family’s financial prospects to pick schools that are more likely to be cost-effective or within one’s ideal budget. With past students at so many different schools, we know which schools typically offer more or less aid to applicants and what opportunities there may be to apply for scholarships. With a potential major or career in mind, we will help you find the schools that excel in that field and have the most connections for building your dream career. We will have various discussions with you to discuss what is most important for you in your college journey? Is it location? Being close to home? Living in a new state or country? Prestige? Extracurricular activities? Social life? Cost? These discussions will allow us to help you find the best college fit for you. With these considerations in mind, we will guide you each step of the way and will advise you on how many schools to apply to given your background and goals. 

Navigating applications and deadlines:

Every school has a different application process and often different deadlines. Some schools are on the Common App, while others are not. Some public school systems have independent application portals. Some schools create their own portals. Which schools want supplemental materials? Should you apply early decision or regular decision to your top school? We will make sure you understand all of your options for applying to schools on your list and choose the option that best aligns with your goals. We will assist you in properly completing all applications and use your tailored college list to help you organize and stay on top of the many deadlines and moving pieces of applying to college. Many students are applying to colleges while also trying to excel in classes and extracurriculars, which makes the whole process even more burdensome. We strive to make the process as smooth as possible for you. We will have continuous check-ins with you to make sure your questions are answered and you are progressing at a pace that will allow you to submit all your applications on time. 

Writing essays and asking for letters of recommendation:

Most colleges request some form of personal statement, as well as some supplemental essays. These essays are an incredibly valuable opportunity to showcase who you are and why you want to attend the college you are applying for. Colleges are not admitting statistics, they are admitting people. Thus, they want to know who is the person behind the GPA or test score. They want to know that the student they are admitting will fit and contribute to the campus culture. Additionally, schools tend to prefer students that are truly interested in attending their school. Therefore, the essay is a wonderful opportunity to highlight why you are interested in attending the school you are applying for. Conversations with our counselors about which schools to apply to will be vital when writing this part of your application essays since you will have discussed concrete reasons for applying to each of the schools on your list. Our counselors will help you create a narrative around your application that will increase your chances for admission. We will also help you consider which teachers to ask for letters of recommendation. The letters from these teachers should fit into the character you are trying to illustrate in your application essays, so carefully selecting which teachers or mentors to ask is very important. Depending on your background, a strong letter of recommendation may come from a teacher, a coach, a work supervisor, or a music instructor. With our help, you will be able to identify the mentors who best balance the rest of your application. With our guidance, you will also know exactly how to ask your recommender and what to provide them so that they can write the strongest recommendation possible. 

Finalizing and reviewing your applications:

As you move forward with your applications, we will monitor your progress and assess which areas of your application are strongest and which areas offer areas for improvement. This review process will allow you to continuously edit and strengthen your application before submission. Our advisors have many years of experience editing college essays, so they have a strong intuition for which types of essays are more or less successful for admissions. We will review and send comments on your essays so that they express the full narrative you are trying to portray in your application. We will help you tie any loose knots of your application and ensure that you submit your applications before each of their respective deadlines. Furthermore, we will help you include your extracurricular activities on your applications in a manner that most effectively showcases the time and hard work you have put into these activities.

Applying for financial aid and scholarships:

Educational costs have become an incredibly large burden for many families, and tuition increases have not been slowing down. In turn, we can provide assistance navigating the deadlines and requirements of applying for financial aid as well as any outside scholarships. We will provide resources that have helped our past students afford the colleges they are now attending. We will work with you to write essays for these scholarships as well, which will help put your best foot forward and increase your chances of receiving scholarships that can be applied to tuition and living costs. 

Preparing for college interviews:

Most selective colleges require an alumni interview as a part of your admission file. Students are typically invited for these interviews after all application materials have been submitted, and working with our counselors will maximize your chances of being invited for these interviews. Once invited to an interview, our college counselors will help guide you throughout the preparation process. With so many past students, we have a thorough understanding of what interviewers tend to look for in students and what helps students stand out in these interviews. We will complete practice interviews with you to help you manage any nervousness or jitters. These mock interviews will allow you to more clearly articulate your answers and express more confidence in your interview, which will lead your interviewer to include a more positive note in your admissions file. 

Managing waitlists and selecting your college!

After so many months of crafting applications and nervously waiting to hear back from admissions departments, selecting a college is the most exciting part of the application process. However, this decision is also the most impactful so should not be taken lightly. Your final decision will ultimately shape what the next several years of your life look like, so making the most informed decision will be of utmost importance. Working with our counselors throughout the application process, you will already have a very good idea of which schools excite you the most. However, these feelings are constantly evolving, and that is okay! We will work with you and have discussions with you to select the college that will make you the happiest and will best set you up for your ideal career path. We have contacts with students at universities across the nation, so we can help set you up for college visits that can give you an additional insight into the campus culture and environment. In addition to helping you select a school to commit to, we can help you navigate the process of managing waitlist decisions and expressing continued interest in these schools. By expressing this continued interest, these universities will keep your application in mind as spaces open up. Finally, by putting you in contact with college students that have made similar decisions in the past, you will be able to ask your most pressing questions to students that can shed new light or perspective to your decision.