Services for Students and Families

Comprehensive Services

Our most popular option, comprehensive services include all services described below. A comprehensive service contract runs from the point of engagement (usually in a student's 10th or 11th grade year) through the matriculation decision. A comprehensive service contract is our most cost-effective option and includes all core services described below.

Core College Counseling Services

General Consultation

In this one hour session, we discuss your/your student's hopes and aspirations, identify potential obstacles or barriers to those goals, and create a strategy to ensure a successful set of college application outcomes. General consultations always produce concrete action steps, and this session forms the basis of any future counseling services provided. The cost of this consultation is also subtracted from any future contract services and is suitable for all high school students. You can sign up for a general consultation appointment here.

College List Building

Specifically designed for sophomores and juniors, our college list building service provides students and families with a deeply researched and thoughtfully curated list of best-fit colleges and universities based on student aspirations, intended major/field of study, career interest, university culture, size, geography, amenities, distinctive programs, and graduate outcomes. Counselors use student-provided academic data to provide a full range of potential colleges and universities based on admissions selectivity and provide students with all necessary tools to engage in meaningful research.

Career Education and Assessment

Designed to educate students about the world of work while also bringing awareness to a student's natural strengths and aptitudes, our career education and assessment service exposes students to a wide range of professions and educates students and families about the full range of postsecondary pathways available to join those professions. Used in conjunction with college list building, our career education and assessment tools can be instrumental in helping students discern an intended course of study. Our CEA tools are ideal for students in the early stages of their high school career.

Application Strategy Consultation

Designed for rising seniors, this consultation is best for students and families who have already identified a list of colleges and universities to which they might apply and need assistance in choosing appropriate application plans and devising application completion timelines. By taking a student's anticipated list and checking it against their academic and extracurricular credentials to ensure balance, our counselors can best advise how to complete applications in such a way to maximize positive responses.

Application Essay Coaching

By far our most popular standalone service, our counselors work one-on-one with applicants to help them craft meaningful and effective personal essays. In addition to the Common Application Personal Essay, students may choose to work with our counselors to brainstorm, draft, revise, and edit up to two full supplemental essays, four short response paragraphs, and the University of California's Personal Insight Questions. Additional essay prompts can be coached for a fee.

Application Assistance

From managing application deadlines and helping students stay on track with meeting those deadlines to counseling students through how best to complete their applications to providing proofreading before applications are submitted, our application assistance service is designed to help high school seniors complete and submit their very best college applications.

Interview Preparation

Some colleges and universities will offer an interview as an element of the evaluation process. For a handful of institutions, including US Service Academies, this element of the college process can be critically important. We offer interview coaching and preparation, including mock interviews and feedback sessions.

Outcomes Management

As college admissions has become more complex, so have the types of responses these institutions make to applications. Our outcomes management service helps students and families to understand application responses, especially in the case of deferral or wait-list, when an applicant's proactive response can make a positive difference in the application's ultimate outcome. This service can also be helpful for students choosing between multiple offers of admission or who need additional time to make a matriculation decision.

Financial Aid Counseling

Designed for students and their families, our financial aid counseling service educates students and families about the types of assistance available, assists in applying for financial aid using the FAFSA and/or the CSS Profile, and helps families navigate their relationships with financial aid offices, especially when the need for verification or award reconsideration based on professional judgment arises. Our counselors can also help students and families understand financial aid offers, negotiate additional aid, and identify outside sources of aid through local scholarships or other last-dollar assistance programs.

Specialized College Counseling Services

Services for Students with Learning Differences

Students with diagnosed learning differences often need additional structure and support when engaging in the college search, application, and selection process. Our counselors are trained to help LD students and their families navigate the additional considerations that a learning difference will add to the process. From collaborating with school counselors and educational psychologists to ensure appropriate accommodations to helping identify specific LD services on college campuses to recommending institutions with additional support services to providing additional scaffolding at every step of the process, our additional LD support services are designed with different learners in mind.

Services for Visual and Performing Artists

For students who know that they want to study in the visual or performing arts at a specialized or conservatory level, this service is designed to help student-artists identify appropriate programs and to design and curate a portfolio of their creative work as they prepare for the additional selection criteria that many fine arts programs require. This service includes outside portfolio consultation.

Services for Student-Athletes

Do you or does your student aspire to continue playing a sport in college? Athletic recruitment requires additional time and proactive steps. Our counselors are trained to help student-athletes understand the specific recruitment landscapes and timelines based their sport of interest and to maximize their chances to interact with college programs of interest to them. From helping compose athletics resumes to providing advice and feedback on the elements of an athlete's recruiting portfolio to providing insight into the intersection of athletics, academics, and the NCAA initial eligibility process, our counselors are trained to provide sound, unbiased counsel as student-athletes pursue their dreams.

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