College Admissions - The Ultimate Guide

WELCOME TO THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROCESS! LET US BE THE first to say congratulations…and hold on tight. As your child flies high exploring campus culture and digs deep to create memorable admissions essays, hidden aspects of the application process will require some careful planning on your part. We know what you’re thinking: Missing work for campus tours, untangling the complex web of financial aid, and tackling travel logistics (not just for a weekend, but for four years of holidays and summers off) feels unmanageable. But it isn’t—you just need all the right resources, guidance, and advice from the foremost experts. For students, we’ll unlock the secrets of where to apply, how to get in, and how they can thrive in their new environment. And if it’s not a good fit?…

ACCEPTANCE RATES, EXTRACURRICULARS, recommendation letters, faculty-student ratios: Get accustomed to new themes that are sure to dominate the dinner table conversation (and bomb your text feed) for the remainder of your child’s high school years. And for good reason: Choosing where to apply to college is the biggest joint decision your family may ever make, one that will dictate the very direction of your child’s future. Whether they have their heart set on a certain school, are still playing the field, or have no thoughts at all as to what they want (it’s much more common than you think), we can help your student break down their options, intelligently assess the likelihood of acceptance, and develop a personalized action plan for admission.…

NOW COMES THE FUN PART! The goal of this phase—developing a solid list of realistic prospective schools your child will want to go to and have a good chance of thriving at—opens the floodgates to a whirlwind of productive virtual tours and in-person visits where your child will finally get their first sweet taste of campus life. Helping your child choose where they want to apply is an exercise in communication like no other; one where you get to learn more about what their future looks like through their eyes. Some kids may have an idea of what subject they’d like to major in; others will be driven more by what they know (or what they think they know) about the environment they’d want: a big university with a Division…

THERE ARE PROS AND CONS TO EVERY COLLEGE EXPERIENCE, AND your student may have to do some soul searching to understand which parameters matter more to them. It’s a famously challenging time for students and parents: While your child’s happiness and success depend on finding out which schools are good matches for their achievements and interests. and interests, that same child may well have never considered any of this before, and may not KNOW what they want. And that’s a problem. But by helping them understand how to translate what they know about themselves into a particular aspect of the college experience, you can help them focus on better alternatives and and eliminate those that fall outside their comfort zone. Let’s take a close look at some of the key…

THE SHORT LIST OF SCHOOLS your child intends to apply to defines a specific set of possible futures. There are no guarantees in this exciting, hope-filled, nerve-wracking, highly competitive process, so defining this list is crucial for optimizing your child’s chances of getting into a school that’s a great fit. An applicant who aims too high across the board runs the risk of being locked out of admissions entirely. But one who plays it too safe might receive a stack of acceptance letters…to schools that can’t help them reach their full potential, leaving them forever wondering about what might have been. “Defining this list is crucial for optimizing your child’s chances of getting in.” That’s why many applicants choose a strategy (recommended by The Princeton Review) of applying to schools…

“The good news is that choosing the right college has actually gotten easier.” THERE ARE MORE THAN 5,000 PRIVATE AND PUBLIC COLLEGES IN the U.S. alone. With your child’s happiness riding on so many factors—matching scores, personality, ability, and achievements—how do you even begin to do the research to discover which of these schools would be the best fit for their strengths and interests? The good news is that choosing the right college has actually gotten quite a bit easier in the past few years, thanks to a variety of online tools. Specialized software is a great tool to assist students in searching for their perfect college by location, major, school type or campus life. These tools are already employed by many high schools, with an emphasis on matching students’…