Getting Help With Your College Application

With the explosion of accredited universities, expansion of teaching modalities (hello online courses), and rising costs of college tuition, there is more pressure than ever to select the right institution. But, how do you sift through the programs? How do you inventory requirements? How do you even know if you’ll like the campus and culture once you get there?

Getting Help

This is where college application consulting can be enormously helpful. We live in a world of specialists. If your ankle is bothering you, you consult a podiatrist. If you need to draw up an estate plan, you meet with an attorney. You could research the causes of ankle problems or use an online template for your estate documents, but how much time will it take? And will you get the best results?

A skilled college application and admissions consultant will methodically evaluate an applicant and then provide a range of well-considered recommendations. After all, you want to get the best possible return on your college investment. Not only do you want to make sure that your money is well spent, but that the time and capacity investment is worth it. There are opportunity costs to every decision, and with many thousands of dollars and years at stake, you’ll want to consider all of the following:

• Individual interests
• Culture and personality fit
• Acceptance probability
• Continuing education or career placement services
• Scholarship or financing options

Crafting A Plan

When partnering with a trusted advisor to provide college application consulting, college shopping is demystified. The consultant will interview the college-bound student to create a comprehensive profile that factors in core interests, personality, and aptitudes, and match it to professions and school programs that would be a strong fit.

From there, the list can be winnowed down via criteria like admission likelihood based on academic record, and whether an institution offers an advanced degree, combined ungraduated and graduate programs, job placement, or paid internships.

Then, once the “final list” is compiled, the college application consulting process will result in a concrete game plan that outlines the admission process for each school. It will itemize specialized requirements for individual programs and provide school-specific, general, and circumstance-based scholarship opportunities.

While there are obviously fees associated with this type of consulting, the goal is for the benefits to far outstrip the costs, and it’s easy to see how this is possible. With the successful pairing of student and university, one that leads to a high level of student engagement, lowers tuition costs through savvy scholarship procurement, and culminates in a fulfilling career. With that kind of outcome, the investment pays a lifetime of dividends.