What we have valued most about Janet’s work with our college bound children is her ability to get them talking about their general career interests, as well as preferences for a college setting and experience. She has a vast knowledge about most U.S. universities and is able to filter these to a workable list of schools for us as parents as well as our children to consider. While the work effort was challenging, the stress was eliminated. All in all, Janet was a perfect fit for our needs and we appreciate the benefits of our association.

John & Sarah, Son Attended Boston College

Your system works. Both of our children were accepted by their first choice schools and are doing great!

We are proud to say that our son is now a freshman at Princeton University. The school is giving him everything he asked for when he first met with you two years ago, including a very generous financial aid package. Our son was accepted to eight amazing schools – including Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth – and won a prestigious full tuition scholarship to the University of Rochester. He had a tough time making his decision about which school to choose and your advice to him even at that juncture was invaluable. I have recommended your service to all of our friends because having gone through it; I deeply believe that without your assistance, our son might not have ended up at the school of his dreams. Of course, in the end, his amazing academic record garnered him acceptance to such prestigious colleges. In today’s hypercompetitive college application contest, however, where the acceptance rate at an Ivy League school is less than 10%, something as small as a poorly written essay or an interview that goes badly makes the difference between an acceptance and a rejection letter. We will be forever grateful that you helped our son achieve his dream. We cannot thank you both enough.

Our daughter is on her way to a happy, bright, successful future. We couldn’t have done it without her help.

From our very first meeting in the fall of our son’s junior year, you encouraged him to discuss all of his thoughts about college and listened carefully to all of our concerns. We were particularly impressed that you spoke with our son separately from us before meeting with all three of us, encouraging him to be a part of the process and to take ownership of it. After much discussion and exploration, you compiled a list of schools that met the criteria we were looking for and designed a schedule for the next year and a half that included visiting each college, standardized testing (SATs, SAT IIs), applications and interviews. You gave him a binder full of wonderful materials for him to read that covered the whole college application process as well as applying for financial aid. You then set up a schedule of times you would meet with him to help him at each juncture (i.e. reading over his college essays, practicing his interview skills, cutting the list of schools down when it came time to fill out applications).

By starting early and working closely with you both, it made the whole process both understandable and manageable, which helped to minimize both our and our son’s anxieties. Before he started his senior year, by following your schedule, he had completed all his college tours and standardized testing and could focus on a core group of schools, their applications and interviews. You were available to proofread every essay (each of the schools he applied to had extensive supplemental applications along with the common application) and to speak with him before every interview. You also held my hand through the financial aid maze of the CSS Profile and the FAFSA. Our son was the only one of his friends who was so organized and it paid off in the quality of his applications, allowing him the time he needed for each application so that the beauty and creativity of his writing could come through. While many of his friends did not get into their top choices, our son was accepted to all of his.

Janet taught me how to bring forth my strengths and analyze what makes me unique. She showed me how to convey my success as a high school student and how to continue that success in the future. Not only was she an absolute pleasure to work with, but she also removed a lot of the stress involved with applying for colleges by setting attainable goals and outlining the specific steps needed to get into my top colleges. Through Janet’s direction, I stayed motivated and felt prepared when the time came to hit the application submit button.

You reduced the stress between us and our kids. You did the nagging and let us be the good guys.

My husband and I cannot thank you enough for all the wonderful work you both did helping our son with the whole college application process. I had heard so many horror stories from other parents about what they and their students went through that I was approaching my son’s junior year with dread.

We were especially concerned because he was looking for very specific things from college – a top math and science school; an engineering program, but not one where he is locked in to a college of engineering, courses in the arts so he could continue to explore his interests in art, music and film, and a school where the professors would be mentors and foster collaboration among the students. We feared no school could combine all these factors.

In addition, we had two other concerns

1. To make sure we applied to schools that give excellent financial aid packages.
2. To have enough schools outside the top competitive ones that my son wanted to make sure he would end up at a school where he would be happy.

My son was an outstanding high school student. He ended up Valedictorian of his class and was named the top science student in his high school, but I was very leery of the Ivy League due to the low acceptance rate. Your experience and knowledge of every college helped us put together a list of colleges that met his needs and your support and encouragement helped give us the confidence to apply to the nation’s finest colleges, Ivies included.