To be clear, many students successfully apply to and receive acceptances from colleges, without any professional assistance. Independent Education Consultants (IEC's) are not a necessity. However, college admissions has changed significantly over the past 25 years (with changes ongoing year to year), and for students applying to multiple colleges, it is time-consuming and often complex. Their high school-based counselors generally serve hundreds of students, and do not have the time to coach each student through the process. IEC's offer a depth of knowledge and experience, as well as organizing tools, to help dial back the stress and confusion for students and their families, for a college admissions process structured for success as well as sanity.

No college consultant can offer a guarantee of admission to any college. What we can do is to advise our clients to apply to a range of colleges: those which the student should easily be admitted to, those which are right on target for the student's history and application, and those which might be a stretch. We find that this strategy provides the best opportunity for students to receive acceptance letters from colleges they will be excited about.

The truth is that even for middle school students, we are able to make class selection suggestions and extracurricular activity suggestions that can help make students more competitive in the college admissions process. That being said, most students start working with us in their junior year or the summer before their senior year.

Yes, although our physical location is the West Valley/Calabasas area of Los Angeles, much of our work is done virtually. Because of this, we are able to serve students all over the United States. For those students who live locally, our meetings will likely be a hybrid of in-person and virtual.

We will provide information and direct you to additional resources available to help you complete the FAFSA, the PROFILE (if needed), as well as scholarship search sites.