Develop Your Brand

Find Your Balance

Extracurricular Activities

Develop Your Slate

Write a Compelling Essay

Scholarships & Financial Aid

What’s Included:

We offer a comprehensive college guidance program that typically starts in the sophomore year.  Our advisors will work with both students and parents, or independently with students, to provide guidance throughout the college application process. Regardless of when you engage us, we will guide you through this complex process and help evaluate college acceptances, scholarships and financial aid during the spring of senior year.

Module 1 – Personal Brand (4 hours)

A strong brand will set a student apart from their competition. With our guidance, your student will create a compelling and genuine portrait of themself that weaves extracurricular activities, sports, career interests, volunteer work, and hobbies. This will be their personal brand. A strong brand that is consistently integrated throughout an application will enable college admissions teams see a theme instead of checked boxes. It will portray what makes your student unique, how they will enrich the campus community and be a successful student. A strong brand will give your student an advantage over their competition.

Module 2 – Finding Balance (4 hours)

Competition in college admissions has never been tougher.  There are many choices in high school available today. We will help your student find balance in their available options for Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and dual-credit programs. We will help you create a custom road map to guide you and your student through these options. The intent is to create the most competitive student profile while enabling them to maintain balance.  In this module, we will also evaluate preliminary standardized test scores. If additional preparation is needed to increase scores, we will match your student with one of our test preparation partners.

Module 3 – Extracurricular Activities (4 hours)

While extracurricular activities enrich a candidate, there are often trade-offs between them and grades, ACT/SAT test scores and coursework. Whether your child is interested in student government, performing or visual arts, sports, volunteer work or part-time employment, these activities all add a unique perspective to their application.  In this module, our advisors will work with your student to enhance their resume to make them a stronger candidate.  This module dovetails closely with both Personal Brand and Finding Balance.

Module 4 – Develop Your Slate (6 hours)

Finding the right fit can be challenging.  In addition to intended major and academic reputation, we will explore your student’s preferences regarding enrollment, geographic area, setting, campus life, rigor of curriculum, and cost.  Using preferences, test scores, GPA, and budget, we will shape your list of candidate schools to include safety, match and stretch options.  This list will also highlight the average need-based and non-need-based aid awarded for each school.  Using a custom database that we have developed, we can predict acceptance for the schools on your student’s slate. We will also help your student develop a strategy for Early Action, Early Decision and scholarship application deadlines.

Module 5 – Essay Writing (10 hours)

A well-written essay will not only authentically portray your student and their brand, it will help tie their application package together.  Showing vulnerability, sense of humor or grit can all be great approaches to the message they want to craft about themself. We will pair your student with one of our writing coaches to collect their thoughts, and create a draft that will be refined through an iterative process. At the end of this module, your student will have put the finishing touches on a grammatically correct essay that interweaves their personal brand for overall application consistency.

Module 6 – Financial Analysis (2 hours)

Understanding what you and your child can contribute toward college tuition is critical in developing a realistic slate of colleges. There would be nothing more disappointing for your child to be accepted to their dream school and not be able to afford it. Setting realistic expectations early in the process is critical and will ensure we choose the right slate.

We will help you and your student develop a realistic budget for college tuition. For your student’s slate, we will target schools within your budget.  Our advisors will help you discern between merit scholarships (non-need-based) and financial aid (need-based) awards.  When college acceptances are in and you are making decisions between schools, we can share strategies for increasing scholarship awards, reducing the out-of-pocket tuition expense.   

When to engage your “Best College Coach”

We recommend client engagement during the sophomore year.  This will enable us to begin discussions about personal branding and course selection early in the process.  Some clients have seen benefit in working with us as early as freshman year.  The better we know your student, the more we can help create a comprehensive roadmap for success. Earlier engagement will enable us to provide valuable insight on course selections and extracurricular activities.  Our goal is to ensure your student’s brand is woven throughout their high school career.

Our Rates

• Junior/Senior – $6,000 for all 6 modules (30 hours total)
• Sophomore – $7,000, includes the 6 modules (35 hours total)
• Freshman – $8,000, include all 6 modules (40 hours total)

We also offer a la carte options for five hours of coaching for $1,250

We will work around your schedule and offer evening and weekend sessions. If working with your student only, we will provide brief parent reports following each session.

This investment in your student enables Best College Coach to provide pro bono college guidance for five students who are unable to afford this service.

We require payment as follows:

• $3,000 within one week of signing an agreement to secure space in the program
• $3,000 due no later than August 15th of the student’s senior year in high school

If payment is not received as required, Company shall cease performing all services covered under the agreement with no obligation to perform any further services until payment is received.

Registration: To reserve a spot or arrange for a free 30 information session, please complete our Client Registration Form.