Services, team, and pricing

The process is the same in both: same planning support, same meeting cadence, same Annual Admissions Committee Review. The difference is your counselor. Admissions Insider counselors recently served inside highly selective admissions offices as officers and application readers, and each takes only a few families per graduating class. If you want the perspective of someone who has personally evaluated applications at the schools on your list, that is the Insider tier.

Working with a counselor you connect with is key, especially over a multi-year process. We recommend that all prospective families schedule a Get to Know You call with our recommended counselor to see if it is a great fit before getting started.

It depends on each student’s needs. Students who plan to apply to the most selective universities, or who are the first in their family to attend college in the US, often start as early as 9th grade. Not sure where your student fits? Your counselor can help you decide the right time to start.

Parents are crucial to the planning process. We invite parents to offer input at various stages, with heavier involvement at the start around family finances and college selection, and we often invite parents to join select meetings throughout.

We cater scheduling to each family. On average, 9th and 10th graders meet a couple of times a semester, with more during summer planning. In 11th and 12th grade we recommend closer to monthly during the school year. Counselors stay in touch between meetings to answer questions and address needs, from sign-up through the end of senior year.

Counselors schedule at mutually convenient times. Students are usually free on weekends, after school, and evenings during the school year, so we can accommodate most schedules. Meetings take place on Zoom.

We do. We work with transfer and gap year students every year and tailor our support to them. Applying to graduate school? Our Graduate Admissions team can help.

Students at all stages: high-achieving Ivy-bound students, those targeting liberal arts colleges, and students targeting in-state options close to home. We work with athletes, visual and performing artists, and students applying to direct-entry medical, selective business, and STEM programs. We also work with non-traditional students, including those returning after a long break, homeschooled students, and gap-year students.

Students typically work with one college counselor throughout the process, and your profile and work are reviewed regularly by the full team. In senior year you can elect to add a dedicated essay specialist for the summer and fall.

We prepare students for applications so they understand the options and how they work. In the fall of senior year we guide and give specific feedback to uplevel application content. We are typically the last set of eyes on your application before you hit submit.

Our support runs through senior year. If you receive a deferral or waitlist decision, we are ready to help you strategize around outcomes and prepare a letter of continued interest.

We do not guarantee admission to any particular college, and if someone promises they do, you might want to run the other direction. We help students plan ahead, be intentional about extracurriculars, challenge themselves academically, and craft compelling applications. Each year we have half a dozen or more acceptances to each Ivy+ college, plus top liberal arts colleges, public universities, and selective STEM, business, pre-med, and arts programs. We also help students move through the process with less stress and more intention.