All schools have specific Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision Deadlines.

Here are some general deadlines:

- Early Decision: November 1st - 15th
- Early Action: November 1st - 15th
- Regular Decision: January 1st - February 15th

When we work with you, we will start by helping you identify all deadlines.

For our complete package, we offer an application deadline guarantee. With all other packages, we strive to complete all work before all school-specific deadlines.

To help you find your best-fit colleges, we deeply dive into your academic profile and personal preferences.

We have a survey that helps us gather important information. You will also meet with us to discuss your preferences.

Once we share our initial list of recommended schools, we will meet several times to discuss and refine the list.

Our first strategy is to learn as much about you as possible. To do this, we run through a series of brainstorming exercises and gather information from your family, friends, and mentors.

When writing essays, you will learn how to write concisely and creatively, which helps you include many specific details about yourself in a captivating theme.

For specific school supplemental essays and prompts, we show you how to respond in a way that goes beyond the superficial question and share even more valuable information about yourself.

For some schools and majors, test results are becoming less important.

However, there are some majors where strong test scores help your acceptance rate.

We can help pair you with test prep experts if test scores are essential for your applications.

Gaps in your grades or records are something you should address in your applications.

Generally, we help you explain this reasoning in the Additional Info section of the Common App.

In some cases, your Personal Statement can give context for this.

Most importantly, schools want to briefly understand "why" and "what you did about it."

We will help you develop a strategy to address this.

We do not provide support for financial aid directly, but we have partners that we will connect you with who are experts in finding financial aid and scholarship opportunities.

So glad you asked! First, you should know that letters of recommendation from teachers often have little to no impact. Look for a few letters of recommendation from outside the school who can speak to your strengths.

You will get our proven templates for bringing great recommendations. Our "Superpowers Exercise" at the beginning of our process sets the stage for outstanding letters of recommendation.

Our process involves meeting with your coach to discuss your essays and assign action items and short-term deadlines of 2-7 days. Meetings generally last 50 minutes. Occasionally, we will meet for 30 minutes.

We offer remote edits in your Google Docs between sessions to keep things moving.
You can access Kate via text, phone, email, and Zoom anytime you need help.

Expect to meet via Zoom a little more frequently earlier in the process (1-2 times per week) or if you start late in the season.

We are big over-communicators.

You will access us via text, phone, email, and Zoom.

We do not allow parents to sit in on student sessions.

However, we can schedule meetings with parents or parents and students anytime!

We encourage students to share their work with their parents at various points throughout the process.

We are so glad you asked!

We provide a 5-minute Parent Hack that works very well.

You will receive regular parent updates, and we encourage you to ask your children how the process is going and if they need to bounce any ideas off of you.

In general, we encourage student autonomy and responsibility. We also take responsibility for motivating your children and keeping them on track.

We encourage students to engage deeply in their interests and community. 

Leadership roles are important. More important is the ability to clearly communicate the growth you have experienced in such roles.

Great question!

Please see our College Prep services for all students grades 8th - 12th.

The best students start in the Winter of Junior year. Starting then allows time to develop the best college list, visit schools of interest, and create well-polished, engaging essays.

At the latest, we encourage you to start over the summer between your Junior and Senior years.

If you wait until the Fall of your Senior year, we can help you do excellent, expedited work, but you can expect a more intense process.

It is not uncommon to be undecided about your major.

When students do not have a specific major, we will dive deep into their interests and preferences to help them find the best-fit schools.

Even without a specific major, students must still communicate why they want to attend the schools on their lists. We will help you elegantly share this.

Wonderfully. Some of our favorite and most successful students are neurodivergent in one way or another.

As experienced educators and counselors, we strive to get to know our students as well as possible and work with them in the most helpful ways. We do this on a case-by-case basis with utmost care.

Yes! We will coach you through the interview process. Coaching includes a combination of practice and coaching on answering questions and responding intelligently with confidence.

An initial no is only sometimes final.

You can submit Letters of Continued Interest and other techniques that may help you still gain acceptance.

Kate has been a leading expert in the field for over ten years.

Some of the college advisors on staff have over 20 years of experience helping students find their best-fit schools.

We have a 95% success rate of helping students get into at least one of their top three schools. If we believe that you will not meet this success rate we will inform you at the beginning of the process and ensure your list or activities are updated accordingly.

Absolutely! We continue long and beautiful relationships with our families.

Please contact us with some information about your student so we can pair you with the best family to speak with.

You can view our pricing in our Suite of Services.

There are no hidden or additional costs.

Payment plans are available if that helps.

We do not directly help with FAFSA and CSS profiles. However, we have partners who are experts with FAFSA and CSS that we will connect you with to help.

Please contact us or schedule a free consultation call to discuss any questions you have.