College Counseling

At Ivy Coach, we provide college counseling to students seeking admission to Ivy League colleges as well as other highly selective universities. Whether it’s through Skype, FaceTime, phone conversations, or email, we are able to work with students from across the United States and around the world.

We offer a free 20-minute college admissions consultation to parents and students by telephone (or Skype / FaceTime if the parents and students are outside of the United States). This is an opportunity for you to ask questions about our college counseling services and how Ivy Coach can help you navigate the highly selective college admissions process. All we ask is that you complete our free consultation form. Once we receive it, we will email you our fees and ask you to respond with some dates and times that are convenient for you for our free consultation. Based upon the 20-minute college admissions consultation, we will recommend to you how we can proceed.

One-Hour Evaluation

For students who first come to us as middle schoolers, ninth, tenth, or eleventh graders, we begin with a one-hour evaluation. In advance of this evaluation, we request a student’s transcript, any testing they’ve completed, a list of extracurriculars, Naviance log-in information (if your child has a Naviance account), etc. During this evaluation, we put together a plan so that your child is sure to max out on his or her school’s courses, fill in any gaps he or she may have (that you may not know about), take courses outside of his or her school (if necessary), know which exams to take and when to take them, and come up with an appropriate list of colleges. In so doing, we would also develop an academic and extracurricular strategy that will make your child as competitive as can be to the colleges to which your child will eventually apply. Whether you proceed with our assistance with the college application process or not, you will come away from this one-hour evaluation with invaluable insight into the process. One very common comment we hear subsequent to this one-hour evaluation is: “Everything I thought I knew was wrong.”

Assistance with College Applications

The vast majority of applicants to highly selective colleges submit applications that not only don’t help their case for admission but indeed significantly hurt their chances. They submit cliche essays about sports, about community service, about deceased grandparents, trips to Nicaragua, and playing first chair violin. ZZZzzz. And then some. They submit supplemental essays that don’t convey why they want to attend a specific university. Maybe the premise of their Why I Want To Go To A Specific College Essay focuses on that university’s great liberal arts education. Well, they’re not fooling anyone. Just about every highly selective college offers a great liberal arts education. Our students do their homework. They show rather than tell admissions officers how much they want to attend a specific university and why.

For most highly selective colleges, there are a number of supplemental essays in addition to the Personal Statement on the Common Application. Some students may choose to work with us for one university’s application and some students may choose to work with us on multiple applications. Our package, which includes interview prep, a review of the Common Application (there are so many mistakes that students can make on the application alone that they may not realize!), assistance with letters of recommendation (yes, you can help your teachers and school counselor craft powerful letters of recommendation), etc., depends on the number of schools you seek our assistance with.

Whether you work with us on one application to an Early Decision or Early Action school or on many applications, we will help you find your angle so that in a sea of boring and trite applications, yours is a refreshing and unique gem. Helping students tell their stories so that they’re distinctive and interesting is a big part of our secret sauce at Ivy Coach. And it’s a big part of the reason why our students tend, overwhelmingly, to gain admission to their dream colleges.

Other College Admissions Assistance

Maybe you are first coming to Ivy Coach after being deferred or waitlisted. Ivy Coach can help you stand out from other deferred or waitlisted candidates by helping you craft a powerful and compelling Letter of Enthusiasm. Or maybe you’re seeking assistance with only your Common Application Personal Statement or with prep for an alumni interview. Many students come to us for assistance with bits and pieces of the admissions process and Ivy Coach can indeed accommodate these students as well. Or maybe you need help once you’re in college to improve your writing in your many college papers. A parent once criticized us, “You helped our daughter get into Yale. But we never heard from you once she got there.” While this is a high class problem, it’s one we’ve taken to heart.

Unlimited Package

Our Unlimited Package, as referenced on “CNBC” (although our fee is actually substantially more than the fee we’re made fun of for charging — if only they knew!), offers our clients the ultimate level of continuous personal attention to every detail in college admissions counseling. The Unlimited Package is our most exclusive college counseling concierge service. If the student is seeking our help with applying to 10 to 20 colleges (20 is the maximum number of colleges allowable through the Common Application), each requiring different, uniquely tailored essays, then this service is highly recommended. We can provide the student with a step-by-step approach of guidance so that the student stands the best chance of admission to each of these many universities. While many parents initially inquire about our Unlimited Package, the vast majority of Ivy Coach’s students work with us under different packages and that is typically because of the fee for the Unlimited Package. And we make no apologies for this fee.