Did you know there are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States?  Finding schools that will be a “great fit” for your unique personality and abilities can feel like an overwhelming and stressful chore. An IEC can help you by getting to know you and providing personalized attention, focusing on what matters most to you in selecting colleges. A consultant will help you stay organized and ease the stress that goes along with the process. By using their “knowledge of colleges,” an IEC can help you find your way through the maze of college admissions and applications.

Your school counselor is a very important part of your college search and applications team.  Their responsibilities are many and include providing your transcript and counselor recommendation letter as part of your applications process, helping you sign up for courses each year, providing parent/student conferences related to school performance or other behavioral issues, and arranging for college fairs, to name just a few. In short, they are often overworked and must divide their time between a multitude of duties related to student success in their schools. This can mean your school counselor may not be able to provide a high level of individualized attention when it comes to college counseling.  If fact, the average public school counselor has a case load of over 480 students, and the average private school counselor has over 200 students. An IEC works with a limited number of students each year, getting to know students and families at a deeper level and providing individualized attention and guidance. Recent research indicates that 26% of students applying to 4-year colleges and universities engage the services of an IEC to help them along the path.  An IEC works independently from schools and colleges and provides unbiased advice tailored to the needs of each student and family.

Peerless Educational Planning strives to help students develop a plan for high school that will place them on the right trajectory to achieve their individual goals.  Therefore, the best time to start is now. If you are reading this FAQ, then you are already taking the first steps. I am happy to work with students as early as freshman year to help get high school off to a great start and help you stay on track. Many of our students start with us before the end of their sophomore year, but we also accept high school juniors and, rarely, rising seniors in our practice. The point is the sooner we start, the better able we are to work together to help achieve your personal goals.

“Great fit” colleges are ones that best line up with what is most important to you academically, socially, and financially.  I don’t believe there is one “best” college for a student, rather my goal is to help you identify a balanced list of colleges where you can be academically successful, enjoy activities that interest you, grow as a person, and will be accessible for you and your family financially.  

No.  An ethical IEC will not make promises of admission and will not contact the admissions office to advocate on your behalf.  Ethical IECs do not offer to “pull strings” or “call in a favor” to get a student admitted. I will work with you to help you put your best foot forward on all of your applications, but the decision to admit a student rests solely with the admissions office of a college.  Peerless Educational Planning abides by the Principles of Good Practice of the Independent Educational Consultant Association (IECA) and the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC).

I work with students from a wide array of educational backgrounds, with a variety of interests, and a range of educational goals.  I work with students who have a 4.0 and great test scores and students with Cs and below average test scores. I will listen to you and get to know you, and together we will develop a tailored plan to help you find and apply to colleges that will be a great fit for you.

Absolutely! Isn’t it great the way technology has made it easy to meet with people around the country and even around the globe?  I meet with clients in-person or virtually using Zoom and share documents with students using Google Docs. Students also have access to our Custom College Planning suite anytime they have an internet connection.