Tips and insights for prospective educational consultants
The college admissions application process can be challenging and stressful, both for students and their families. As a college counselor, you play a vital role in helping students navigate this process and achieve their academic goals. In this blog post, we'll share some tips and insights that can help you guide your students through the college admissions process.
Encourage Students to Build a Strong Application
Most people believe educational consultants, private admissions advisors, or educational planners, build a list of colleges and hand off the list to their students to do the rest. Not true.
The list of colleges actually doesn’t begin until several months into the college-prep process. The first step is to build a strong application by gathering experience in things the student cares about. In the end, a good college candidate should highlight the student's academic achievements, extracurricular activities, community service, and any unique talents or experiences they have. The application should be an authentic accounting of what is important to the student’s interests and demonstrate their ability to self-motivate through challenges in order to engage with what is important to them.
To help your students build a strong application, you should encourage them to start early, stay organized, and seek guidance from teachers, mentors, and other professionals on free opportunities to gather experiences through school clubs, local volunteering, job shadowing, or organizations like
Polygence. Admissions is not impressed with candidates who have plenty of opportunity and resources but take advantage of none of them.
Help Students Choose the Right Colleges
One of the most critical steps in the college admissions process is helping students choose the right colleges to apply to. To do this, you should encourage your students to research various colleges and universities and narrow down their choices based on factors such as their academic interests, location, campus culture, and financial aid options.
Once you’ve become a college counselor, you will realize that your students are not going to research their list of colleges. Part of your work will be figuring out how to motivate a student and when to draw your boundary lines.
Part of the challenge of motivating your student to engage in research on the schools they might apply to is that the student does not know what they are looking for. Through several conversations, deciphering what is most important to this student's college experience will lead to a list of high-value attributes their colleges should possess. Many counselors will speak of their frustration about students not being able to answer questions about what they want in a college. Their frustration always makes me chuckle because we all work with teenagers, and their level of communication is mostly predictable, so give up on the frustration and think more deeply about the solutions.
With the CounselMore’s list builder, you can build several lists by topic area or specifically define high-value criteria for a family and limit your data exports to only what is most important to the family. Keeping their choices focused will allow you to keep the process moving forward and will also simplify the process for your clients.
Once you have built a list of potential colleges, you can help them compare and contrast the schools and make informed decisions. Using a software tool like CounselMore Educational Consulting Software will help you build a college list, but almost more importantly, it will help you track the complicated applications because the App Tracker is seamlessly connected to the college list.
Without CounselMore, it will take an average of 3 - 5 hours to build a college list. With CounselMore, you can build more than one list in under an hour. As you tag and save your college lists, you will also be building your own esoteric college knowledge database because CounselMore lets you save your own data in addition to the data they Supply!
When you have several clients and lists to build, you won’t stress because your software will track the many moving parts. Prior to CounselMore, plenty of time was wasted on homemade spreadsheets and internet hunting.
Guide Students Through the Admissions Essay Process
One of the most crucial parts of the college admissions process is the admissions essay. The essay is the student's opportunity to showcase their personality, creativity, and writing skills.
To help your students write a compelling essay, you should encourage them to brainstorm ideas, outline their thoughts, and revise their work. You can also provide feedback and guidance on the structure, tone, and content of their essays. If you do not have any experience in essay writing, then it is highly recommended that you obtain training in this area with an organization like
Wow Writing Workshop.
Free resources here.
Offer Support Throughout the Decision-Making Process
Once students have submitted their applications, they must wait for the colleges to respond. The waiting period can be stressful and emotional for many students, and they may need your support and guidance during this time. You should be available to answer their questions, provide updates, and offer words of encouragement. You can also help students weigh their options and make informed decisions about which college to attend by comparing the financial aid offer letters side-by-side.
In conclusion, college admissions can be a complex and challenging process, but with the right guidance and support, students can achieve their academic goals. As a private college counselor, your role is critical in helping students navigate the admissions process and make informed decisions about their future.
This article did not cover all of the services provided by an educational consultant. If you are considering this career change, I can assure you that it will be a rewarding occupation. I can also tell you that there is a tremendous amount of information that you will need to learn and assimilate on a daily basis. You can shorten your learning curve with the CounselMore community. CounselMore hosts a
monthly mentorship Circle and a
weekly study hall. Join these events to ask questions and gain guidance for developing your educational Consulting practice from industry experts and thought leaders.
