Your Best College Admissions Consultancy

IvySelect has successfully assisted many students in achieving their principal educational goal—admission to an Ivy League or similarly elite institution.

If you aspire to attend a top-tier institution, you’ll need professional expertise to optimize your chances of acceptance. You’re well advised to retain one early in your high school career. Ideally, this would be no later than junior year, although we at IvySelect have also been successful in assisting many students who have engaged our services over the summer between junior and senior year, as well as those who have come onboard (space permitting) in the beginning of senior year. Don’t wait until deadlines are imminent, though. This advice may seem obvious, but many families, even those with students who ardently aspire to the Ivy League and other highly competitive institutions, fall into the procrastination trap.

Once you’ve determined that you need expert guidance, the question arises… which firm?  You’ll want the right consulting firm for you, one with a track record that proves they’ll help you accomplish your goals.

Please note, as evidence of IvySelect’s track record, that the elite institutions that have admitted our students include Harvard, Yale, Penn, Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Pomona, Northwestern, Chicago, Oxford – U.K., Johns Hopkins, Duke, Washington University, Rice, Georgetown, Emory, Bowdoin, Colgate, Hamilton, USC, Berkeley, UCLA, NYU, Wesleyan, Wellesley, Vassar, Barnard, Boston College, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, Haverford, Wake Forest, Tulane, Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, Harvey Mudd, Rochester, and many others.

In your research for the right consulting firm, word-of-mouth recommendations are especially meaningful. Having benefitted from our expertise, our student and parent clientele highly recommend IvySelect. This is largely due to their experience in working with Michael Goran, IvySelect’s Founder, Director, and Lead Consultant.

Michael Goran is a nationally recognized college admissions consultant. His advice and insights have appeared in many Ivy League and other college newspapers as well as national news publications. As one of the premier admissions consultants in the United States, he has been featured as a keynote speaker at a variety of prestigious industry seminars and consortia.

Mr. Goran possesses impressive academic and college admissions credentials. Beyond his deep experience as a college counselor, Michael has worked as both a lawyer and investment consultant, vocations which served to refine his counseling, research, advocacy, and writing skills. Integrating this background with his knowledge and experience as an admissions consultant has distinguished him and elevated his value above other private elite college admissions counselors.

Michael is also different from the great majority of his peers in another significant respect—he is an award-winning writer and a gifted teacher of writing. He excels at using his talents to help students craft outstanding essays and personal statements. Michael possesses the vital ability to help students brainstorm effective ideas for their essays. He is among a handful of consultants in the country to have the ability to help his students, no matter how talented or bright they may be, to improve their essays substantially—and great essays are critical to admission.

IvySelect is a proud member of the three national professionial associations that serve the college admissions field: the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), the Higher Education Consultants Association (HECA), and the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC). Michael Goran takes particular pride in his Professional Member status with the rigorously selective IECA and in his recognition as an expert for international students seeking admission to elite American institutions.

So, how does IvySelect do what we do so well?

Your IvySelect college consultant knows the entire admissions process inside and out, so we’re able to help you master its complexity and variability. Initially, your IvySelect consultant meets with you at length to build an understanding of your academic record, aptitudes, strengths, preferences, talents, and goals. With the resulting personal profile, IvySelect develops an admissions strategy that is uniquely yours. This plan positions you for admission to the best schools because it presents to them your best possible self.

We start laying the foundation for success by guiding your high school course selection, advising on extracurricular and summer activities, identifying and strengthening the “hooks” that will be most useful to you in gaining admittance, advising you on which standardized tests to take and when to take them, and in building your list of 12 to 13 targeted colleges.

During the application process, we assist you in preparing for interviews, determining which people to ask for letters of recommendation, identifying worthy essay topics, and in presenting a consistent “marketing” message throughout your application. In short, we support you during every phase of the arduous process of winning admission to highly competitive schools.

IvySelect’s methodology is modified to accommodate the varying admissions practices at your target schools. These modifications are based on our invaluable insight into the unique aspects of each elite school’s admissions process. The admissions practices of every college and university are different. The extent of the differences among elite colleges is especially broad. A key advantage to using IvySelect is that our consultants apply their personal knowledge of the nuances of each college’s admissions process. We stay current through research and by meeting with admissions office personnel periodically. We also participate with them in educational association events. As a result, we’re well prepared to guide you in satisfying unique requirements of your targeted schools.

As admissions consultants specializing in elite colleges, IvySelect works hard to provide services of measurable value and substantial benefit to our clients. The case for retaining IvySelect is strongest wherever the competition for admission is most intense. As part of our comprehensive planning process, we advise students to seek colleges that are the best fits for them rather than to simply target those schools that are most competitive and prestigious. Nevertheless, for many of our students, their best-fit colleges are the most competitive and prestigious ones.

For admission to schools in this elite category, excellent grades and test scores, while necessary, are no longer enough. Students are also evaluated on less tangible factors such as their interpersonal authenticity, intellectual motivation, and potential to contribute to the campus and its community. Avocations and talents, which in years past were ancillary elements of a student’s profile, are now often what differentiate a successful applicant from the rest of the qualified pack.

Our services benefit all types of students, including those who don’t fit the typical profile of an applicant to elite colleges. This includes students with extraordinary abilities in an athletic or academic specialty and international students who hire us for our deep knowledge of elite American schools.

Your IvySelect consultant specializes in identifying and cultivating the best of what you have to offer as a student and as a person. We are fully engaged in college admissions consulting because we like to help young people become successful in their education and beyond. We love what we do.