Parents Trust Us

We get it. You want to do everything you can for your son or daughter to succeed, but the process seems so daunting. You’ve read all the articles, heard all the horror stories, been stunned as your friends’ children – children with stellar grades and SAT scores – have been rejected by colleges that were “safety schools” when you applied to college.

Understand The Process

Whether you did not go to college, received your undergraduate education abroad, or are an Ivy League graduate, the refrain that we hear from all parents is the same: the process is complex, nuanced and seems random. Those parents that we speak to who went to top schools acknowledge that the admissions process has changed radically since they went to college and that the competition seems so much more intense.

Alleviate Your Stress

In an atmosphere where all parents are stressed, worried and nervous, occasionally bordering on hysteria, whom can you turn to? Who can you trust to help your precious child achieve their goals? Out of the many college consulting firms out there, how can you know that one is better equipped than another to assist your family?

Get Expert Advice

To answer the last question, you don’t. Not until you dig deeper and get to know the philosophy of the college counseling firm and the individual(s) who will help your child. The Director of IvySelect, Michael Goran, set up his firm from the inception to be different than others.

Select A Top Student Specialist

He decided from the beginning that, given his background as a high-achieving student, Penn graduate and Ivy League Admissions Interviewer, as well as being the parent of gifted and highly gifted students, he would set up a firm dedicated to helping top students. This meant that, by design, he (and other counselors who worked for the firm) would work with many less students than the vast majority of “generalist” college counselors.

Individualized Attention

The philosophy was simple: in order to provide the best college counseling possible for students applying to very selective and highly selective universities, much more individualized attention would need to be directed to each student. The high achievers who apply to top schools require comprehensive guidance in order to stand out from their peers. Time spent on strategic guidance and essay help, in particular, must rise far beyond what is offered by general college counseling firms.

More Counseling Hours Needed For Admission To Top Schools

Unlike the industry average, where an ivy league college counselor works with 40 or 50 (one of our colleagues said he works with about 70!) rising seniors per admission cycle, IvySelect’s college admissions counselors work with about 20 or so students per admission cycle. We will spend 20 to 25 hours on essay help, as opposed to 4 or 5 hours often designated in general college counselors “comprehensive” packages.

This sense of assurance – that you are providing your student with the necessary tools to stand out from the competition – is something you can bank on when you choose IvySelect. You want to know not simply that you are providing your child with “good” help, but the detailed and individualized assistance they need to be successful.

Expert Guidance

Then, too, you want to know that your student isn’t simply getting the appropriate amount of time to help them stand out, but that they are receiving the expert guidance they need to succeed in a very competitive process. As we mention in other places on the web site, when your child works with a college counselor, don’t you want to know that they are at the same very high intelligence level as your child?

A Track Record In Admissions Success

Don’t get us wrong – the background of a student’s college counselor can play a critical role in helping that student succeed in getting into top schools, including the Ivies, where admissions rates have fallen into the single digits. IvySelect’s college admissions consultants have a wealth of experience that your child and your family can rely on – it’s no accident that we currently have students represented at every Ivy League university, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Cal Tech, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and more.

The Intelligence To Guide Highly Intelligent Students

But we also think that experience alone is not enough. We attended top schools and have the intellectual firepower that can make a difference when helping your equally bright child. And, we possess a talent matched only by perhaps a few individual consultants at literally a handful of firms in the country – the ability to elevate students’ essays, even those with perfect standardized test scores, far beyond what they could have done themselves.

A Parent’s Perspective

This sense of trust in knowing that we will devote the necessary time and attention to your child, as well as that we have the absolute ability to help your son or daughter at the highest level, is matched by yet another component.

We truly do get it. Our Director is not only a highly accomplished professional but is a parent as well. His son has gone through the college admissions process, attended Boston College Law School and is now a trademark attorney in Washington, D.C. His daughter is a recent Ivy League graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

He understands that this process is unlike any other. And he makes certain that all IvySelect counselors understand it too. You are not buying a car, or buying a house. This is your child and, before you entrust them to someone else, you want to make sure that you are not making a mistake; that you are not having them helped by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, or even worse, doesn’t care.

We care. We understand. We want your child to be happy and successful. We want to join in your delight as acceptances to college come in.

We want to make certain that your child avoids critical errors in the admissions process. We want to obviate you of the need to be the “admissions police” and avoid any fights that might have ensued had you been deeply involved in the process. We want your child to find a great fit and thrive at their college of choice.

And, for you, dear parents, we truly do want you to feel you have made the absolute right choice. We want you to avoid feeling stressed and worried. We want you to know you can rely on us to take the best possible care of your child. We want you to feel in your heart that, in hiring IvySelect, you have made the best possible decision.

The testimonials on that page of the IvySelect web site are all real. We hope you’ll take the time to read some of them. The message is clear: our parents truly do trust us.