FAQ
The questions families actually ask, answered the way we’d answer them in the room.
We go over fees in your consultation, not on a pricing page. Engagements are scoped to your student — the grade they start in, what they need, how far along they are — so a flat menu would be dishonest. Susan also adjusts fees in certain circumstances, at her discretion. Ask her directly; you'll get a number, not a runaround.
No. Nobody can, and anyone who implies otherwise is selling something. What we promise is the honest read: where your student actually stands, and the strongest possible application to schools where they can get in and thrive. They may be colleges you've never heard of.
The student. Parents share the constraints that matter — budget, geography, family priorities — and we take them seriously. But the application belongs to the student, and our advice serves their interests. Once the process is underway, that's what parents want too.
Never. We brainstorm, structure, and push drafts through honest revision. Colleges can tell the difference between a coached essay and a ghostwritten one — and so can we. The voice on the page stays your student's.
School counselors are good people (like me) with big caseloads and administrative duties, often hundreds of students each. Susan spent twenty years as one, inside a top-ten New Jersey high school. We don't replace your school's counselor; we add the time, strategy, and candor that caseload can't.
Junior year is typical. Earlier is more useful than most families expect — course selection and activities are strategy too. And if you're reading this in senior fall: reach out anyway. There's usually more room to act than it feels like there is.
We don't do financial aid planning or FAFSA filing — that's outside our scope, and we'd rather say so than dabble. We do track sticker prices, aid offers, and net cost for every school on your student's list, so cost stays part of the conversation from day one.
Yes, on purpose. Twenty years inside New Jersey schools is the expertise you're hiring. We know the high schools, the transcripts, and the local admissions patterns. That knowledge doesn't stretch to Texas, and we won't pretend it does.