University admissions consulting has grown as a field in recent years, and it’s not hard to see why. Applying students are competing in larger and larger pools. Concurrently, acceptance rates have dropped dramatically lower even compared with just a decade or two ago.
If this state of affairs feels like pressure for the individual rising senior, well, it’s because it is. And besides the sheer numbers game aspect of the application process, there’s no question that applying to colleges and universities really is a defining moment in a student’s life and trajectory. What school will they end up attending? What will their career and future look like?
Often when rising seniors begin the admissions process, they feel nervous– unsure as to what their goals even are, or how the whole application season will go. Parents can be tense, too. But this process shouldn’t be stress, strategy, hard work, and nothing more.
Working with an admissions consultant can turn a moment that might seem scary or stressful into something quite different.
My name is Dr. Kerry McElroy, and I’m an international admissions consultant with experience around the world. My company, Anglia Education and Language Consulting, is now partnering with Victress Wellness Center for Women in offering admissions consulting services for Victress clients.
I’m also a working writer and an international journalist. This means I’m especially adept at interviewing any student, so we can “find their brand”. The interdisciplinary threads of their talents, skills, record, and interests that are going to come together to make them stand out from quite literally thousands of other equally great students.
A good admissions consultant needs to have a knack for getting students to not just write well, but to write well about themselves: in a way that gets them accepted to programs and, literally, on the path to reaching their dreams.
The philosophy behind meaningful admissions consulting is this: the seriousness of the moment doesn’t mean that doing a season of the university applications process shouldn’t be an enriching period of real growth for a teenager. It should be a beautiful process, where consultants aren’t just teaching students how to say the right things to get acceptances. But actually, helping them to learn who they are.
And so in fact, it becomes a pretty deep– and fun– experience, too.
Many of my admissions students keep in touch with me and write me on their progress from freshman and sophomore year at university.
The real goosebumps moments for me are when I hear that the branding we did for a student– something I was able to see about them that they maybe couldn’t see yet about themselves– not only got them into their dream school, but actually led down the path they ultimately took.
That’s nothing short of powerful.
In some respects, we can kind of think of the admissions year as something like a championship season.
That’s why it’s all the more important to make university admissions about growth, self-discovery, and the personal story. Because admissions consulting isn’t just about helping a teenager with deadlines and essays, but helping them to figure out who they’re going to be.