Few cities have been shaped by universities like Boston. Kids who grow up in Boston are surrounded by academia and intelligentsia. They tend to be exposed to research, science, history, and ideas from a young age. The pressure for kids growing up in the shadows of Harvard to attend a top-tier university is real. Boston is a competitive town and universities often measure kids from a particular region against one another. That means kids from one of the most educated places in America (and its suburbs with excellent high schools from Newton to Swampscott…) are in a really competitive applicant pool.
Having grown up in a cold, yet walkable town, our clients from Boston tend to gravitate towards really great schools in warmer weather with true campuses and robust social environments. But in order to keep up with the competition, they’ll have to set themselves apart.
We work on exploring each client’s passion to help them develop it into an academic area of expertise that will impress the admissions counselors, but more importantly, set them on a path to a school where they’ll be happy. We find that this easy for our clients from Boston. They tend to be sharp and motivated. The trick is helping them to stay laser focused on a niche they’re interested in that will stand out in the crowd.
Boston Admissions Services: Our Strategy
Every student is different. Some come to us sophomore year with a very clear idea of their objectives Others join us junior year with a desire to stay more organized. We have a customized approach to counseling based on the needs of each student. Below is a general outline of what you can expect:
BUILDING A TIMELINE: We support our clients by working backwards to build action items each semester they’re with us. We want kids to start out by exploring their interests so that they can determine one specific academic area they’re going to build out. We don’t only help our clients plan out an application and essay schedule, but we also help them build reading lists relate to their academic areas of interest and relevant activities that will help them build out a well-rounded application.
BUILDING A COLLEGE LIST: We work with our kids to ensure they create a list of schools that match their personality. While our kids get into the nation’s top universities, it’s more important to us that our clients end up somewhere they’ll want to be for four years.
LIKES AND DISLIKES: We find that kids should start out by learning about themselves and what they like and more importantly, dislike. It’s important to figure out what kind of personality you want your school to have. Size, social environment, location, proximity to home…these are all crucial elements in determining which is the right school for you. We help our clients figure out what it is they really want in a university so they’ll be happy wherever they land.
TOURS Getting to know a school in the middle of a pandemic can be tough. We help students plan their tour strategies (and also do intensive research online and on social media) to help get a sense for what each school has to offer.
A BALANCED LIST: Each of our clients will end up with a well-balanced list that include reach schools, target schools, and safeties to ensure they have a strong strategy when applying to universities in a hyper-competitive environment. Moreover, we help our students develop a list in which they’d be happy at ever school to which they’ll be accepted, in order to broaden their options when it comes time to enroll.
ESSAYS: In a world where university admission is hyper-competitive, students need to optimize every opportunity they have to stand out in the crowd. We focus tirelessly on every piece of writing our clients submit, from the Common App, to supplements, to the additional information section. We work to edit each essay until it’s not only excellent, but also a reflection of a student’s unique personality, which will help them shine amongst a stack of admissions papers.
EXTRACURRICULARS: We also help our students build out their extracurricular activities. Each one should be an expression of a student’s academic area of expertise. We support our students in building a brand that will impress the admissions committee by taking on leadership positions and expanding upon their activities in a way that’s interesting to them. Most importantly, we help our clients get connected to what they’re passionate about.
Contacting a Boston College Counselor:
We love working with students from the Boston area because they tend to work hard and demonstrate an interest in academia. Getting ahead of the competition can be challenging. We’re here to help students identify what sets them apart from other applicants and excel in those areas.
If you’d like to hear more, reach out to us here.