why stress less
College admissions consultants may wow you with stories about how their clients magically earn admission to any university of their choice. These promotional materials aren't telling you the whole truth. Take this high-end college admissions consulting firm, for example. They say that Columbia University's national admissions rate is 3.9%, but 28.7% of their clients get admitted to Columbia. They explicitly claim that their services give your students a 7.4x higher chance of admission.
This type of marketing does a disservice to the biggest reasons your students will or will not get admitted: their grades and the rigor of their classes. Their SAT or ACT scores may also play a decisive role depending on the university's testing policy, and art students should count on their portfolios and submitted works. They do not disclose the GPAs or test scores of their clients, thus obscuring the real impact of their services. Students coming from families that pay thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars in college admissions consulting are generally more likely to have the kinds of competitive GPAs and test scores that these schools are looking for anyway, so you should be skeptical of any consultant claiming that their services dramatically multiply your student's chances of success.
To better understand the impact of my services, let's look at how one of my clients did in 2023-2024.
Student Profile: Berkeley High School, 3.6 weighted GPA, no SAT or ACT, marketing and creative writing major. He was admitted to the following universities.
- University of Washington (3.75-3.98 25th to 75th percentile admit GPA)
- DePaul University, $100,000 Presidential Scholarship (3.8 average admit GPA)
- Pratt Institute, $100,000 scholarship (3.8 average admit GPA)
- Sarah Lawrence (3.8 average admit GPA)
Despite his GPA being lower than the average GPA of students admitted to these universities, he earned admission and significant financial aid thanks to the way I helped him present himself and tell his story. He also earned admission to the University of Oregon, San Francisco State, and San Diego State.
My job is also to make sure that you set yourself up for success and relief in spring. Let's look at another client.
Student Profile: Head-Royce School, 2.8 GPA, no SAT or ACT, business major. He was planning on applying to most University of California campuses. He was far behind on his essays. We had an honest conversation about his chances. Ultimately, he applied to the University of Oregon and a few California State Universities. He realized that his time would be better spent mapping out his passions and interests closer to home and opted for a local community college.
It's not my job to get your student into the "best" university possible. My job is to help your student figure out the best academic future for them and guide them toward it.
From the Berkeley Parents Network:
"Our senior just submitted their decision for college all thanks to Harley. They started together in the beginning of his senior year where he felt late to the game as many of his friends had college counselors already. Right off the bat he was easy to talk to and work with, it took just two sessions to figure out what to write his college essay about and after that things fell into place. He helped our son narrow down his college search and suggested colleges that he previously would not have applied to. As someone who gets distracted and goes off topic a lot, our son appreciated all the indulged conversations Harley had with him. When he was stuck on various parts of the essay or other writing prompts, Harley would help him get back into the groove. When he was over a word count Harley easily was able to show him what parts of an essay he didn't need or could change. After speaking with a friend who he considered more academically gifted but ended up not getting into many of the colleges she applied to (and had told him she just kind of “winged” the applications), we then realized just how much Harley had helped him. If you are looking for a college counselor for your kid, please send them to Stress Less College Apps, you will not regret it and neither will your kid."
"Harley Poston, Stress Less College Apps...does hourly and quite reasonable...he started with my senior son in Fall (very late, I'd start sooner if I would do over) and they met weekly at a cafe to go over everything. You can do more or less. And for what it is worth my son got into every school he applied (no Ivies mind you but good schools!)
If you find this information assuring, take a look at this partial list of colleges and universities to which my clients have earned admission.
- Every University of California campus
- University of Georgia (Honors College)
- University of Washington
- Cornell University
- Seattle University
- Macalester College ($104,000 scholarship)
- Pratt Institute ($100,000 scholarship)
- Sarah Lawrence College
- DePaul University ($100,000 Presidential Scholarship)
My principles of college transition support
A 2021 survey by Deloitte found that 46% of Generation Z feels stressed or anxious most of the time. Young people don't just need more mental healthcare to deal with this stress. They also need less stress! My commitment to making college applications, transitions, and beginnings less stressful is grounded by the following analysis and solutions.
Major reasons for college application and transition anxiety:
- Confusion. High school classes don't teach students how to apply for college before they have to apply for college. They learn as they go. Students face a tidal wave of unfamiliar terms, processes, policies, and strategies that they have only a few months to master before they make some of the biggest decisions of their lives.
- Volume of Work. The amount of work awaiting a senior applying to even a modest number of colleges is daunting: forms, college visits, essays, letter of recommendation requests, and interviews on top of their senior year academics and activities. Again, high schools generally don't teach students how to manage all of this work inside the classroom, and many high schools don't have college counselors proactively pushing into classrooms to teach students how to do this.
- High Stakes. Heightening students' anxiety about the prior two issues is their underlying sense of just how important every decision they make is. They've been told again and again since elementary or middle school that everything they do in school is to prepare them for college, the most important goal in their lives. This sense of importance extends to every micro-decision they make within their application and transition process, often clouding their ability to make any decision at all. ("Oh my god if I choose PIQ #3 instead of PIQ #4, what does that say about me as a person?")
- Sense of Immaturity. During their application process, but especially during their spring semester and summer transition to college, students can feel overwhelmed by the sense that they are not yet ready for college. Students' lives change more drastically between May of their senior year and September of their college freshman year than any other period in their lives thus far. As they head into the unknown, sometimes traveling across the country to live in states they've barely visited, they can be overwhelmed by the sense that they are not ready and that everyone else is, also known as imposter syndrome.
My services are designed to directly target these sources of anxiety.
- Confusion/Education. A significant portion of my admissions support consists of teaching students about the terminology, processes, and strategies they need to understand in order to intelligently approach their college applications and transitions. Having this knowledge is not only useful; it is comforting. Using my background as a classroom teacher, I do my best to make this learning process interesting and critical. For example, anyone can look up the definition of a student loan, but my curriculum helps students understand the amortization schedule of their loan so they understand how much interest they could accumulate and how much they will actually end up paying.
- Volume of Work/Research Relief & Time Management. Typically, a significant portion of the time spent doing college applications is time spent learning how to do college applications. With my services, that time burden disappears. We jump straight into the process without needing to get our bearings. I also conduct independent research into your possible universities to augment and complement your own. For the work that the student must do, we backward plan our task timeline from final deadlines to today, breaking the process into daily and weekly chunks that students can balance against their academics.
- High Stakes/Building Confidence. The stakes are high; it's true. But my job is to remind you that you or your student the most important components of their college applications are already completed: their sophomore and junior grades. My job is to help you paint a picture that celebrates the good work you've already done for the universities that deserve to have you.
- Sense of Immaturity/Shifting Mindset, Priorities, and Habits. Students aren't wrong to feel unready for college because their high school environment was likely not structured to equip them with the mindset, priorities, and habits they need for college. My program explicitly teaches students to describe their current mindset, priorities, and habits in school so I can teach them the shifts they need to make to be ready for next year. This includes instruction in basic adult life skills like personal finance, hygiene, self-care, substance abuse education, and anything else students feel like they need. I teach students how "to do" college, such as how to email a professor, how to approach office hours, how to find and seek out additional help, how to ask for an extension, and more. As previously mentioned, I believe that knowledge itself is one of the greatest comforts a senior or rising college freshman can have, and that's what I plan to provide.
Get Started Today
Contact us to schedule a free consultation and learn more about how Stress Less College Apps can help you achieve your college goals.
Stress Less College Apps