The Reason for a Free Consultation

I recently have had a couple of recent consultations that reminded why I love doing what I get to do.

It happens from time to time. A parent and student come in and they’re thinking the student didn’t do very well on their test. The student has heard all of their friends tell them that they’re getting 1400s on their SATs and the student only made a 1220. They feel like there might be something wrong with them.

So we take a look at the context. What schools are they wanting to apply to? How does that score match up to what that school accepts? Does that score help with any merit scholarships?

Giving the Score Context

In one case, the student had a 1240 super score (combining scores from different tests) and a 1200 best score. Then we pulled up information about the top school on the student’s list on College Navigator.

This particular school superscores, and what do you know, that 1240 puts the student right in the middle of their middle 50%.  So then we checked out what sort of merit aid that school might offer.

Suddenly the conversation changed. The score is perfect for the school they want to go to AND saves the family $20,000 in automatic merit aid. We haven’t even started talking about competitive scholarships.

The New SAT Score Report

We also picked apart the student’s scores on the new digital SAT. The new score report gives a lot of information to put the score in context. The student’s 1200 was slightly higher than the school’s average. But we also looked at the breakdown of their Reading score and found out that they had perfect scores in everything but Standard English Conventions. That’s mostly commas and verbs. It’s the simplest part to fix.

So in addition to having a solid score, they can probably pick up another 50 points on Reading just from punctuation and grammar. Pick up another 50 points on Math and now you’re looking at an even more competitive score.

The Value of the Consultation

The next day I got this text.

Messages like that help me remember why we keep our consultations free. We get these fantastic opportunities to help students put their accomplishments into the context that matters, namely their own.

The college admissions process is confusing. We love helping dispel some of that confusion.

Schedule your free consultation today and let us help your student map out their college prep plans.