Services

Compass College Advisors offers comprehensive admissions advising services for both groups and individuals including:

Student Assessment:

• Determine your academic strengths and interests, understand your learning style, and study habits
• Career exploration
• Evaluate course selection and grades
• Explore personal interests, abilities, and extracurricular activities and suggest beneficial resume building ideas

Admissions Process Overview:

• Provide an overview of the admissions process
• Develop an understanding of the student’s and parents’ goals, requirements and preferences
• Develop an individualized college search and exploration plan

College Selection:

• Development of an initial list of colleges appropriate to the student’s academic, social, demographic, athletic and financial requirements
• Providing information and strategies to maximize the benefit of college visits and exploration
• In-depth assistance in evaluating and refining the college list

Admissions Application & Financial Aid Assistance:

• Development of a personalized admissions plan and timeline
• Creation of a standardized testing plan to best showcase your individual strengths
• Guidance with creation of your extracurricular resume
• Essay advice based on the first hand experience of reading hundreds of essays as an admissions committee member; we will brainstorm topics, provide guidance and edit student essays to help you create an essay that authentically highlights what makes you unique and worthy of admissions
• Interview preparation (if requested)
• Information on the financial aid application process deadlines, and scholarships opportunities

Since every student and family comes to Compass College Advisors with their own unique educational needs, everyone’s advising process will vary. This may be due to when the student begins to work with Compass, their unique skill sets (ie. athletic or artistic interests,) or special educational requirements (ie. learning differences). Furthermore, some parents wish to be present at all or most meetings between the Compass advisor and the student while other families prefer a more hands-off approach. Below is a sample of one student’s meeting schedule:

Sample Overview of the Process
Session #1: Discuss student and parental hopes and expectations for the student’s future college experience.

Sessions #2: Meet with student (and parents if desired) to discuss his or her strengths, needs, and interests. A general overview of the college exploration and admissions applications process will be presented at this session.

Session #3: Discuss college exploration criteria. Based on this information, your Compass College Advisor will generate a list of colleges of various levels of selectivity for the student to explore.

Session #4: Discuss the preliminary list of colleges and strategies for further exploration of each school. Tips will be given on how the student can make the most of their college visits.

Session #5: Refine college list based on student exploration of colleges. Discuss application process timeline.

Session #6: Begin brainstorming essay topics. Discuss how to draft activities resume.

Session #7: Prepare for interviews, including a mock interview session.

Session #8: Discuss essay draft. Check-in on application process and deadlines. Discuss financial aid process and scholarship opportunities.

Session #9: Evaluate admissions decisions received and financial aid packages. Determining which college is the best all-around fit for the student.