On Sunday, December 1, North Shore College Consulting was invited to appear on the Bill Moller Show on WGN during the 2:00 p.m. hour with Bill Moller and Steve Dale. The topic? College of course. Having never been on the radio, we were both appropriately terrified but very happy that no one could actually see us. Steve Dale met us in the “green room” (which was actually blue), told some jokes and immediately calmed us both down (kind of). The show began at 2:05, and we were off. Our minds immediately went blank. What were our names again? What does FAFSA stand for? However, almost as immediately the calm set in, and we talked about the topic we love the most-college and preparing students to apply to college.
The first topic of conversation was how we got started in the college consulting business. Both of us have backgrounds in completely different fields, so how did we arrive here? The answer was very simple actually – panic about our own children’s college future. When Amy’s son was a freshman, the questions began: in the grocery store, at the gym, from the grandparents. What classes did he need to take to get into college? How much time did he need to spend volunteering or participating in community service? What happened if he was not the captain of the football team, the lead in the school play or the president of his class? While frantically perusing the Internet for answers to these questions, we happened upon the College Counseling Certificate Program at UCLA. Within weeks Amy was registered for her first class, and Debbie followed suit shortly thereafter. After completing seven comprehensive, online courses covering all aspects of the college consulting practice, participating in an intensive, supervised college consulting internship, traveling around the country to visit countless colleges and universities, partaking in numerous conferences and webinars, and building a network of counselors around the country, North Shore College Consulting was born.
The remainder of the WGN interview focused on the college admissions process and how North Shore College Consulting successfully guides students through this process. When is the best time to start working with North Shore College Consulting? What are the three things a family should be doing once their student gets to high school to prepare that student for college? What if a student has no idea what he or she wants to major in once he gets to college?
We work with students starting as young as eighth grade through senior year in high school. With our younger students, we work on curriculum planning since colleges would like to see students taking as rigorous a course load as they can handle, beginning freshman year of high school. Activity planning is also imperative since colleges like depth not breadth. It is not about how many activities a student is involved with. Rather colleges want to see commitment to, leadership in and passion for a few activities throughout high school. Further, families need to create a standardized test plan for their students, many times well before the student’s junior year in high school. While students typically take the ACT or the SAT during their junior year, many students should also be taking the PSAT, SAT Subject Tests and AP Exams well before their junior year. Curriculum, activities and standardized testing are concepts that need to be explored and planned for as early in a student’s high school career as possible.
With that said, we work with numerous students beginning their junior and senior years, at which point the actual college search and application process begins. Families are commonly blown away by the complexity of this process. North Shore College Consulting’s goal is to remove the complexity and the stress from the process, ensure all deadlines are met, hold our students’ hands throughout the entire process and keep them moving forward in a calm, organized manner.
Additionally, it is typical for students to come to us during their junior and senior years stressed out that they do not know what they want to major in once they get to college. As we explained to Bill and Steve, we take our older students through an in-depth process of self-reflection and self-assessment to help explore their interests and their strengths. Oftentimes, a student will discover a passion during this process. However, we also stress to our students that a majority of students do apply to college today undecided, which is perfectly acceptable if they are still unsure after the self-assessment process. Students typically have until the end of their sophomore year of college to declare a major, which gives them plenty of time to explore their interests once they get to college.
All in all, we had a really great time with Bill and Steve last Sunday. We appreciate the opportunity they gave us to talk on WGN about the college preparation, search and application process. We were excited to share our expertise with their listeners, and we thoroughly enjoyed our 15 minutes of fame! Find the whole interview here: http://wgnradio.com/2013/12/04/finding-the-right-college/
If you have questions for North Shore College Consulting, visit us online at www.nscollegeconsulting.net.
