Hiring a private counselor…here was my “private counseling” advice to her that I’m not sure she and her mom would have been able to come up with on their own…not that it’s rocket science, but it ended up working:
My Villanova Client:
Because of her mediocre SAT score, she was borderline for liberal arts at Villanova. Not to mention, we knew Villanova would be much harder this year (and it was).
B school would have been a no…not sure they had any idea how much more competitive to get into b school was.
So her other options were Math or Econ in liberal arts (two areas that interest her).
She didn’t do that great in AP Econ in her HS…one of her lower grades and she didn’t do well on the AP so she would not report it on the common ap…not a big deal but the fact that she is leaving it off would lead them to believe it was a 3 or even lower or that she didn’t take it…either way not showing that Econ might be an area she succeeds in.)
She really like Math and has her best grades in Math. Is taking AP Calc now and doing well (as shown on her midyears). THERE IS A PUSH FOR GIRLS IN STEM FIELDS.
She got in to Villanova as a Math major. So it worked. And she is NOT committed to Math. She can switch to Econ (but switching to business might not happen…there’s a slight chance, but small).
So for purposes of this thread, I think the little they paid me (I don’t charge a lot, I’m not in it for the money and don’t believe that charging an insane amount of money is worth it for private college counseling, just my opinion) was worth it. She is thrilled to be going to Villanova, as are her parents.
Not sure she would be going with Villanova if we didn’t strategize the way we did.