With the rising rates of tuition, housing, and other costs associated with sending a child to college, it might seem insane to consider adding private counseling to the tally. However, college counseling with an experienced company with a solid track record like Aristotle Circle can actually save you money in the long run.
Save Time
Time is money. The college application process is time-intensive, and you can’t rely on your student’s school counselor for very much help. On average, school counselors spend less than 40 minutes on college planning with each student. With student to counselor ratios sitting around 385-to-1, who can blame them?
Planning for college starts years before students begin their applications, and parents can become overwhelmed very quickly. Without any guidance, you can say goodbye to summer weekends on the beach. You’ll be sitting on your laptop, poring over statistics and test score ranges.
With a private college counselor from Aristotle Circle, you can leave the strategizing, researching, and scheduling to the professionals. We help you with deciding whether the ACT or SAT is more advantageous (most students actually perform better on one than the other!), keeping up to date on testing policies, keeping your child on track with extracurriculars, researching summer programs and internship opportunities and completing their respective applications, and more. And all of this is before Junior year.
When it is time to actually work on the applications, students can spend upwards of 60 hours on essays alone. That doesn’t account for fine-tuning their resume, writing up their activities section, or post-submission requirements like pulling together financial documents or monitoring the receipt of transcripts and letters of recommendation.
If you are lucky enough to have twins or triplets? Double and triple the work.
Aristotle Circle gives you your time back. We optimize the process, take the pressure off, and make the experience easier.
Spend Smart
Often, parents think that more is more when it comes to extracurriculars, test prep, and college admissions. This is simply not the case.
Hiring a tutor for the SAT or ACT before a student is ready can be counterproductive; it will leave the student spinning their wheels, getting the same types of math problems wrong over and over again, and can result in a confidence hit. Aristotle Circle knows how to optimize a student’s study plan, and our tutors are the best of the best.
Spending big money on programs that aren’t actually accredited or even valued by college admissions is akin to throwing your money out the window on the freeway – but if you aren’t savvy to what admissions teams value, then how could you possibly know? That’s where we come in. Aristotle Circle has been doing this work for a long time, and we know what counts and what doesn’t. We also know that it is not a one-size-fits-all situation. We tailor our suggestions to your child’s interests – whether that be film, politics, non-profit work, ecology, sports, or STEM.
With experiences that are genuine, accredited, and valuable not only during the college admissions process but also for personal development, we will ensure that you are making an investment in your child’s future.
Peace in the Home
Let’s be real: parenting teenagers is no simple task. Day to day disagreements are hard enough; when you begin discussing high-stakes decisions such as where to attend college, things can get…heated, to say the least.
Having a third party expert is invaluable in times of conflict. Sometimes, parents have an unrealistic or misguided set of expectations. Perhaps a child is stubbornly checked out of the process, unaware of how their current decisions can affect their adult lives. Maybe your child is cracking under the pressure of expectations and scheduling, but holding it all together because they’re afraid of disappointing you, to their own detriment. Maybe your teenager made a poor decision that resulted in disciplinary action, and you have no idea what kind of affect it will have on their college prospects. Perhaps Mom believes a certain school is best, and Dad disagrees.
These are a few of the most common scenarios we have seen, but the resulting tension can bring familial relationships to the brink. An expert’s objective opinion and guidance on navigating these tough situations can bring peace and stress relief to the whole family, while keeping the student’s best interests at the forefront of the conversation.
Is it worth it?
In the end, every family has different priorities and resources. That’s why Aristotle Circle offers services at a variety of price points, from all-inclusive college admissions counseling services to hourly tutoring. The most important thing to know is that you don’t have to do this alone. We’re here to help, every step of the way.
Never miss a beat:
The Circle 