Estrela Consulting Blog

Figuring out how to pay for college is an overwhelming reality for college students and their families. It is the least exciting part of the college application process and causes the most anxiety. Attending a university in the US is expensive, and the cost continues to rise steadily each year. While some students receive federal financial aid or merit-based scholarships from their universities, ...

Estrela Founder Kristina Dooley was recently selected as the recipient of the Distinguished Instructor Award for 2018 from the University of California Irvine Division of Continuing Education. Kristina has been an instructor in the UCI Certificate Program in Independent Educational Consulting since 2014 teaching one of the program's required courses, College Consulting Resources, to students from ...

They're here! They're here! If you're like us you've been patiently waiting for the 2019-20 Common App Essay Prompts to be announced. Spoiler Alert: the folks at the Common App have actually decided to keep the same prompts that were used during the 2018-19 application cycle.

It’s that time of year, folks. That’s right...Girl Scout Cookie season is here! I had the pleasure some time ago to attend a talk during a conference given by Lidia Soto-Harmon, CEO of the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital, the largest council in the United States. After listening to her inspiring talk about the effect Girl Scouts has had in creating young entrepreneurs with their cookie ...

It is a big week for sophomores and juniors as PSAT scores have just been released. Are you excited about your scores? Didn’t score as high as you hoped? Let’s take a deep dive into PSAT score reports, what they mean, and what your next steps should be. Read on for answers to some of your burning questions about your PSAT results.