Estrela Consulting Blog

I’m an Independent Educational Consultant who loves my work guiding students through the process of sorting out the thousands of choices they have for college. I’m also the mom of two teenagers who have, or are going through, this very same process. The first time I went through college visits with my older son, I thought it would be easy to remember the distinguishing features of each school and ...

The Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) released this month its ranking of What Colleges Look for in High School Students, based on an annual survey of nearly 2,000 independent educational consultants. While grades and standardized test scores are near the top of these annual rankings, a number of significant changes and surprises are challenging the assumptions about college ...

College application season is upon us and high school seniors everywhere are ready to do what they once thought was light years away: hitting that “submit” button before their college application deadlines have arrived. Before jumping ahead to the waiting game, let’s back up to the present and talk about what comes next.

Perhaps your favorite gift last holiday season was a label maker (mine was!) or maybe you are a self-proclaimed World Class Procrastinator. Regardless of where you fall on the personal organization continuum, the college application process is comprised of many types of deadlines for each college or university. All too often, one school’s application deadline happens on the same day (or during ...