Estrela Consulting Blog

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 ...

They're here! They're here! If you're like us you've been patiently waiting for the 2018-19 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 2017-18 application cycle.

In 2015 the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) released their State of College Admission Report. The result of their survey revealed that colleges ranked the application essay as the 5th most-important factor in the admission process. The only items ranking higher in importance were grades, GPA, curriculum and test scores. Recommendations, extracurricular activities, ...

Eliot Sloan, Essay Specialist on our college planning team, is currently developing an anthology of essays by family members of white-collar criminals. Her own memoir was featured in The New York Times "What We're Reading" section this week!