college counseling Connecticut

In confusing times, paradoxes dominate. College is less needed (for some) and college is more needed (for many). After the Great Recession, I started Career Counseling Connecticut. I started working with twentysomethings throughout Connecticut as they navigated the work world. Those who did not need college and succeeded in the work world primarily went into […]

Maggie was a quiet young lady from Essex, Connecticut.   Attending Valley Regional High in the 2000s, she would later relay that most of her classmates wouldn’t recognize her if they saw her today.  She’s right because I didn’t recognize her.  She had taken an SAT class way back when and when we met a […]

For a broader perspective on prestige in the context of college counseling, please read the prior article.  Suffice to say, my college counseling efforts are designed to align with the goals of my clients.  The following story simply illustrates the point I made regarding “an asset to be leveraged.” As always, all names and identifying […]

An interesting paradigm shift seems to have occurred in my second decade of providing college counseling to students from Connecticut’s affluent suburbs.  When I started college counseling in the 2000s, most parents from Madison, Guilford, Essex, Old Saybrook, Old Lyme, East Lyme, Waterford, Stonington and other Shoreline towns, the parents were highly focused on the […]

As always, all names and occasional identifying details are changed when I provide college counseling stories. Emily was a student from Guilford High School in Connecticut.  We met for college counseling about a decade back.  She wanted to go to California.  As part of my normal college counseling discussion, I tell students that I will […]

College counseling is not one size fits all.  While it never was, post-pandemic and post demographic analysis, this fact is more true than ever. Many articles suggesting “10 tips for college admission!” have 5 tips that are probably not relevant for your particular situation. Our college counseling clients are predominately from Fairfield County and Connecticut’s […]

Through running The Learning Consultants for now… 20 years!…. I’ve always had a sense of dismay regarding half the college counselors I’ve met in Connecticut.   Most went into the field for the right reasons.  Specifically, most wanted to help young people with all important life-changing college decisions. But through the years, I came to […]

As we have been providing  college counseling for our students during the pandemic, we have been increasingly dealing with highly stressed parents who are confronting the normal massive stress associated with the college process and the altered reality related to the pandemic. Several have walked into our offices and exclaimed in paraphrased fashion: it seems […]

The big calamities of the pandemic make the mini-tragedies related to the college process seem really minimal. But for parents of college bound students, the crisis continues. The college process is stressful enough without having to deal with so many unknowns. We have been immersed in college counseling for the last few years and seemingly […]