College Admissions Program
Students participate in a series of personal meetings, small peer group classes, and workshops covering a variety of college admission topics.
A PFA student begins their college planning journey in the guiding hands of a highly experienced college counselor. The counselor-family relationship grows by learning and understanding what students and families want in a college. Through a series of personal meetings, small peer group classes, and workshops students and parents learn about every aspect of the college admissions process from our team of expert college advisors and financial planners.
Personalized Student Attention
- Access to a collaborative college admissions counseling staff with more than 150+ years combined professional counseling experience
- Partner with a dedicated college admissions counselor and receive:
- In-depth focus on student goals and college and career interests
- Expert analysis of student’s current standing and admissions potential
- Comprehensive meeting notes detailing actionable items
- Complete self-discovery interest and aptitudes assessments and receive a comprehensive review to identify best college major and career options
- Discover student stand out factors and extracurricular initiatives
- Showcase individual unique characteristics
- Assess competitive positioning with other college applicants
- Comprehensive meeting notes detailing actionable items
- Engage in resume building, professional preparation and college interview skills
- Employ a comprehensive strategy for completing the college application process
Academics & Testing
- Customized ACT / SAT testing plan
- ACT / SAT Strategy workshop
- Access to robust Method Test Prep software
- Proctored full-length ACT / SAT tests
- Thorough review and tracking of:
- High school transcripts
- ACT / SAT Test Scores
College Discovery
- Build a strong college list using PFA’s S.A.F.E.© College List Strategy
- Analyze college acceptance rates, academic profiles and other criteria
- Learn strategies to achieve college admission goals, improve odds of:
- Admission into top choice schools
- Acceptance into specialized college majors and programs
- Acceptance into highly selective schools (e.g. Ivy Leagues)
- Achieving the best college admissions results
Building your college list: Number of colleges on your list
Finding the best college for you: PFA’s S.A.F.E© College List Strategy
Applications & Admissions
- Improving odds of acceptance into highly selective schools
- Structure to help manage the college application process timeline
- College application strategies and best practices
- Common application workshops
- College application process checklist
- College interview preparation
- Application guidance for Early Decison, Eary Action and Regular Decision
Paying for College
- Introduce concepts and strategies to afford college
- Initial budget discussion to identify an annual college budget
- Maximizing government aid
- On-going evaluation of potential for need- and merit-based aid
- Building a college list that considers your college budget and aid potential
- Best practices for winning private scholarships
- Discussion on potential impact of adjustments to asset positioning
- Understanding student / family loan options
- Expert guidance for navigating financial aid application process
Financial aid types available at colleges
Essay Review Program
- Comprehensive essay coaching by professional writers with a combined 80+ years of professional writing experience (e.g. past journalists at national newspapers, book authors, etc.)
- PFA’s full Quality Review goes beyond basic proofing, to include:
- Assessing an essay’s topic and topic treatment (how it’s written)
- Reviewing content, structure, mechanics and fact-checking
- Guidance for shaping, polishing and elevating an essay
- Brainstorming conferences – phone / video / in-office
- Continued email support from first to final essay draft
- Up to three essay reviews from our Essay Coaches
- Essay Review Services for college related essays include:
- Common app essay
- Coalition app essay
- Supplemental essays
- Housing essays
- Scholarship essays
- Honors Program essays
- Essay Bootcamp
- Three-day, focused summer sessions to complete Common app essay
Strategies for writing a great college essay
“College admissions officers want to read an essay that is compelling and interesting!”
or call us at 630-730-8825
What students say about our College Admissions Program...
PFA helped me a lot with my college search/decision experience. They were always willing to answer my questions and they gave me so many resources to help along the way. I appreciated how often they checked in with me and I knew they really cared. PFA helped me with essay writing and editing, gave me research templates and advice to narrow down my schools by being incredibly knowledgeable about each institution, and pushed me to expand my horizons with Linkedin setup, YouScience aptitude tests, and other professional workshops they offered.
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Maggie M.
Attending Mount Holyoke College, MA
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Partners for Achievement provided services to me throughout my college process that were essential to my success in searching for a college. They provided organization and guidance, which made the stressful and chaotic college process less daunting. PFA went above and beyond and taught me the professionalism and skills that I will use after my college experience as well. I’m extremely happy with my choice and the path that I am on, and especially thankful for PFA getting me here.
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Tess S.
Hinsdale South High School, IL
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I was getting at least a few questions wrong per section every single time, and it was difficult for me to pinpoint why. Method Test Prep helped me go from a 33 on my first practice test to a 36 because it took apart each of the sections of the ACT piece by piece, found the most commonly missed types of questions, and then presented practice drills for those.
I liked the amount of practice that MTP gave me, with new types of questions and drills every week. I did MTP over the summer, where I came in every Saturday morning for 2 hours and went through the lessons. The regularity and routine that PFA provided me helped me really focus on the lessons and set my mind to doing well. I also liked how MTP had one drill per ACT subject every week, so I was improving in all 4 areas constantly, rather than fixating on one at a time, which is what I would’ve done without the program. It’s really great that PFA provides a service that seems to have an endless wealth of practice problems, as I believe that made all the difference in the end. I got so much prep from MTP that I didn’t feel the need to use anything else to study. MTP helped me review all the types of questions I would see and then gave me more problems to practice than I could ever need. I took the ACT for real a week after finishing the MTP course, and I can honestly say that the test itself was not that difficult because of all the prep I had.
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Annika A.
Hinsdale Central High School, IL
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College-to-Career Program
College students receive one-on-one mentoring to guide them from their high school senior year through all four years of college and position them to achieve their career potential.
- Focused plan to help students graduate in four years
- Resume refinement
- Career network building strategies
- Internship and job opportunities via access to proprietary professional network
- Strategies for targeting and engaging potential employers
- Application, interview and salary negotiation training
or call us at 630-730-8825
WHY CHOOSE US
The college planning process can be overwhelming.
Our expert college admissions advisors offer families:
Peace of mind
Rest assured, our college counselors, coaches, and support staff will keep your student on track throughout the college application process.
Confidence
Count on our comprehensive counseling program to help you sort through the complexities of applying to college.
Less stress
Partner with us, expert college guidance consultants, to help manage the many college planning tasks.
Financial clarity
Receive custom analysis of how the cost of college attendance compares to your budget.
Industry knowledge
Team up with all of our college admissions experts for insight in college admissions counseling, major and career exploration, resume building, interview prep, essay writing, standardized test strategy, college budget, financial aid process, and more.
Structure
Follow our proven roadmap for the college admissions process to keep you focused and finish the college planning process on time.
Custom solutions
Every student has their own unique path to college and Partners For Achievement will help you discover your path.
