College Admissions Consulting 

Each year, we help 9th to 12th grade students navigate the college admissions landscape. Our focus is on fit - the right schools for each applicant. Our services are driven by an informed approach at the outset - helping families manage the tasks that become the key components of an admissions decision. Here are those components, and how we can help:

 

How We Work – and Where Students Land

Our Program

Essay Guidance

From Common App essays to supplements, we guide students toward narratives that reveal what test scores and transcripts do not — the whole person, the application that will stand out.

College Counseling

We help students build a college list that accounts for academic goals and personal fit, as well as strategic factors such as selectivity and testing policy.

Admissions Management

We create a schedule of admissions tasks from the outset, then manage every aspect of the process — test prep, college list, tours, interviews, and everything in between.

Standardized Testing

We advise on test prep schedules that work around extracurriculars and maximize score potential — and provide the prep itself, calibrated to the score ranges each student needs.

Transcripts

For sophomores and juniors, we recommend courses to take and subjects to develop. For seniors, we help anticipate what transcripts reveal to admissions officers.

Extracurriculars

We assess what students have accomplished and what could help admissions offices understand their passions and commitments outside the classroom.

Decision Advisement

When multiple offers arrive, we help weigh options, discuss final considerations, and ease the anxieties that come with making such an important decision.


Recent College Acceptances

A partial list of acceptances from City Smarts college counseling students, 2019–2025.

Harvard MIT Princeton Stanford Yale Oxford Columbia Brown Cornell Penn / Wharton Dartmouth Northwestern Duke Georgetown U Chicago Notre Dame Carnegie Mellon Vanderbilt Michigan UCLA UC Berkeley Wash U Emory Tufts NYU Film Barnard Wellesley Williams Pomona Middlebury Vassar Wesleyan Colgate Colby Bates Kenyon Oberlin Pitzer Bryn Mawr

consulting starts with a conversation.