College Admissions

CPE’s college admissions services have resulted in outstanding success since the 1990s: Over 90% of CPE’s students get into at least one of their top three colleges, often with substantial merit-based aid. We attribute this consistent success to our unique holistic approach to college counseling; strategies and advice specific to each student; and assistance with actual application writing, communications with university representatives, and general courtship of particular colleges.

Our college admissions consultations and related services fall into two broad categories:

1. 1. • Those that support students in building successful high school careers in preparation, i.e.. laying the groundwork, for their applications to college senior year

      • Those that support actual application writing and courting particular colleges

Ways we Support Students in the College Admissions Game throughout High School

• Private consultations to formulate short-term and long-term strategies for academics, standardized tests, athletics and extracurricular activities, community service, and individual passions
• Blog posts, podcasts, and short videos targeting specific topics to improve scholastic standing and increase chances of admission

Ways We Specifically Support Application Writing and Related Activities to Bolster a Student’s Candidacy 

When it comes time to writing, submitting, and following up on applications, CPE offers students a wide range of assistance. In ascending order of the level of support students and families need or want, these include:

• • Free Website Resources: Blog posts, podcasts, and short videos targeting specific tasks in the application process
  • Free June-August weekly 30-min Live Zoom/Facebook Videos with Dr. Yo : Helping Parents Help their Kids in the College Admissions Game: Brief presentations of college application topics parents need to understand to be of maximum service to their children, followed by Q&A
  • The CommonApp Handbook: Dr. Yo’s comprehensive book offers the same instructions and strategies as those given in CPE’s CommonApp Boot Camps. If used as step-by-step guide, it can deliver to conscientious students for $19.99 results equal to the best of the highest priced educational consultants.    
  • The CommonApp Handbook plus a small number of private consultations as needed, perhaps to brainstorm or clarify your overall approach, to proof read a draft of all or parts of your CommonApp, to work on specific college Supplements, to prepare for a campus visit or interview, or to follow up on your application after submission.
  • CommonApp Boot Camps (Summer) and CommonApp Workshops (Fall)
  • Private Consultations to work through the whole CommopnApp and/or Supplements 

CPE’s Unique Holistic Approach

CPE’s unique set of services and overall approach to coaching and working with high school students and families have grown out of Dr. Yo’s 30 years of experience as a high school teacher, guidance counselor, Ph.D. in Secondary Curriculum and Instruction, private tutor, and college admissions consultant. This experience has helped pave the way for our students’ unparalleled college acceptance rates, even at a time when most college admissions rates have dropped to all-time lows.

Most college prep companies focus on one or two aspects of the college admissions game, such as standardized test prep or academic tutoring or assembling a good list of colleges or advice about how to get it. Some tutors and consultants are even more narrowly focused, specializing only in math tutoring, for instance, or just helping students write their main application essay.

Of course, we are delighted to work with students in one or two areas in much the same way as the specialists; we have helped many students raise SAT and ACT scores, for example, or get a 4 or 5 on an AP exam, or tutor them in how to write an effective research paper, or prep them for college visits and interviews. Sometimes we meet students and families in the fall or winter of senior year and still help them achieve their college admissions goals. But where CPE adds tremendous value that few other companies or consultants can claim, and where our track record is truly outstanding even in today’s uber-competitive admissions game—here comes the secret sauce—is when students and families work with us to create and implement individualized admissions strategies throughout high school where academics, activities, standardized tests, and other achievements all work together to create a cohesive and compelling case for admissions : from course selection to activities to athletics to standardized test planning and preparation to community service to jobs and internships to summer experiences to idiosyncratic hobbies.

There are many ways admissions committees measure success and, consequently, there are many ways for students to feel successful. Scores can help, but they don’t mean everything. By the same token, one important extracurricular versus five isn’t always a tipping point for admissions committees. Just do you. CPE can help you package this in the best way possible; thereby enabling students to feel more successful and less stressed out during high school both in and out of the classroom. 

As important as it is for you to have interests outside of academics, at the end of the day, you are applying to a school. CPE helps in developing students’ academic enthusiasm wherever it lies by sharing a love of learning. Getting students fired up for the awesome intellectual and personal growth experiences that await them on any college campus on which they may ultimately find themselves is a priority for CPE. 

Your dream school is not always out of reach. CPE empowers students to apply to dream schools they may have at some point thought completely out of reach—the technical term we use in the game is “Reaches” and I like to see at least two on every CommonApp. High school guidance counselors who rely too much on the numbers and tell students it’s a waste of time to apply to a school because their GPA is .2 points too low or their ACT is 2 points lower than the college’s average or you lie just outside the comfort zone of Naviance’s scatter plot simply do not understand or appreciate the value of a well-conceived and well-written application. All things are not equal in the college admissions game and you have every right to apply to the schools of dreams. No one is guaranteed an acceptance letter before they apply.

Getting into college isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. CPE helps students think through, assess, and develop their interests, talents, and skills both to generate possible admissions strategies and to consider possible paths through college once they’re accepted.

How Does CPE Use the Holistic Approach to Help You?

To offer one specific example of how our approach can result in very effective advice far different from what you’d almost assuredly hear from a test prep teacher or academic tutor or even a high priced educational consultant, largely because they don’t take a holistic approach and don’t often collect any information outside their narrow niches and goals. Say you want to go to college with a strong psychology department, perhaps with an option to stay a fifth year to earn a master’s degree, en route to setting up your own private practice. You always wanted to have your own child psychology practice and that journey will formally begin in college. You have high interpersonal intelligence and excellent verbal skills; your keenest academic interests, highest level courses, and best grades consistently come in English and History , as well as electives—like AP Psychology—that draw on these particular strengths and interests. You might have one or two SAT Subject Tests and/or AP exams in subjects that corroborate this picture of you. Math classes, and the dreaded Math sections on standardized tests, on the other hand, have been more your foe than your friend in high school, and other than required statistics to support your psychology major, you’re looking forward to completing the last math class of your life before you graduate from high school. Like the your transcript of courses and grades, your SAT and/or ACT scores would likely reflect these interests and talents, or lack thereof ;-), with higher scores in reading, writing, and grammar than in math. Say your first SAT scores were 650 Reading and Writing and 500 Math.

Most test prep teachers and tutors would tell you to strengthen the chain at its weakest link and to focus primarily on raising you math score, which also has more room for improvement. And that would’ve been good advice in the era of the smart, well-rounded kid. But in today’s era of the passionate, focused kid who demonstrates depth rather than breadth, I’d give almost the opposite advice: while it would take substantial time and effort (and maybe even tears) to raise your math score 100 points given your lack of interest and mediocre performance in every high school math class, and ultimately it would be for precious little gain: even if you do manage to raise your math score to the same ballpark as your Reading and Writing score, it’s not like you’re suddenly going to make a case for your future study of math. You’re still going to make a case for studying psychology by showcasing your interpersonal and verbal strengths in as many ways as you can. In fact, you would be better served trying to raise your Reading and Writing score 50 points to hit the historically magical 700 bench mark, which admissions officers would immediately recognize as outstanding and would help your particular case and boost your overall chances for admissions more than a 100-pt increase in Math would. Not to mention you’d enjoy it more.

Many individualized strategies like this, i.e., those that emanate from a holistic approach to the admissions game, are very different from conventional strategies offered by specialists who rarely see beyond their specialty. We might encourage a young budding psychologist, for example, to demonstrate passion as well as academic preparedness by choosing clubs, activities, community service, and/or summer experiences that have a psychology tie-in. All this sets the stage for a coherent and convincing CommonApp, in which specific academic interests are demonstrated in strong grades and test scores and choice of senior year classes, and then colored in and deepened in a complementary Activities list.

CPE’s holistic approach to admissions is, I’m sure, the main reason why our college acceptance rates have been many, many, many times higher than the national averages year after year.

Our ideal client, then, the student whom we can best help get into the colleges on their list, is one who comes with his or her parents for an initial long-term planning consultation either right before or at the very beginning of ninth grade to discuss viable academic, testing, athletic, extracurricular, and community service strategies and devise an initial overall game plan that makes sense for each particular student. Even if your rising freshman’s head is consumed with transitioning to high school and all the drama that entails (it’s a very big deal in a young teen’s life) and miles away from any thoughts about college or college admissions, make her come anyway–she and you will be glad to have the admissions intel sooner rather than later. Then, at the beginning of sophomore through senior years, or sometimes once a semester, we reconvene to review progress, make changes based on changing interests, goals, and performance, and begin to discuss the student’s hopes and dreams for college and what a college experience might actually look like. Such discussions prove tremendously helpful in the following:

1. devising effective individualized strategies to get into the best schools where those hopes and dreams can be realized
2. enabling the student to articulate a compelling narrative about how his or her specific high school career helped shape and develop those hopes and dreams, particularly in the structured spaces of the CommonApp
3.  helping students begin to wrap their brains around college in a way that will help them get the most out of it once they’re accepted.

Students who start early in high school can avail themselves of the full range of advice we offer, which many students and parents regret to learn later in the game, often when it’s too late to follow. Of course, we can still help students improve their admissions prospects at any point in the game, even well into senior year, with our classes, workshops, tutoring, bootcamps, and consultations—much as other specialized companies do full-time—but history demonstrates that the earlier students devise and start to implement (or at least acknowledge) an overall game plan, the more successful they’ll be in the college admissions game. 

As a nice bonus, when I get to know students well from some combination of consultations, classes, and targeted tutoring in one or more subjects throughout high school, the better equipped I become to help brainstorm and make more specific suggestions for their applications and correspondence with college representatives. For example, I was recently helping a senior with whom I’ve worked closely since the summer before her sophomore year compose a letter of intent to Georgetown; when she wanted to articulate some of her specific areas of interest she wants to study as a Global Healthcare major, I was reminded of an essay we worked on together for her 10th grade Human Ecology class that she was very excited about. “Oh yeah…”