One Great Idea 2021From Retreat Participant Contributions

© 2021 Independent Educational Consultants Association

IEC

A P

rofe

ssio

nal M

embe

r Ret

reat

Communication

3

Sandy Aprahamian

Years ago, I was given the book The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, by Don Miguel Ruiz. I have found these four agreements to be helpful in all aspects of life and have applied them to my practice from the very beginning

The Four Agreements

Agreement 1: Be Impeccable With Your Word

I always start from the side of compassion and understanding with students and parents as we are dealing with an emotional time in their lives and their relationship.

I tell the parents and students why I chose this career and how much I love it.

I share that I am also a parent and am aware that they are giving me the opportunity to help one of the most important people in their world.

I make the promise up front that I do not guarantee any scores (I do test prep) or any college acceptances, but I do guarantee that I will do my best to help the student and family and will treat them as I would like to be treated were it me or my child.

I explain that our relationship is very important to me and it is important that we communicate.

I explain my fees and how they are priced to be fair to both me and the family. If they have any concern about the fees I encourage them to research other options before we get started, then come back to me if they feel we’d be a good fit.

When I gather that I would not be a good fit for a student/family, I tell them right up front and give them the IECA directory link where they can research other consultants and/or a list of local test prep companies they can reach out to.

Most importantly, I listen to what the student and parent have to say.

Agreement 2: Don’t Take Anything Personally

The college process is an emotional time. I have learned that the most important thing to do is listen. Something that may have been originally interpreted as a dig or criticism is usually coming from another person’s insecure place. I ask questions and listen.

Agreement 3: Don’t Make Assumptions

When unsure, ask. When a statement is unclear, ask for clarification.

I do not assume that the student shares with their parent(s) everything we discuss. After every meeting, I send a follow up email to the student and copy the parent to make sure that we are all clear on what was discussed and what is expected.

Agreement 4: Always Do Your Best

I put myself in the shoes of the students and parents I work with and provide for them what I would like to have provided to me.

I block off student meetings for a week in June and a week in December to give myself time to recharge and work on the business side of my business- evaluate what worked and what didn’t and make changes as needed

4

Jodi Atkin

I ask every parent to write a letter of recommendation and provide a collated list of brag sheet questions I have

collected from a number of school counselors to guide them. The resulting document can/should be shared with their student’s school counselor to assist in the LOR. It also provides me with some insight into what the parent sees as unique and/or challenging for their student. And for the rare school that asks for a parent LOR, the groundwork is completed!

5

Lisa Barrett

IEC Pod to create team for individual consultants who are not ready for partnership but want the benefits of shared workload, thinktank space and comradery.

These days, the learning or social “Pod” has become the norm. It is also a wonderful idea for lone IECs who have felt isolated even before Covid. Many us have had careers in organizations where we worked as a member of a team.

While our list servs and Facebook groups are invaluable, there is sometimes a need for a smaller professional group with a no judgement zone, good critical perspectives, opportunities to share tasks and resources, news updates and supportive comradery.

Prior to the pandemic, and thanks to IECA conferences, college tours and other professional organization offerings, I found three colleagues that felt like a “fit.” My three other pod members come from different regions of the country and are college consultants with different approaches or populations served.

This has proven to be invaluable to easing my workload (i.e., we divide up work in terms of summer program vetting or data collection on various topics). We all like working on our own without a business partner or larger staff and having each other to correspond to almost daily has been lifesaving professionally and personally. We often have just quick questions, cases that need to be shared for input, and a need for affirmation or constructive criticism.

We’ve named our group or “Pod” and when it flashes up on my text or email feed, I am quick to be there when possible for my colleagues just as they are for me.

Again, I love our larger network, rich with resources and fellowship, but this smaller group of four gives me an immediate, safe place to go each day when I am feeling swallowed up by the good work we do.

6

Jessica Chermak

Utilizing the CLEAR framework to address objections. For example, when a potential client mentions in the consultation that they can’t afford the services they need for their student, we Confirm what they say, Legitimize the sentiment, Evaluate the situation, and Respond accordingly. In this particular scenario, we would acknowledge that college advising help can be expensive, and request to have a conversation about what price point they would be comfortable with or able to meet, in order to find a solution that meets the needs of our business and the family. Sometimes that means offering our sliding scale pricing, other times it means referring them to another counselor who may have a pricing structure better suited for the family.

confirm legitimize evaluate and respond

7

Cathy Costa

I send a brief recap religiously after every student meeting. In it, I briefly summarize what we discussed, but more importantly, I document each of our to-do’s and associated due dates, as well as expectations about when our next meeting will be (sometimes we have already scheduled it, and I include that info). It’s also a forum to communicate concerns (i.e., your list is not balanced and you need more schools where you are in the middle 50%) for the record. I send them via email through College Planner Pro and all are retained in one place for easy access. For students who aren’t great about checking email, especially at the beginning of the relationship, I may text it, too.

Recaps take just a few minutes and keep parents in the loop, so the process doesn’t seem like a mysterious black box. They also eliminate misunderstandings about the student’s responsibilities or the topics we’ve discussed. I have found that by imposing this discipline on myself I do not experience surprised parents and that the time investment is well rewarded with happy clients. As a person with a really busy life and a terrible memory, I often find them very useful myself!

8

Shelley Enger

My partner and I developed a “meeting template” that has all components of the college application process on it. There is a box at the top that is a summary of the student’s academics, extracurricular activities and challenges, which serves as a quick reminder when we are in a meeting with the student. Then we have a table on which we input each college that makes the student’s final list with a column for the name of the college and a column for the deadlines (EA, ED, RD, Rolling, Priority, etc.). Next, we have a table that is essentially a checklist of all application components, including all writing components. Below this table, we have space to write notes at each meeting and a to-do list that we copy and paste in each post-meeting, follow-up email. The document also includes in red notes to us about how to wrap up each meeting (e.g., add next meeting to calendar, create meeting Zoom link and send to student, etc.) At the end of the meeting, we immediately make a copy of the meeting document and label it with the next meeting date, and then we update it for our plans for the next meeting. This template helps keep us very organized so that we don’t miss anything.

9

Nancy Federspiel

In these days of Covid, I conduct all of my appointments on Zoom. I send out the Zoom link to the clients the day before the meeting (rather than when they book the appointment.) This way the Zoom link serves the purpose of connecting us AND serves as a reminder for the client of our meeting.

10

Andrea Goldman

While I have been using College Planner Pro for many years and find the Broadcast messages to be a big timesaver, sometimes messages go into spam or families ignore them. So, I also maintain a group contact for each class through my Outlook email so I can periodically send messages and remind students to check the Email tab of the software for mail they might have missed.

11

Julia Gooding

I work very intensely and high touch with families and students mostly from China. Working remotely this year-- separated from both my team and most of my students-- I try to be both highly efficient and also highly personalized.

To balance these-- on the efficiency side-- the most significant change I made this year is that my team now uses the project management software, Asana. My clients never took to CPP or Guided Path, and it doesn’t integrate well for our boarding school applicants. We still use Google Drive, but it also doesn’t work in China. So internally, Asana has proven to be a godsend. It helps me prioritize everything I need to do, for clients, for business, and helps track my team’s workflows to know what has been accomplished, what’s delayed and needs follow-up. Additionally, they can create tasks and deadlines for me, too. Emails can get lost in an abyss, spreadsheets help when you visit them, but Asana keeps everything moving forward. It’s especially helpful when we work 13 hours apart!

In terms of the personalization, I try to infuse unexpected celebration and delight for both my team and clients. We have a birthday calendar tracker for all of our students and send them cards or even small gifts the day before or of-- many forget we know when their birthdays are and aren’t expecting it! One of my seniors in a boarding school had a birthday the last week of December. We were working very intensely logging lots of Zoom hours on essays, and I recalled a conversation back in August about our mutual love of pickles. Via Amazon, I mailed her assorted pickles (random, totally!) and a card saying, ‘you may feel in a pickle, but I’m here for you!’. I also surprised my team with ‘virtual red envelopes’ as they were leaving work on New Year’s Eve. Expressing gratitude reaps infinite rewards!

I still have the cushy little star from my IECA Summer Training Institute on my desk that reminds me to ‘Exceed Expectations.’ It’s wonderful to thank people when they expect it and can be even more powerful when it’s least expected.

12

Nicole Gracie

I hired a business coach to work with my team to plan our transition. She worked with us on team roles and overall it was a great way to communicate with each other. I don’t think we would have been able to be so open without someone guiding us. She gave us tools to use to define roles moving forward. Now we have a plan for the year.

13

Aubrey Groves

I have found making short How To videos for repeated questions that I get from our students to be very helpful in eliminating the amount of work I have to do. I use SnagIt or Zoom to record videos, upload them to YouTube as private videos and copy and paste the links into emails for the students/parents to watch. It has taken down the amount of questions we get about our resume process SO Much!

14

Kendall Guess

I know all of us feel like Zoom experts at this point. Making that initial connection with a future client - or a student that you only see sporadically feels harder to do virtually than in person. Eye contact and facial expressions are both important. I record sessions occasionally just to see what my students see. When I watch the playback, I make notes about where my eyes are tracking, how I pause when talking and the emphasis I placed on certain subjects. Did I EVER let the client talk? Did it become a lecture and not a conversation? I have altered my desktop, my camera setup and have placed a big pink star (that clients can’t see) on my monitor next to my camera so my eyes are drawn to it.

Making that virtual meeting feel more real will help your students to know you really care about them.

15

Randi Heathman

The “schedule send” option through Gmail has been a huge organizational tool for me, as well as helping to keep boundaries with parents and students during COVID, when people have found the lines between work, home, and school blurring.

How I use it:

Like most of us, I have set working days and hours most of the time (the thick of application season being somewhat more flexible). I’m entirely reachable during those times via phone and email. In the evenings or on weekdays or holidays, I typically stay on top of my emails (though I have an away message posted for holiday periods). To prevent messages from piling up or from having to dive into a huge pile on a Monday morning, I often take a moment answer them as they come up (when time permits) but then I schedule them not to go out until Monday morning because I also want to emphasize to my families that my normal operational hours are X-Y and that those hours are firm. I want to be available to clients, of course, but not TOO available that they feel they can reach out and receive a quick response at any hour of any day.

What I really feel I’ve gained more than anything with the “schedule send” feature is a bit of control, in that I can CHOOSE to respond to these messages in my off time if I wish, but that I’m not opening the door to my families to invade my life. It may be a placebo and I may be fooling myself, but it’s working so far!

16

Amy Jasper

I’ve often struggled with maintaining contact with underclassmen during the fall when my primary focus is seniors. Because clients come to me at different times, I want a new client to feel welcome and nurtured even though my schedule is full with seniors. This fall I implemented 15 min Zoom check-ins with my juniors. I’ll take an hour here and there and stack the meetings. It’s a welcome break from essays and applications, and it’s a great way to have a casual conversation about classes, teachers, college questions, etc.

17

Joan Koven

No longer meeting in person, and moving all meetings to Zoom, I realized we needed new rules and etiquette in order to make our meetings most productive.

I created a document that I go over with students after our junior intake meeting. I did find the document lengthy, so I have since changed the name and shortened it. Here is the full unabridged version.

Joan’s Rules of the Road The standards we set for working together positively and productively. This will serve as a guideline for your thoughtful behavior. Sometimes, these are behaviors that may be considered common sense without being expressly articulated. Communication Our collaboration relies heavily on communication, and we will communicate through text message, your student portal, and email.

● When sending me an email or message, please include all pertinent information (dates/times) in a clear and polite tone, so we can best respond. ● All correspondence should be replied to within 24 hours. ● When we meet via Zoom, your profile should have both your first and last names with proper capitalization. ● Communicate all changes to your schedule (postponement, running late, or needing to leave early) in advance of the meeting.

Transparency Being transparent will allow us to work together to the fullest degree.

● Identify if someone else is in the room when we meet. If a parent is in the room, we are eager to say hello and give a quick recap. Typically our meetings are student-centered unless it is a scheduled family meeting. ● Let us know what other commitments you have: sports tournaments, performances, college visits, standardized tests, or lots of homework. This will allow us to remain flexible throughout the process as long as we know what to plan for. ● Keep us updated on all grades, standardized tests scores, new interests, struggles, and most importantly admission decisions.

Etiquette Politeness and respectfulness will see us through.

● For all of our Zoom meetings, dress appropriately. We want you to be comfortable, so think, “Would I wear this to Target?” ● Log into Zoom from a calm, quiet, and comfortable well-lit place (not your bed) with your face in the frame. Zooming from a car or a noisy public place with a bad internet connection will not allow us to have an efficient or effective meeting. ● Protect our time together by refraining from distractions such as your cell phone, pets, alerts, food delivery, or siblings.

Accountability Being honest and prepared will make the most of our time together.

● Complete all work at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting, and communicate when it has been completed. If you are stuck, reach out, we are here to help.

Personal Ethics Be active, enthusiastic, ethical, committed, and accountable throughout the entire college search and application process.

● Others matter. Think beyond yourself, and take time to see the world with more mindful eyes. ● Use how you project yourself in the world, how you spend time with your essay specialist and me, to exercise your collaborative skills and ways of behaving so that you’re increasingly aware of others and your ability to impact circumstances, large and small.

18

Joanne LaSpina

Early this past summer, during the middle of senior essay meetings, I began to realize that I was sharing the same information over and over. Wouldn’t it be great if I could just say this one time and then dig right into the individualized part of essay writing during the student meeting?

Zoom to the rescue!

I cued up a couple of my PowerPoint slides and recorded that part of the meeting. No dress rehearsal needed since I’d done it so many times. I then sent the recording link to students (and their parents) and asked them to review it before our meeting. I’ve since recorded “How I Develop your Initial College List” to be used before the college list meeting and I plan to record others this year related to resume’ writing and scholarship opportunities.

Here are a few things I’ve learned:

•Keep it short. Students are not going to listen to a 30-minute video from their IEC (although I don’t know why since we have much wisdom to share 😊). Shoot for 2-8 minutes. You’re just covering the highlights.

•A few slides can be helpful so it’s not just your face on the screen.

•Do a practice recording so you can get familiar with the buttons you’ll be using and to do a video and audio check.

•To make a Zoom recording, check out their helpful tips (https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360025561091-Recording-layouts). You can record on your phone, tablet or laptop and you can use other platforms, like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.

A recording will never take the place of individualized, personalized guidance and support, but it can save you time, keep parents in the loop, and cut down on the length of your meetings.

3…2…1…Try It!

19

Gina Lee

Listening Well Leads to Empathy, Great Communication, and Solving Problems

In the middle of this unprecedented application season amidst the pandemic, I needed emergency eye surgery. Imagine reading essays with one functioning eye for nearly two months. Luckily, with my family, technology, patient students, and creative problem-solving, I was able to complete the application season with my seniors.

While my circumstances often led to frustrations, it became a gift. I literally had a gas bubble in my right eye, which created a dark blind spot covering my field of vision. As my right eye began to heal, the blind spot would slowly shrink in diameter but still reminding me of its presence. More than ever, the reality of my disability forced me to rely on my listening skills to pick up on the nuisances during my conversations. I also began to ask my students and families more questions than ever before since I couldn’t rely on reading non-verbal cues. As I listened more intently, I began to hear better their trepidations, their desires, their aspirations, their misguided thinking, and their needs. In return, I spent more time pausing to ponder about the student and their family rather than quickly assessing the problem and responding with a professional answer. Naturally, this process lends itself to growing in empathy and presence instead of always racing to plan future tasks or deliverables. Listening well a bit more made a visible difference with how I interacted with students and their families; thereby, yielding student-centric solutions. The best encouragement in building this skill came when tensions lifted, or attitudes shifted, whether my students or my own.

With this recent insight, I have purposely focused on listening well in my everyday life. Professionally, I began to ask myself where I can intentionally incorporate listening better when working with students and families. Recently, I’ve re-evaluated the engagement touchpoints along the college admissions journey. Here are a few examples:

Initial Sales Contact: Before pitching a parent or guardian a description of my services and cost and sharing my background and credentials, I seek to find out who they believe their child and their needs. I also want to know why they are seeking an IEC. Questions are open-ended, like: “Tell me about your child.” What are your concerns? Why are you seeking an IEC?”

Parent Survey: I require families who want to take the next step working with me to take a parent survey using a Google form. I re-written or added questions to my previous survey, which are open-ended and philosophical, like “How do you define successful parenting?” or “What are your life and educational goals for your child?” I also want to see what changes they’ve observed in their student with questions like “What areas have you seen the most development and growth during middle school or high school?”

Recorded Student Interview: Using the Zoom recording option, I conduct a one-on-one personal interview with the students to access their core values and motivations early on in the process. Previously, I would have a list of questions and just kind of run through them. But I have re-evaluated the interview structure and incorporated a more journalistic style of interviewing. I ask one question about what things or whom they care about most and then let their answer lead me to the next question and so forth.

I’ve also had to adapt these touchpoints with parents or guardians when English is not their first language by spending more time on the phone to glean these answers.

While eye surgery in the middle of the year’s busiest time was inconvenient, my new insights and motivation have been the silver lining. Building better listening skills is one goal I hope I’ll never stop regardless of the reason. I look forward to my first workshop this month and listening to your experiences.

20

Deena Maerwitz

I’m sure others are way ahead of me on this, but for those who aren’t, using Calendly this year to schedule clients meeting has saved me a lot of time.

21

Liz Marx

The Six Minute Meeting. Now that everyone is familiar with working virtually, you don’t have to keep one-hour meetings just because someone drove to your office. The power of more frequent six-minute meetings interspersed between longer meetings is that it keeps your students accountable. It’s easy to ignore email and text reminders, but it’s much harder to ignore a person staring at you. It doesn’t eat too much time from your day, but it ensures that students stay on track if they have to look at you and tell you that they didn’t complete their assignments. I don’t use it as a tool to punish or humiliate kids, but it’s does prove enormously effective in keeping kids motivated and on track.

22

Amy McVeigh

Parent Education/Communication

We communicate regularly throughout our process with parents, and this cycle, we adjusted our communication strategy with parents as it relates to the college list that we create based on criteria that we help the student develop.

We now email the parents the day the list is being presented to the student (virtually this year, in person previously). The email recaps the steps we’ve completed so far, how the criteria drives the list development, and what is ahead – the student researching the schools on the list and eventually, deciding which schools to apply to. Critically, it underscores the value we put on creating a strategic list and supporting students as they research and refine the list.

The email continues by providing tips to parents on how they can effectively support their student through the research phase. You undoubtedly have your own tips based on your approach with your students and families, but here’s the essence of what we cover:

Wait for your student to tell you about the list, share their reactions, and describe the process ahead.

Support a spirit of discovery – if you (or your student) hasn’t heard of a school it may still be a great fit. [We then provide some coaching around actions they can take to reinforce the exploration phase.]

Let your student lead – parents can tip the scale in so many ways without meaning to.

[We then rehit the process, underscoring our confidence that the student will arrive at a final list that makes sense for him/her and reassuring the parents that we will keep them up to date.]

There are many other ways throughout our process that we educate our parents, but this one added email seems to have made a difference for us this year. At what can be a sensitive moment, we are reiterating where we are in our process, reminding parents of the strategic approach, and providing tips for them on how to effectively support their student and reinforce the Smart approach to college selection. It seems to have reduced stress and improved communication between our Consultants and our parents.

I’d love to hear if you do something similar or decide to!

23

Bari Norman

I enter all appointment notes using the College Planner Pro “Notes” tool and use the follow-up feature to so nothing falls through the cracks. This alerts me to send something or check in with a student after a meeting. When possible, I also pre-schedule emails and communications to be sent through CPP or through our email system. I find that the advance planning makes all the difference and also ensures that everything that needs to get done actually gets done (on time)! I also love CPP’s custom Checklist you can create for groups of students (Seniors Applying, Juniors, International Students, etc.). This helps me stay on track regarding individual tasks for each student.

24

Marilyn O’Toole

To streamline and clarify my follow up communication with students and parents, especially as follow up to our meetings, I use the Text Edit application on my Mac.

I create an email with every step that needs to be done with students. I save this as a template for each stage in the admissions process. It is a lot of work to create this document/information but only needs to be created once.

To prepare for a meeting, I open up the text edit document and copy & paste it into an email. I edit the information from here for each student prior to our meeting. I will use this as our TO DO list or agenda for our meeting as well as the follow up email that will be copied to parents.

Example: There are 16 topics on the template (there are lots of details on my template), but I delete items on the list to only the items that we will discuss. I then verbally and visually review with students the 3-5 things for them, the student, to follow up on.

After I have created the email draft, I queue up the items to be discussed for our meeting either the night before or early in the morning, with the student’s name in the front on the subject line, saving each one as a draft. Here is where I can add anything else that we need to discuss. Then I am ready for the day AND my follow up/clean up at the end of my day is clear. It also includes a confirmation of our next meeting and when to expect a reminder.

Example of suggested topics below, adding details that are needed:

Dear _____,

Thank you for meeting today.

We discussed:

Current Classes

The Planner

Assessments

College List

Test Prep

College Mailing Lists

Demonstrated Interest

Suggested Reading

Online Classes

Extracurricular Activities

Community Service

Resume

Essays

Letters of Rec

College Applications

Interviews

Here is your TO DO List:

Our Next Meeting:

We will work together again on:

A reminder will be in the Zoom link that will arrive 48 hours before our meeting.

If you need to adjust the meeting for any reason, please do so prior to the 24-hour window.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you!

25

Sharon Olofsson

Find a close group of colleagues that you trust to share resources with, vent to, get advice from, and serve as back-up for each other’s businesses in case of emergency. I was fortunate to have found just such a group when I attended STI in 2016. While we’re in various parts of the county and each of us runs our own business, we coordinate many of our efforts, have a weekly video call and constant group chat, travel together to visit colleges, and meet up at IECA conferences. When new families ask if I have a backup in case of emergency I happily point out that I have this group of close friends that I trust to take over my client work if needed and know that they’ll serve my clients well in a style similar to my own.

26

Rebecca Stuart-Orlowski

Communication Matters; stories matter; connecting with students matters; your personal experiences matter. I’m here to encourage you to share yourself with your students. I don’t think you’ll regret it, and I think it will help deepen your relationship with them.

One of my biggest strengths also might be a weakness for some families, but then, those are the families that move on and that’s ok. I am a storyteller. I love connecting with students (and parents) by regaling stories from my life and my own children’s lives (and sometimes the lives of students I work with who’ve given me permission to share anonymously).

I’ve lived multiple lives and I seem to draw people to my practice who benefit from my personal experiences.

1. I was a special education teacher, so I have experience working with students with disabilities. That included deaf students, students with LDs, and students with ADHD.

2. I am the parent of a twice-exceptional son who has mental health issues and T1 diabetes among other things, so I often find myself sharing his experiences with parents and students who’ve experienced major bumps in life.

3. I was a (part-time) professional dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher for 20 years. Both of my older sons were serious classical musicians. Therefore, I have a deep appreciation for performing arts and experience helping students put together arts supplements. I also have the experience of being a late bloomer, having started dance at age 18, so I have an appreciation for all levels of development of the arts. I can usually gauge whether or not a student’s arts supplement should be submitted. I’m also good at designing arts resumes.

4. My eldest son was a super highflyer who was fortunate to get into all the colleges to which he applied including MIT, Princeton, Penn, Caltech, Mudd, and Vandy. He graduated from MIT, so I tend to draw strong STEM students since I know a good bit about a wide variety of STEM-focused colleges and programs.

5. My middle son’s educational journey has been such a checkered and unusual one that I am well able to help transfer students, students with W’s, students who take gap years, and students who are unsure about whether or not, or how, to talk about their disabilities in the context of complicated transcripts. Sharing his stories helps families understand that I’m rooting for their success since I’ve been in their shoes.

6. My own kids were eligible for a lot of need-based aid and also earned significant scholarships, so I’m able to have open, honest discussions with parents about finances. I also happen to have a wonderful colleague and friend who not only helped us 9 years ago in understanding our finances and filing appeals but who is also my go-to for families who are unsure of college and finances.

While stories aren’t the only thing I bring to the table (I certainly back up my business with credentials, experience, and professional development), I do think that they add a unique flavor to my consulting business. I have a zest for life, I believe in personal connections, and I have found that my stories can be the icebreakers that nervous students or families need to develop a strong working relationship.

27

Dhruti Vasavada

Since more and more colleges are using a holistic review process, I find it extremely important to develop students with that approach as well. I take every student as a whole person and work with them from the beginning to highlight their personal strengths, add some valuable life-skills like time-management and discipline, and focus on finding that one or two niche areas they really vibe with during their early explorations. I also talk one-on-one with each student early on understanding who they are at their core sometimes through the personality test results but for the most part, connecting with them where they are and trusting my gut. Summer opportunities after the sophomore year are more of exploration but the summer before senior year is when I get them to engage in some kind of impactful work—research, internship with a pro in the field of their interest, taking college-level classes to improve their understanding of the academic subject or independent work. Most of the success comes from guiding them to the right mentors and motivating them to make the most of their opportunities.

Making parents included in the whole process while guiding students is also a significant part of my practice and I have found more of them adding a lot of value to the teamwork required as the application season work picks up the pace during senior year. I ask them to be part of the meetings for almost all of the sessions and encourage them to have free and open discussions within the family. The stronger the team is the higher the chances of succeeding in the application season but more importantly, the happier the clients are. I call this culturally competent college admissions services.

28

Marketing/Promotion

29

Chris Andersson

Put your picture on your website!

It’s so helpful and welcoming to see your face!

We are a person-to-person field, right? And you are your brand. You are the person the family will be working with. So, include yourself in your marketing materials.

Make your website smile!

- An “About Us” page with no photos has no life in it. While we can read your impressive bio, seeing your face humanizes the whole experience.

- It’s important to convey warmth, approachability and friendliness.

- “Oh, they look really nice!”

- “Oh, look how diverse their staff is!”

Make yourself famous!

- Build your brand within your community.

- Connect your face with your name and your business.

- Add your photo to your advertisements, fliers, posters—even your business cards.

- You want people to recognize you—at the grocery store, your kid’s school, your place of worship—as the one to go to for help with college applications.

Make yourself memorable!

- How many times have you taken a stack of business cards you received at a conference and looked those people up to remember who they were?

- If you see their face on their website, it will jog your memory.

- “Oh, yeah! She’s the one whose daughter plays lacrosse just like my daughter!”

- “He’s the one who specializes in athletes!”

- This will result in new relationships with colleagues in the field, opening the door to potential collaborations and, at the very least, continued conversations by the coffee station at future conferences.

30

Denise Baylis

You can register as a business and create a customized promotional offer on Nextdoor.com (if it’s available in your area) that is targeted to homes in towns, neighborhoods–– and even parts of towns–– of your choosing. The number of towns/neighborhoods you select determines the cost. It’s very targeted outreach and you can control the demographic and the cost. I have had people call me as a result of the promotion, although I have not yet converted one to a client!

31

Shannon Bergeron

Work from a strengths-based approach. My value as an IEC comes from nurturing personal relationships. I was a school counselor for many years before becoming an IEC, so I built a solid reputation in the community where my clients typically come from, and I work diligently to maintain those relationships.

I nurture my partnership with the school counselors and parent group from that high school. I regularly volunteer to provide workshops or presentations, and I donate each and every time the parent group asks. This has ranged from donating a two-hour package for an auction to giving a Master Class on “How Do I Know If I Need to Hire an Outside Consultant,” all of which raises money for the school and ultimately for the students.

I work to maintain great relationships with each client parent, as almost all of my new business comes from referrals. Word of mouth is a powerful tool! At the end of a student’s senior year, before they leave for college, I send them a gift card to the school they will attend, and I send the parents a personalized Yeti mug with my logo, along with a hand-written note and my business card. I ask them to tell their friends about me (and they do)! I also follow up with both students and parents and invite them to write a testimonial for my website.

Ultimately, figure out your own strengths and work to develop them for your own practice.

32

Lynne Bossart

Since going 100% virtual, I have changed the way I conduct my consultations. I have a College Planner Pro student profile with photo, for my cat, Marcel, a perennial high school junior. I include in every consult a demo of the program using her profile. Everyone loves Marcel, she adds humor to the conversation and always lightens the mood. Ever since I’ve been doing this I have seen a significant increase in closing potential clients.

33

Jan Esposito

Stay in touch with your old clients. They’re a valuable source of referrals and new business.

Over the years we have found that having an updated database is very valuable. The customer relationship management software (CRM) we use is Swiftpage Act! which has marketing automation included so we can send out an email campaign to thousands in our database.

I usually send out a holiday greeting email to all my current and past clients as well as to prospects. During this time of the pandemic, people seem to have an even stronger need to communicate with others. So, we have taken advantage of this and given people what they want.

This year I sent out an email at Thanksgiving and this one on New Year’s:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

One of the greatest joys of the season is the opportunity to say thank you and to wish you the very best for the New Year.

We are so grateful that we’ve been able to serve our College Channel families for over 20 years and would love to hear from our old friends.

Please drop us a line and let us know how your family is doing.

We hope you all find joy this holiday season.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

We intend to send an email for Valentine’s Day and throughout the year.

Notice that we purposely made sure this doesn’t sound like a sales pitch (although it is).

The response to these emails has been very positive. They have generated repeat clients and referrals as well as testimonials.

Within a week of the New Year email, we had five previous clients set up appointments for their next child.

We also got numerous responses from past clients telling us about their students’ successes and how they appreciated the help we gave them. We thanked them for their email and asked if we could use it as a testimonial on our website. They all said yes.

People love to talk about their kids so give them the opportunity they’re looking for. This reminds them that you’re still out there and that you’re a concerned and caring professional. It will most likely generate referrals.

Hopefully this simple activity will enhance your business.

34

Jessie Martin

As COVID took hold and my phone stopped ringing I began to panic. The Class of ‘20 was much smaller than in my previous years. It was then that I attended that fantastic webinar, Helping Reset your IEC Business during COVID-19 and beyond.

It prompted me to offer an entirely new package — The App Review. For a set fee, the client would receive a set of eyes on an app on the cusp of being submitted. It included two one-on-one sessions, an editorial review of the essay with suggestions, as well as recommendations on how to strengthen the application itself (activity descriptions, future plans, add’l information, etc.)

It was a success and I worked with an additional 8 seniors last year, albeit at a much lower price point, but also with a lot less of a time commitment on my part. We often equate the value of what we do with time that it takes to complete that work. However, the VALUE of what we offer can’t really be broken down into time spent with a particular client or student. Yes, you are saying — Process AND Knowledge.

This is an idea that I am trying out moving into the Class of ‘21 cycle. I am not sure how it will go but it feels right. I’ve simplified my offerings to three packages. The attached matrix is a work in progress but will be featured when I launch a new website on 1/15. (jessiepeckmartin.com) If a client chooses not to engage in my services by selecting The Comprehensive Package (All in!), then they have the option to purchase blocks of concierge credits individually or in five-credit bundles. They then have the option to “build” their own plan depending on their needs and budget.

Let's do this.

Premium Virtual Academy

One-on-One Support

On-Call Text Support

YouScience Profile

Application Pitch

Tailored College List

Admissions Networking

Visit & Interview Prep

Resume

Application Development

Application Polish

Winning Main Essay

Supplemental Essays

Strategic Testing Plan

Strategic Application Plan

Evaluation of Offers

Admission Outreach

See Info

Below

Concierge

Deliverable

Options

Included

COMPREHENSIVE

(college, prep, transfer & graduate)

3+ parent consults/

12 student sessions

1 parent consult/

2 student sessions

Concierge

Credits

CONCIERGE(five-credit bundles )

APP REVIEW

(for seniors only)

jessiepeckmartin.com | @compassu|

35

Diane Overman

I often have students who are members of their school’s competitive dance and orchestra programs. Those groups have active Mom networks as well as annual spring shows or concerts where they have printed programs. To support my students and get some excellent visibility, I become a team/club sponsor. This entitles me to have an ad in their printed programs in addition to being listed on their websites and social media. I then highlight my sponsorships of these groups on my social media. The cost to do this is well worth it because it provides me with a steady stream of new students each year while also increasing my social media presence and brand in my community.

36

Francine Schwartz

Pathfinder Base Camp Service OptionA one-time 90-minute session with the option of applying to a comprehensive package.

In an effort to be able to provide some level of service for families who are uncertain or unable to make a longer-term commitment I developed a single stand-alone session. It is called Base - Camp to fit with the names of my other Pathfinder services theme. I ask families to come prepared with a transcript, standardized test scores if available and a list of their most pressing college questions. During the session I conduct a mini version of my in-depth interview to gain a sense of the student’s basic interests, majors and colleges they may be considering. I demonstrate the College Planner Pro system with a few example colleges and discuss the types of services that I can offer. I also answer their questions in as much depth as possible. As a follow up I send them a mostly generic but in-depth timeline of college planning activities for the student and that Pathfinder provides for each semester of high school. I find that this way the family receives a valuable service, I am compensated for my time as opposed to a free initial consultation and often they will convert to a full package or additional hourly services. Currently my fee for Base Camp is $250 (I have considered raising it) I do offer what I call complementary initial inquiries where I will discuss my services over the phone or occasionally zoom for 15 - 25 minutes for no fee.

Here is the description from my website:

Pathfinder Base Camp - Orientation

Start here to get organized, de-stress and have your questions about high school success and the college going process answered by an expert. Base Camp includes one counseling session, transcript review, and customized Pathway to College Timeline with tasks for all four years of high school.

* Receive a credit to apply toward any high school package

37

Christine Scott

When the deposit is made to the institution of choice, I send a set of extra-long fitted sheets in the color of the institution. (I do not get them through the bookstore.) If I cannot get sheets, I get a set of towels. The clients love them, they are not personal and the idea of getting another book- even if it is a surviving college book- seems not to be their thing.

38

Alan Sheptin

Instead of sending a holiday card send a little holiday gift to your clients. It doesn’t have to be anything grandiose or expensive. This year I put together a small gift box with pens pencils Post-its or with my logo on them. I included a postcard with a thank you and a very nice message. It was extremely well received and actually got me some new business.

39

Avonna Swartz

As a thank you for my clients, I used a Cricut vinyl cutter to create custom coffee tumblers. The small cutters are less than $50. I print the student’s first name on permanent adhesive vinyl and press it onto the tumbler. Often, when my clients get a compliment on their cup, my name comes up as the person who gifted it. It starts a conversation about how I assisted them through the admission process. I prefer using the student’s name rather than my logo. Bonus, they are fun to make.

40

Bruce Vinik

When I left school administration and started my practice in 2001, I vowed to make the educational principles that I believed in to be the cornerstone of the business. Among them was a core belief that the college admissions process should be a period of intellectual and personal growth for high school students and that such growth was dependent upon kids taking ownership of the process. I was going to be there to gently guide and support students, and they were going to take charge of their college search, applications and essays. No micromanaging for me!

This approach worked well for us (the practice has grown) for many years, but the extraordinary stress of this fall’s admissions cycle made clear that our basic approach to kids had changed. We had become micro managers. We provided students every application and scholarship deadline, and we sat there (virtually) with them as they pushed each submit button. We held their hands in a way that was unimaginable to me twenty years ago. When my colleagues and I discussed this state-of-affairs, we initially placed the blamed squarely on the shoulders of the pandemic (and Zoom). But the more we talked, the more we realized that this shift has been under way for years. Whether it was due to the expectations of anxious students and parents or our own professional insecurities, we had lost sight of a principle that was once a core belief of our practice.

As a result of this reckoning, we are currently in the process of changing the way we work with families, especially our comprehensive clients. And the first step in communicating this change to potential clients is my “One Great Idea.” We now display on the home page of our website a declaration of our core beliefs – we call these four short statements What We Believe. When people visit our site, we want them to immediately get a feel for our business and what we think works best for high school students. Our hope is that this declaration will appeal to parents who want their children to get the most out of applying to college and allow us to work with kids in a way that allows us to be true to our values. And if this idea works, wouldn’t that be a great thing?

41

Joan Wittan

Get involved with IECA. Not only is it rewarding to volunteer, but you’ll make friends and develop networks all over the country and the world. Committees, regional groups, and affinity groups are great ways to connect with other IECs, learn more about areas of interest, discover new ideas for your business, and develop leadership skills. Serving on committees and the Board of Directors allows IECs to innovate, explore education and training programs in many fields, share concerns, and guide the future of the profession. Because my network has expanded with my activities, I get more referrals from my colleagues and I know who to send clients to who need expertise outside of my area. My volunteer activities have made me a better professional and deepened my appreciation for my colleagues and our professional organization.

42

Office Management

43

Laura Blanche

Using a topic timeline to create and save monthly meeting agendas for juniors/seniors.

44

Whitney Bruce

While I’ve been a fan of the standing desk for a number of years, moving my entire practice to a virtual setting has made me value it even more.

This year, I invested in a small cube light that’s designed for virtual meetings to eliminate shadows. It attaches to my laptop, external monitor, or even the desk surface to change the lighting.

At the recommendation of one of my former students, I invested in a balance board (mine is from fluidstance). While not inexpensive, the micromovements required by the board keep me both more attentive and more energized when I spend 6-8 hours on my feet on Zoom.

45

Heidi de Chatellus

I use Trello to manage my process with each of my classes. I created a board for each grade (freshman, sophomore, junior and senior) and then listed the months (Sept-August) across the top of each of the boards. Then, under each month, I created cards to reflect what I will be doing for each class during that month. For example, I created a card for each meeting (inside of which I recorded the meeting agenda, a list of what I need to do before the meeting to prepare for it, and anything I want to make sure to cover/mention during the meeting). Other cards for the month might include the to-do’s I will assign after the meeting, the recap email I will send to parents, any emails I will send to families, the administrative tasks that I want to complete, and a card for reflections in which I note what worked and what did not work that month (useful to refer back to when I want to make any changes/improvements to my program after the season). I even attached associated documents to the cards. I love that I have a “visual” of all of the information I need by class and by month. Plus, there is the added benefit of it being very accessible, easy to update and organize, and fun to use.

46

Lindsay Fried

Automate your processes as much as possible! Resources such as HubSpot, Acuity, QuickBooks, and DocuSign can help you turn prospects into clients and increase your revenue while you’re meeting with other clients.

47

Zach Galin

Streak is a CRM system that integrates into Google. It can you help you track everything from Sales Pipelines to Scheduling Meetings. Emails can get easily “attached” to boxes that organize all of these! It is cost efficient, SUPER easy to implement, and can be customized. It is GREAT for smaller businesses who don’t want to spend a bunch of money or time on integration. I put some examples below:

SalesWhen an inquiry comes in, a new box is made. Everyone in the company has access to the box, so if the inquiry calls, emails someone else, or shows up, we can easily see everyone else who has had communication with the family and what was said.

Client ExperienceAfter a family signs up, we add them to a pipeline to track the experience goals with them. We can move them from stage to stage as we complete certain tasks (and assign those tasks to specific people). So, for new families, we track their enrollment note, who is ready for a client experience check-in, who should get a graduation note, and the follow-ups well into college.

SchedulingWhile a lot of folks use online scheduling tools, I always worry about losing kids. Sometimes people just disappear - either because they don’t need anything or students don’t respond. If you have hourly clients, you want to get that next meeting booked. So, I use Streak to track students’ last meetings, who needs to get an email to schedule a meeting, and then who actually scheduled a meeting (and send a follow up if they haven’t scheduled!). This way, no one goes longer than they should without a meeting.

48

Martha Garfield

I have a small, one-person practice and to manage cancellations, in August, I set up weekly meetings for each of my 20-25 seniors. Each student has their “spot.” We don’t typically meet each week (except maybe in October) but the time is set aside for that student each week regardless. If they need to cancel one week, it’s not too big of a deal because we don’t have to reschedule-we just skip that week. If we decide not to meet one week, I tell them to use that time that is already set aside to work on their essays or other to-dos I’ve assigned. It helps keep me sane with a regular schedule and not worrying about how to fit someone in who wants to reschedule.

49

Elizabeth Hall

Every year we send out a holiday or New Year’s card to our families, colleagues, schools, programs and referral sources who we have worked with in the past year, and possibly prior years. We thank them for working with us and wish them a wonderful new year ahead.

As you can imagine, addressing all of these envelopes can be time consuming and tedious, not to mention tracking address changes that may occur. Every year the cards are ordered through Minted (www.minted.com) although three years ago, we started using their “Address Assistant” to address the envelopes for us. It’s a huge time saver and the envelopes look lovely!

To help expedite things further, as part of our internal office management process, when a new client family (or program, school, colleague or referral source) starts working with us, we also add their contact information to our Minted Address Assistant at that point in time. This saves us oodles of time and frustration during the holiday season, as we no longer have to locate the addresses “just in time” during a hectic time of year AND the envelopes arrive pre-addressed for us too!

To do this, you will need to create an account within Minted (no cost to set up an account). Once you have your account set up, in the upper right corner is a drop-down list with the Address Assistant. It’s super easy to do and well worth the little extra administrative step during the year!

You’ll never want to hand address your envelopes again!

50

Shelly Humbach

I have used Guided Path for nearly ten years and appreciate its many features designed to streamline college admissions planning and organization. I recently learned about a feature that allows the consultant to create a customized menu of info and docs, accessible to the student and their parents/guardians.

The Custom Menu (now titled Humbach Education Info and Docs and accessed directly from their dashboard) allows you to link information and documents, directly from your Google Drive. When the student/parent clicks the link, it opens, within Guided Path, as opposed to opening in a separate tab. Additionally, when I update my Google Docs the doc automatically updates in my GP link. Boom.

I currently have 20 ish categories, sorted alphabetically, ranging from my Curriculum to my specific and curated information on LOR, Interviews and the Student Activity Résumé. Students now access my Test Prep Referrals, resources and links to Summer Programs, On-Line Learning and Virtual Tours from the GP platform. I also have a specific category for all things Fin Aid/FAFSA/CSS Profile and Outside Scholarships.

Gone are the days of me “attaching” an informational doc to an email. Let’s face it; no one reads anything, and Gen Z and email do not appear to be compatible. Bonus – student no longer has the excuse of “Oh, I didn’t see the email or get the attachment”.

Best of all, this is a ginormous time saver for me. Over the last several weeks (and whilst having far less meetings), I invested a fair amount of time to this endeavor and the pay-off is huge. Could not be happier!

51

Peggy Jennings

I went to 100% virtual consulting about six months prior to the pandemic, so I had a little bit of a head start. It was a decision based on a move to a community with an HOA that prohibits conducting in-person business in my home, but it also makes sense for me based on my rural location.

When I did that, I resolved to go 100% paperless as well, which has been a much more difficult transition. While I wouldn’t say that I’ve achieved that goal completely, students and families seem happy that my practice presents itself as being INTENTIONALLY virtual and paperless, and not just virtual because of current limitations.

52

Martha Jones

I use DocuSign to manage all questionnaires, intake forms, contracts, agreements, etc. This eliminates guessing handwritten responses and provides a more professional approach to sending paperwork. It also helps me organize the documents, easily send reminders, and is very easy to use. I pay $300 for an entire year and it is well worth the $.

When you click the questionnaire link in the email, you will be taken to a page on Jones College Counseling’s website that looks like this:

You will be asked for a password. This is the password (same as it is in the email): C0ll3g3*note all the vowels are numbers

The password is to keep bots fromcompleting the questionnaires.

Next, you will see a page that looks likethis:

Scroll down and click the grey text highlighted below with the red arrow.(The text says “____ Questionnaire viaDocuSign”)

Following this link will take you to the DocuSign form to complete the intake questionnaire.

How to access and complete your questionnaire via DocuSign. The screenshots in this example are from the traditional student questionnaire, but sameinstructions/concept applies to both the transfer student and parent questionnaires.

In the email you received, follow the links to the appropriate questionnaire:- Traditional student questionnaire (for students who haven’t yet graduated high school)- Transfer student questionnaire (for students who have graduated high school and will be

transferring to a new college)- Parent questionnaire (for parents)

- Note: if each parent would prefer to fill out their own questionnaire, have each parent follow the link this link (also included in the email): www.jonescollegecounseling.com/parent-questionnaire (and use the password provided to access this password protected page), then use the DocuSign form below to complete it separately.

Page 1 of 4

53

This is what you’ll see when click the “_____ Questionnaire via DocuSign” link:

Red outlined boxes = text must be entered in this field

Grey outlined boxes = text is optional – for example, the check boxes on “I prefer to be reached via” and everything in the “Testing” section.

The form also required you entered a valid email address. If you don’t, you’ll see an error message until it’s corrected.

Click that you agree to the terms, then continue. DocuSign will lead you through the form.

Page 2 of 4

Martha Jones, continued

54

The end of the questionnaire will look like this:

Remember, red outlined boxes must be filled in with text. If not, DocuSign will not let you complete the form. DocuSign will also direct you to fill in any missing information.

When you’re ready, click the sign icon circled in blue (above). DocuSign will collect your signature and lead you through how to adopt your signature too; it will look like this:

Page 3 of 4

Martha Jones, continued

55

When your questionnaire is complete and you’ve signed it, click finish. When you click finish, DocuSign will automatically send me a PDF of your completed questionnaire.

Once you click finish, DocuSign will also ask you if you want to download or print a copy of yourcompleted questionnaire. I recommend keeping a copy for yourself. If you miss this step and want a copy of your questionnaire, I can always email it to you – just let me know.

That’s it and thank you!

Page 4 of 4

Martha Jones, continued

56

Debbie Kanter

One of the best investments we ever made was hiring an Office Manager to take care or paying our bills and sending out our contracts and invoices. She has taken over all of our financial tasks including payroll, paying our independent contractors, and taking care of our taxes. We also have her respond to the initial inquiries from potential new clients, and she is willing to jump in on any other projects that come up.

Not only has she freed up a tremendous amount of time that we can either be using to focus on our students or (gasp) to enjoy some free time, the biggest benefit seems to be that it takes the counselor out of the awkward payment conversations. Our Office Manager doesn’t develop the close relationships with the families that we do, so it is easier for her to stand firm and be consistent with collecting payments or cutting off service until bills are paid. It is nice to have someone else to stand behind and not be bullied by a parent not wanting to pay or questioning a charge.

We pay our Office Manager hourly, and it really is money well spent. If you can’t or don’t want to spend the money, at the very least, I recommend using a separate email account to send out your invoices (example:accounting@yourcompany.com). This can help to separate the counselor from the bill collector!

57

Liz Levine

I use YAMM, Yet Another Mail Merge, for sending out group emails to specific sets of students/parents. Although CPP has a similar kind of function it doesn’t come close to the functionality of YAMM. You use YAMM through Google Sheets and a Gmail account. I keep a “Graduates” folder that within that folder I have a Google sheet, by graduation year, for each of my grads and their parents’ emails and names by graduation year. I have a file that lists all of my students and parents, regardless of what they have contracted with me for, and then also I have a separate file for those students that have either contracted with me for one of my comprehensive plans or have contracted with me for us managing their application process (Since my communications to this set of people are different than those that just contract with me for, let’s say, college search). I also keep a cumulative file of ALL of my students and families, by grad year, their names and email addresses. YAMM allows me to draft an email and I then access one of these files, and sometimes just a subset of a file, depending on who I want to communicate with, and send an email that is personal to them, so they don’t see that I am sending this to, let’s say, 150 other people. YAMM costs $24 per year and has provided marketing mechanism’s and communication tools that allow me to be more efficient and personal with my students and parents.

In addition, I have well over 50 templates I use to communicate via YAMM since, as we all know, our profession is cyclical and we communicate the same messages (which of course can be tweaked) each season. I also have templates that I use to communicate with prospects and families that have contracted with me, even if it’s not via YAMM.

I am more than willing to share my templates as well as explaining/showing further how to use YAMM.

58

Suzanne Lewis

Profit First

Whether we entered educational consulting from the world of education, business, law, entertainment, medicine, or wherever, I’m willing to bet that most of us don’t love the bookkeeping aspect of our business and may even struggle to maintain predictable profit from year to year. It’s not only me, right?

In December, I finally cracked open the book that both of my business coaches have independently recommended: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. And I didn’t just open it, I read it and I implemented it.

The premise of Profit First is exactly what it says. Rather than deducting expenses from revenue and trying to be content with whatever profit remains, Mike teaches readers to account for profit (say it with me) first and then budget expenses from the remaining balance. Revenue comes in, and then twice a month, you allocate a set percentage into four accounts: profit, owner’s pay, taxes, and operating expenses.

In only a few short days, I analyzed my current financial affairs, sulked a little that I wasn’t where Mike thought my business could be, determined what I could do to begin new habits right now, and set goals for where I want to be. Only a week and a half into the new year, and I’m already seeing the results of the actions I’ve taken.

The principles are getting me more in tune with my cash flow and helping me consider whether various expenses I thought I “had to have” are actually cost-effective. I now have an easy, bi-monthly bookkeeping process that I follow without fail because I know at the end of it, I’ll pay out my pre-planned salary (owner’s pay). I can’t wait to see how motivating the end of the quarter will be when I’ll pay out my very first profit dividend, confident that it won’t break the bank for the rest of the year. I’m on my way to a more fiscally sound business, and I couldn’t be happier.

Mike offers a handful of free resources [ https://mikemichalowicz.com/free-resources/]; see especially the Overview and One-Sheet. What you really want, though, is the book. It’s a quick read with action steps at the end of each chapter. Little more than 100 pages in, you’ll have your accounts and systems in place with both maintenance and adjustments scheduled throughout the year.

59

Wendie Lubic

I use a google spreadsheet, similar to Microsoft excel or Numbers, to keep track of my student’s progress, even though I also use College Planner Pro. It is a quick way to update information no matter where I am. So, if a student receives a response, or changes their list, I have an updated sheet to refer to. I got a tech-savvy friend to code it for me, so that every column calculates, and I can have a sense of how many applications have been submitted, how many have been accepted, and how many more are outstanding (cumulatively and per student). I can also color code, so I can see at a glance how my students are doing... Green is accepted, orange is deferred, etc. Below you can see end of year 2020, and 2021 as of Dec 31, 2020.

60

Marie Lucca

BookkeepingI used to spend far too much time keeping track of my invoices and expenses, until I discovered Wave (www.waveapps.com). By linking my corporate bank account and corporate credit card, Wave imports all of my transactions and provides an easy way to categorize them. Each month, it takes just minutes to reconcile my accounts, and preparing my corporate taxes is now a walk in the park. Best of all, the basic bookkeeping program is free(!), but you can pay for accounting help, invoicing, and other features.

61

Jill Madenberg

A few easy things:

-Use an online scheduling system for juniors and seniors. I don’t give underclassmen access to it so it creates a good balance of students who can make appointments whenever they want and the control of my schedule with younger students/less pressing issues.

-There often seems to be a debate about best ways to communicate with students. Colleges all email students and so do I. It gets them in the habit of checking email daily. And with so much texting, students tend to use lots of abbreviations. Nothing wrong with that but the formality of email is a healthy balance.

-As a former school counselor (and mom), I always talk about sleep with my students. Whether they are highfliers and staying up so late to study or just kids who play too many video games, hearing about the importance of healthful habits has made an impact during high school and with their adjustment to college.

62

Gail McNiece

One of the best things I did this past year was to hire a business/personal coach who works with me on setting goals and intentions for my business. I am learning some mindfulness techniques that do seem to give me better focus on all aspects of running a solo practice.

63

Barbara Rapaport

I switched from sticky notes to a dry erase easel (12’ x 8.5”) to keep track of my To Do’s - neater desk and better for the environment.

64

Hannah Serota

My Big Idea is simple, yet game changing.

For years...

I had student meetings, discovery calls, initial consultations, and client correspondence scattered across 6 days each week (or 7 in the fall). Things got even more hectic starting last spring with students home and asking for meetings during traditional school hours. It felt impossible to get into a workflow because I was always in-between meetings.

Now...

I have begun reserving one full day each week as an uninterrupted day of work.

I can read, think, plan, work on projects... anything that takes my business forward and no work on behalf of clients allowed! In the fall I scheduled meetings after 4:30 on those days, but still allowed myself the reserved workday.

The key is to block it off on your calendar and turn off email and text notifications. I have goals for 2021 that I know I would not be able to meet if I did not have a full day to devote to my business each week.

65

Renée Serrano

Fall Back Plan: Sole IECs should think about devising a plan with a few colleagues to assist each other if the need arises due to their inability to carry out services for their clients. (illness/family responsibilities/etc.)

66

Student Resources

67

Virginia Blackwell

Here are two examples of events my practice holds annually providing further information and resources to our clients:

1). Home for the Holidays

I invite my former students who are now in college to an event during the Holiday break at my home and have them talk to my current high school juniors and seniors, sharing with them their experiences, ups and downs, and sage wisdom about everything from academics to social life. Nothing better than for students to hear it directly from those that are living it. It also is “for students only” so they can talk as honestly as they can to each other. We were even able to keep our tradition this year and do a modified version on Zoom!

As an added bonus, this has also become a wonderful educational resource for my associate and me to learn the “latest and greatest” things that the college students are experiencing, not to mention to keep on top of what concerns and questions the high school students have on their minds.

2). Transition Event for Seniors and Their Parents

During the summer prior to going off to college, I invite several current college students and their parents to a “Going Off to College” event during which they talk to all our graduating seniors and their parents. (Parents love being included on this one!) At this event we talk about such topics as how to communicate with parents from afar, what steps to take to get involved with campus activities, homesickness, questions to be prepared to ask their advisors, power of attorney documents, and parent involvement on the college level. I do a general session with all and then divide them into two groups: students with the students and parents with the parents. These are, as you can probably imagine, very lively, valuable discussions!

Over the years, I have realized that students attend these events during high school and then look forward, almost a rite of passage, to being a discussion leader or panelists during their college years. While I started these events to serve my students and families better with important college-based information to help them with the transition from high school to college, they have also become great marketing tools for my practice when others hear about the experiences that students and their parents are getting from these events.

68

Kat Clowes

When asking students what makes them different than their peers, I would always have a lot of students who would give me general qualities, mostly because they haven’t thought about themselves like that before. To combat this and to get students thinking more about who they are and what makes them different than other applicants, I have them complete the “What Makes Me Different” exercise.

I have the student ask five people that they feel know them really well to report back what they believe to be the student’s stand-out qualities. Not only does this help the student think beyond general terms (hard working, determined, persistent, etc.), but also gets them in the practice of reaching out to others. For students who are shy or anxious about asking, it’s a good stepping stone exercise to lead up to asking for letters of recommendation. We included sample scripts for those students and encourage them to adapt them as they see fit.

Once they have answers, we spend time together evaluating whether or not the student agrees with what is said. I have them point out similarities and identify the top qualities that they feel define who they are. From there, I move forward with how the student can make sure these qualities are demonstrated in their applications through their essays, activities descriptions, and their letters of recommendation.

69

Jenny Cochran

During Covid I have a weekly message that I send my clients/students via text to inspire, encourage, and guide them. My message is always one of strength and a reminder that they have all the tools they need to navigate this process. I have made myself more available to them on a social and emotional level than in the past and their productivity rates have increased.

70

Marsha Comegno

I attended a NJ IECA meeting this year where Paul Rivas of Smith Rivas Study Skills shared some tips and resources for consultants to use with their students. Students use many digital tools for learning and scheduling, but writing, instead of typing, helps students remember details better. I use some of the resources Paul shared with us for both my current and past students. Many of my students who are in college received these this year to help them organize and work on time management. I added the resource of a monthly calendar page that my students can see in one glance; no scrolling or turning pages needed. They are able to see what is happening in one look and it makes it more manageable for them. With so much Zoom time, they welcomed some help with time management through visual organizers.

smithrivas.com • info@smithrivas.com

Quarter Calendar

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11 (Finals)

71

smithrivas.com • info@smithrivas.com

Semester Calendar (Page 1 of 2)

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

smithrivas.com • info@smithrivas.com

To-Do List

STUFF I HAVE TO DO HOW LONG I THINK IT'LL

TAKE

DAY & TIME I’LL

DO IT

HOW LONG IT ACTUALLY TOOK, AND WHY

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

smithrivas.com • info@smithrivas.com

Weekly Schedule

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY 6 AM

7 AM

8 AM

9 AM

10 AM

11 AM

12 PM

1 PM

2 PM

3 PM

4 PM

5 PM

6 PM

7 PM

8 PM

9 PM

10 PM

11 PM

Marsha Comegno, continued

72

Deb Davis Groves

Virtual College Application Workshops:

With COVID we pivoted from our normal in-person meetings to Zoom meetings. We also made the intentional decision to move from in-person college application workshops to virtual workshops this past August. In both cases, these pivots were game changers for us for which we will never return to our old ways. Moving to virtual only meetings with our students/families has proven to be extremely time efficient, provided greater/stronger connections with both the students/parents, allowed more one on one time to work on student’s essays post application workshops and was overall less stressful for both us the consultant and for our students/families.

Virtual Application WorkshopsInfo:• We were working with 63 seniors who needed to fill out these applications: Apply Texas, the Common Application and the

UC Application as well as several individual apps and a few did the Coalition App.

• Advantages:

-Students could work from anywhere – even vacation locations

-It normally took us 3 ½ weeks to get through all of our workshops. By going virtual, we got all of our students through these workshops in a 1-week period/4-day period.

-This gave us greater ability to meet with students one on one for supplemental essay work.

-This gave us a better balance of work time and down time for ourselves. It wasn’t as stressful.

Set up:• We purposefully make August 1 – October 15 as Senior work time only

-We will be extending that in 2021 to November 1

-We prepare all of our younger client families for this intentional work with seniors – we get them in before August 31 and let them know we are still available via text, emails or quick calls – everyone has been extremely supportive and this really helps remove a lot of stress on us from having to switch constantly between classes

• We purchased the Zoom Package - 1st paid level with webinars and storage add-ons racked on

• We hired a contract employee/Austin IECA member Darla Jones to assist with the Application workshops

• We set up Google Folders for all students that we shared with them in mid-July that included the following:

-Family Info Sheets – basically everything that is required for students to fill out college applications

-Username/Password sheets for each application with the app link on it

-Pre-made Application Activity Breakdowns that the kids have for Apply TX and the Common App (they use info from these for the UC and Coalition apps)

-Final Resume

-Transcript through the end of Junior Year

-Final Essays

-Final College List

Dates/Workshops set: Each Workshop – 25 student capacity• August 1 – 2 A&M/Apply Texas workshops set at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (3 hrs. each)

• August 2 – 2 Apply Texas Workshops set at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (3 hrs. each)

• August 3 – Day off to review apps

• August 4 – 3 Common App workshops – 9 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m. (2 hrs. each)

• August 5 – Day off to review apps

• August 6 – 2 UC App workshops – 10 a.m., 2 p.m. (3hrs each)

73

Deb Davis Groves, continued

Workshop rules/how it worked: • Deb ran all workshops and Darla Jones, our assistant, dealt with all questions posed by students (Darla was the added

assistant that we hired to help us, but she was also our backup assistant as Aubrey was due with her first child on August 11. That was a good decision as Aubrey’s son was born on July 26 – 1 week before our workshops. Darla was amazing and a God send!)

• Students were required to be on laptops or desktops – not iPads or phones

• Students were required to be in a quiet room by themselves – at a desk (next page)

• We made it clear that we were not their TEC support people – they needed to know how to log on to their computers and use them

• We told students to get snacks, take bathroom breaks before we started and to dress appropriately

• Students were required to log on 5 minutes before the workshop began as all workshops started on time

• Students were required to be on video so that we could see them as we went through the application process

• Students were required to be muted

• Students were invited to direct all questions privately to our assistant through the chap box

-Darla, our assistant, would ask those questions for the whole group so that I could answer/respond for the whole group

• Students were directed to raise their “hand” when they were ready to move to the next section of the application

Things we learned along the way:• We had a specific breakdown of list of kids who could drop off the workshops earlier if they finished the requirements they

needed for their applications–EX–only applying to A&M and no other schools that we had to assist them with copying over applications

• On the UC app–we only showed the kids the activity section and discussed with them what they needed to do

-They all finished that section on their own–not in the workshop; we reviewed in mid-October before they submitted on November 1

• For a couple of our students who needed more 1 on 1 time, we just set up a separate Zoom to help them through their apps–this is something we have always done

• Literally, for a first-time effort, these were the most successful application workshops that ran unbelievably smoothly – we did practice in advance so that we were professional/solid in our presentation

• We didn’t need breakrooms – kids asking privately to Darla and then Darla asking me to respond during the workshops to those questions for everyone to hear was a huge win!

• Because of COVID, our students were more computer savvy as a result of all of their spring remote learning classes. This made for an even more successful win!

We will continue to do virtual college application workshops going forward. The other thing we realize is that it allows us to work from anywhere and not be committed to just our home offices. It also allowed us to have our own puppies in our offices while we worked from our home offices. Again, a win win for us and our “college therapy dogs”!

74

Carol Doherty

I’m not sure if this will end up being a great idea or not but I’m trying it this year because I’m finding that despite all of my formal communications, there is still a missing link between students and parents. I’m going to insist that the students complete a “refrigerator” schedule for their parents. The schedule will include the college name, application type, and due dates. The purpose is to give to the parents a “visual” so they can see that applications are not complete until all of the application components are completed.

C ollege App T ypeApp Due

Date

(1) Date S chool P acket

submitted to counselor

Date T est S cores S ent (2)

Date LOR R equested - Orig & F ollow-

up(3)Date App

S ent

Date Acknowledgement rec'd from college

Date P ortal Open

E XAMP LE : UG A E A 10/15 8/1 9/23 5/1 & 9/1 10/2 10/4 10/4

(1) Most high school conselors request that s tudents complete a C ounselor P acket so that they are equipped to write about a s tudent.

T his packet is to be completed by the student - and sometimes requires parent input - and it should be completed no later than

the firs t day of s chool.

(2). T est S cores are due no later than the application due date. E xpect that it will take AC T or S AT at least 2 weeks to send the scores so

order the scores in ample time.

(3) Letters of R ecommendation are due no later than the application due date. P lease make sure you give your recommenders ample time

(at least 3 weeks) to prepare a letter for you.

75

Michelle Fleming

I have my students create a college shopping list of their Wants/Needs on a college campus and then have them research their list of colleges. They then color code the excel file with green, yellow, or red depending on if a school has that particular want or need. It is a great visual tool for students to see which colleges are a fit and which are not.

76

Andrea Goldman

After last year’s retreat I vowed to do some webinars/presentations. From April through June I conducted weekly events for my families. The first one I ran as a Meeting, but found it was too distracting with people unmuting themselves and all cameras on. The rest I held as Webinars. I alternated among events for different classes. I received great feedback on those I held for Seniors and their families--I covered topics as basic as laundry, writing checks, & mailing letters as well as serious ones on social adjustment and making good decisions. I also invited a local attorney to discuss the paperwork families should consider having in place when students are away.

77

Kate Hauser

A couple of years into my practice, I became curious about the wide range in my students’ ability to keep track of and complete tasks. This led me to learn about executive function skills and to complete an Academic Life Coaching course. To meet the needs of students with significant EF challenges, my partner began to offer coaching as a service separate from college advising. However, I’ve noticed that almost all of the students I’ve worked with for college advising have been in need of an EF skills upgrade, so now I approach each with this in mind. Here are some ideas to consider incorporating to help your students improve their time management and digital organization skills.

Time Management1. Calendars

• First, ask if the student uses a calendar. (To my surprise, many do not.)

• Next, find out if the student makes effective use of their calendar.

• Habits: do they remember to add items consistently, check at least once a day, and set alertsor reminders?

• Teach them to ‘make time visible’ by encouraging them to note all their activities - in schooland out - in their calendar, so they clearly see where and how much (or how little) time theyhave available to fit in their college planning tasks.

• Talk about goal setting. Short term: plan out the next one or two days. Long term: divideprojects into ‘chunks’ and add each step to the calendar.

• Introduce ‘backwards plans’. Start with the goal or deadline and work backwards to now,adding each step to the calendar.

2. Anti-Procrastination Hacks

• Pomodoro technique: Set a timer, work for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break. Repeat.

• Set-up routine: After arriving home from school, set-up your workspace with everythingnecessary to complete your first homework task (including college-planning tasks!) and clear everything else away. Take some time to relax and have a bite to eat. An effective set-up routine means that once you sit down to work, you can start right away.

Digital Organization1. Email

• Recommend to students that they use a separate email address for college-relatedcommunication.

• Make sure students know how to use folders and labels to keep the main inbox unclutteredand all of their messages organized and easy to find.

2. Password Management

• Use built-in computer software or some other system.

• Many students randomly record passwords on their phones. Suggest that they stick to oneapp. (For example, on an iPhone, in Reminders or Notes).

3. Google Drive

• Have students check if they are using more than one Google Drive account (it’s verycommon to end up with multiple accounts). Encourage them to have all college-related material in one account.

• Make sure they know how to use folders to organize documents.

• Suggest that they delete unnecessary documents.

4. Desktop Management

• Make sure they know how to use folders to organize documents on their laptop desktops.

• Suggest that they dedicate one folder to college-related material.

78

Maggie Jackson

I meet with a group of five other IECs from my area weekly (on Zoom during the pandemic) where we share ideas and discuss issues that have come up with our clients. This group has kept each other sane!

We also collaborate with special events where we invite our clients’ families to participate- this month we are having a financial aid specialist present on financing college and the new FAFSA rules. We also have had gap year opportunities presented and a college professor who provides research opportunities for high school students with college professors.

I work as a solo practitioner, so I just love to see the group each Monday at 11:00 am!

79

Stacy Kadesh

To take advantage and optimize our online platform this year we have revamped our essay workshop process. Instead of one “overview” workshop, we will be offering a monthly essay workshop with a focus on different types of essays.

February-Brainstorming Workshop: How to find the right topic

March-Personal Statement Workshop: Exploring the different ways to tell your story

April-UC Essay Workshop: Strategizing how to answer the UC prompts

May-”The Why Essay” Workshop: Tips to make this response meaningful by sharing information about yourself and demonstrating knowledge about the college.

Each workshop will have Pre-Reads and Post workshop assignments. They will be interactive via zoom and will be recorded for students who cannot make the “time” they are scheduled or for re-watching We will require an outline of all essays prior to a first draft.

80

Jeana Kawamura

During the early days of the pandemic, I searched for ways to reach students and their families with additional information that they could use at their discretion. I added more folders to their College Planner Pro accounts. Some students wanted to use their time investigating colleges, but I didn’t want to pressure students who needed space. This worked.

Another upside is that when I review College Planner Pro with my new students, parents are amazed to see so many resources at their fingertips.

2021 IECA Professional Retreat – One Great Idea Using Your Folders in Your Office Software System

During the early days of the pandemic, I searched for ways to reach students and their families with additional information that they could use at their discretion. I added more folders to their College Planner Pro accounts. Some students wanted to use their time investigating colleges, but I didn’t want to pressure students who needed space. This worked. Another upside is that when I review College Planner Pro with my new students, parents are amazed to see so many resources at their fingertips. Character Folder – By having the name Character on a folder, they immediately see and hopefully think about character and its implications every time they go to the folders section. Currently I have the Empathy Circles from Making Caring Common, GRIT – My Values from Character Lab, and a page from the teacher recommendations from Common Application. As we review them, I add more to their folder. College Research – Steven Antonoff’s, 20 Qualities That Will make a College Right for You, How College Differs from High School (last updated by Baylor), and a summary of the 4 C’s from Eric Furda (this is the template that we use in my office when researching colleges) are a few of the resources in this folder. I also have: Extracurricular Activities Suggestions – constantly updated and includes virtual Major/Career Research – includes resume ideas from college career centers Testing – testing dates, current articles regarding test-optional Individual Student Research Folder – Includes their Corsava, MBTI, Strong, and student/counselor individual college research documents

Character

Empathy Circles.pdf

Sep 21, 2020 10:32 AM

grit_myvalues.pdf

Sep 10, 2020 01:49 PM

Common Application Recommendation Sample.pdf

Sep 10, 2020 01:48 PM

81

Carole Kraemer

This is my first professional retreat, and I find the idea of submitting ‘one great idea’ a bit intimidating. Do I really have any ideas that are that great? I don’t know, but here goes!

Each year, I ask my students to research colleges on my proposed list, as we all do. In prior years, I’d show them how to access information in College Planner Pro but did not require them to document their research. When we’d meet to review their findings, I could tell that some of them didn’t do a very thorough job. In most cases, they’d end up visiting many schools in person, and through information sessions and campus visits they’d learn a lot more, making up for the lack of early research.

When the pandemic hit last spring, I realized that I needed to make a change to ensure that my students learned as much as possible from online research. Inspired by Katelyn Klapper, my UCI practicum instructor, I developed a written assignment that utilizes a structured approach and various sources of information. The sources include the college’s website, social media (e.g., follow the college on Instagram), the Fiske Guide (my favorite for learning about a school’s vibe, outside of an actual visit), Naviance scattergrams, one or more virtual tours, and a student opinion site. I now ask my students to pick 3 colleges and compare each school’s features with their “must haves” from the Corsava card sort and document the results. The quality of their research has definitely improved, and they’ve developed good insights into their preferences and have made adjustments as needed. It’s been interesting to see students identify their favorite go-to sources. Niche.com and the Fiske Guide are very popular! After the initial written assignment, I have my students continue researching schools on their own.

One of the objectives of this assignment is to have students understand the importance of their own preferences and impressions, while keeping an open mind. I encourage them not to eliminate a school just because it misses one or two of the “must have” criteria. I look forward to students being able to visit schools again but plan to use this exercise even when that happens. It’s a great way to get them invested in and to take ownership of their college list early in the planning process.

82

Bibi Malek

The internet has been an amazing advancement in our lives. I can’t imagine how we managed before we had the internet and the web. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I have encouraged my students to take advantage of the internet and put it to good use for various purposes – one of these being virtual job shadowing. This is what I shared with them:

Are you undecided about going into pre-law or pre-med? Maybe you’re a tinkerer interested in engineering but have no idea what field of engineering you want to delve into? Are you an artist thinking that you might want to pursue architecture? Have you always wondered what a financial analyst does?

Given that you are grounded at home and your activities are rather limited and will likely remain the same over the next few months, I have a suggestion for you. Engage in Virtual Job Shadowing. Go to YouTube and type One day in the life of an architect or One Day in the life of an …………. Substitute any profession you are curious about in the dotted space. You will literally have dozens of options for each profession. If you’re female, choose to include some videos of female professionals working within your field of natural strength.

Each of the videos can be as short as 3 minutes or as long as 15 minutes. If you watch one day in the life of an architect and happen to find the profession interesting, you have the option of investigating the lives of several architects. If you are not intrigued, then move on and investigate another profession. This certainly beats shadowing an architect in real life 5 days per week from 9-5 for a full summer month to find out that you don’t like the profession. You can watch 3 3-5-minute videos per day if you have a busy schedule or a dozen or more if your schedule allows. Given the internet, there is no limit to the resources at your fingertips even within the four walls of your home!

83

Catherine Marrs

My juniors are required to write a 250-word “why” essay for every college the students’ research that they will be adding to their list of schools to apply to for admission. The reasons I require my students to do this are two-fold:

1) it helps the student articulate clearly why they are selecting the particular college to apply to

2) it gives the student an essay for the school that can be reduced or expanded if that school does have a “why” essay when the applications open in August.

84

Allison Matlack

Schools are interested in the personal qualities of their applicants as much as their academic, athletic, and extracurricular achievements and interests. I bring this to the fore in my work with students by using the language of EMA’s Character Skills Snapshot. First I talk with the student about each of the seven character skills identified on the Snapshot, such as intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness to make sure that they understand what these terms mean. Then we talk about why these are qualities that schools are looking for. Finally, I have the student brainstorm times in their recent lives when they have demonstrated that skill. Once they have those stories, we talk about how they might weave them into their interviews and application essays. This helps students to not focus only on their grades and SSAT scores, but to think about how they can convey the other qualities that they’ll bring to the school. That is certainly a message I want to send to my families.

Here’s how this might go:

Character Skill: Open-mindedness

Definition: Being willing to change your mind about something in light of new information and evidence.

Why schools are looking for open-mindedness in their applicants: Schools tout how diverse their student bodies are and are creating a situation where students will learn from each other as well as their teachers. A student needs to be open-minded about seeing things from different, and even unfamiliar, perspectives to really benefit from this learning environment.

Student example: They might talk about a time when they understood a character’s motivations in a book differently, or when they understood a moment in history differently, or when they heard a speaker who changed their minds about something.

85

Stef Mauler

In an effort to help my clients discover the joys of reading (or at least up their reading game by finding things that interest them), I have put together a series of topic-focused reading lists that align with student interests. The list is in a Google Doc, and is a living, breathing resource that IECs can both contribute to and use to help guide their students.

• Art

• Business & Entrepreneurship

• Engineering

• Global cultures

• History

• Journalism

• Kid Revolutionaries/Kids Who Do Amazing Things

• Law

• Medicine

• Music

• Psychology

• Social impact

• Social justice

• Sports

• Technology

• Women’s Rights & Change Makers

Please include your suggestions for fiction, non-fiction, biographies, journals, poems, articles, etc. that would be interesting for students in grades 9-12 in the following doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1izdQ3mG4MSCiYqzYfb0zwjsM-AVaxjBdR0yZgeTgPlg/edit?usp=sharing

86

Patricia Nehme

1st Draft Resume Exercise:

87

Gail Nichols

Making a current book list

Trying to find one great idea to share is always difficult because so many of them have already been mentioned. I’m not sure that this is a unique idea, but it’s the best one I have at the moment.

This past spring, I had a little bit more time on my hands due to Covid. We were also tuned in to the protest happening around us and trying to find ways to teach the younger generation about protesting and standing up for what you believe in. It quickly became apparent that some history lessons needed to be reviewed.

As counselors, we know that colleges ask students to write on a number of topics such as adversity, diversity, intellectual curiosity or simply, what is important to them. I thought that given what was happening in the world, it might be time to put together a list of books that students could read that may help with some of these questions or give them a bit more insight into the world.

I did some research on what books colleges recommend their freshman read. Next, I investigated some books that dealt with current events. I also wanted to include books that showcases other cultures and how people face diversity. Then of course there have to be a few classics thrown in along with some self-help books for teens. This list of books would be different than the ones they may be expected to read for high school.

My goal is to give this list to students when we begin the process of working together. I want to encourage them to read for various reasons. Hopefully, they will go to the list and pick something out to read during their school breaks, when they are traveling or just for the love of reading. As we continue to work together, I will have them start to look at the college applications and the questions that they ask, especially the ones that ask what books they have read. My hope is that they will realize colleges value the importance of reading and will have more meat to the answers for these questions.

Ideally, I would love to encourage my students to start a book group to discuss some of these books and learn how to have a meaningful conversation about topics near and dear to them. It will also help them expand their comprehension and critical thinking skills.

I anticipate expanding this list in the future to include some podcast or TED talks, but right now, I want them to just read.

88

Kathy Noble

Know Thyself: Reflected Best Self Exercise

Students who have a good sense of who they are and what they value tend to be the most prepared for the college application process. When I began working as a consultant, I noticed that some students weren’t very aware of their strengths, others felt uncomfortable talking about them, and still others focused only on numeric strengths such as a GPA or test scores. In working with my clients, I wanted to create better self-awareness coupled with greater confidence.

One way for students to identify their strengths is to ask those who know them to give feedback through a coaching tool titled, “Reflected Best Self”. The exercise requires the student to reach out to several people with whom they know well from all aspects of life. The feedback should focus on a time when the student was at their best. As part of self-discovery, I work through this process with the student. The coaching tool was featured in a 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review. The article can be retrieved at this link:. http://my2.ewb.ca/site_media/static/library/files/446/playing-to-your-strengths.pdf

I explain to students that while the article does focus a bit on the “work world” there is still a lot of very pertinent information applicable to them.

Reflected Best Self Language

To make it easier for students, I provide them with the following language that they can use. I have included:

Below, is some language you can use for this project. Feel free to modify it anyway that you would like as it is just meant to guide you. Please reach out to at least 12 people who know you well from all aspects of your life. This includes family, friends, teachers, supervisors etc. I have been asked to contact at least fifteen people who know me well from all aspects of my life and ask that each person provides me with at least one, preferably two situations/stories of when I was at my best. I am wondering if you could take a few moments to help me with this exercise. I would really appreciate you taking time to do this for me. Essentially, if you could think about your interactions with me and to identify those incidents/behaviors when I was at my best in your eyes. In writing, please be sure to provide examples so I can understand the situation and the characteristics you are describing. My coach has developed an example of what these stories could look like. Feedback Example: One of the ways that you add value and make important contributions is your ability to get people to work together and give all they have to a task.For example, I think of the time that: We were doing the Alpha project. We were getting behind and the stress was building. We started to close down and get very focused on just meeting our deadline. You noticed that we were not doing our best work and stopped the group to rethink our approach. You asked whether we wanted to just satisfy the requirements or whether we wanted to really do good and important work. You reminded us of what we were capable of doing and how each of us could contribute to a better outcome. No one else in that room would have thought to do that. As a result, we did meet the deadline and created a result we all feel proud of. So, if you would be willing to help, if you could provide me with an example of how I add value and/or make important contributions by completing the following statements:One of the ways that you add value and make important contributions is:For example, I think of the time that:I would really appreciate any help. I have to compose an analysis from the individuals, so I am wondering if you can provide feedback by XXXXXX.

How Students Use the Feedback

Once the student has the feedback I ask them to read it and take in all the positivity! Often students will never be aware of the acts of kindness or character that others notice. Once they have read all the feedback, I ask the student to recognize patterns and look for common themes in the responses received. Finally, I ask for a short essay about the strengths that were communicated and how those strengths support who the student is and what they like to do. Often, this document will help create a sense of connection with the student as we begin working together on the admissions journey.

89

Luisa Rabe

For years my high school students and their families headed off to campuses with a checklist in hand after a robust coaching session on how to expertly visit a college. Students would return with lots of notes and we would talk through what they saw, heard, were shown, and how they felt. The process was designed to encourage students to look beyond glitzy workout facilities and elaborate food courts. It has worked well for over 20 years! We were so proud of ourselves.

Covid = no campus visits, so I began to imagine ways for clients to visit virtually and wasted too many hours coaxing reluctant high school students to attend college info sessions, participate in tours, or, horror of all horrors, reach out to regional reps. Four weeks of frustration >>>> My students and their parents needed me to pivot, quickly and big time.

No more trying to recreate or reimagine or… High school students, most of whom were attending virtual high school so feeling alternately frustrated, bored and stressed, needed very specific tasks that they could easily and successfully accomplish from home that would actually be helpful in their college search. Goodbye, cute campus visit notepads. Farewell, online questionnaires. Hello, simple spreadsheet!

After speaking with a few families about what they view as basic to higher education - an incredibly enlightening and surprising experiment - we decided to focus on three key facets: academic, location and students. Thus, we created a very simple four column College Spreadsheet.

Column One – Name of Institution

Column Two – Academics

In this column students list majors, courses, professors, academic programs, curriculum – structure, requirements and quirks, research possibilities, symposia, guest lecturers. Students list anything that has to do with the intellectual life on campus. Goal is to be as specific as possible.

Column Three – Location

In this column students list aspects of the institution’s physical plant or location that are of particular interest: Jones Memorial Library has a collection of birds’ nests that link to me desire to study construction. New XYZ Natatorium will give me then chance to improve my swimming. Location 2 minutes’ walk to train line will make it possible for me to get to internships in NAME of CITY. This is also the place for students to note that the campus is all brick or stone or has a courtyard or whatever it is that matters to them. Again, students are to be specific. We already know that GW is in Washington, DC so students are not to waste space writing that ; )

Column Four – Students

In this column, students list extracurricular activities that build on high school experiences as well as new ones not available in high school, or that are career oriented or that just sound like FUN. Alternative spring break belongs in this column. % of kids who study abroad. Volunteer organizations that partner with students or the college. If Greek life matters, that data goes in this column. If the student wants to cheer for DI football, the team and its name belong in this column. Include any data that helps the student imagine what life outside of class will be like.

This google sheet is shared with us and continually updated and helped senior finalize their lists this year. Added bonus was that the spreadsheet had information that was helpful when writing the Why Us essay or when speaking with an admissions officer or interviewer. My old interview notepads are going in the trash, a savings of $500/year!!!

90

Donna Sakabu

Teaching students how to research colleges

Researching Colleges for Students

I emphasize at the college list meeting it’s the student’s job to figure out which colleges will make the final application list, whether from the list I present or others they find, with a maximum of 8-10 colleges including a variety of admissions probabilities.

I realized at a certain point that asking students to research colleges wasn’t proving very fruitful. Often met with “yeah, I have to get to that” or “I’ve been so busy with ______”, I knew I needed a focused, specific approach in teaching them how to research colleges with the goal of finalizing their lists.

Over the last 3 years, at the meeting following the college list presentation, I show the juniors what it means to research a college. Something that the owners of The College Planning Center developed during this last pandemic year is a webinar on how to research colleges. So, I now have my juniors view that (recording available on Vimeo).

Within *College Planner Pro:

• College Profile Page-including Research Launch Pad and Fiske Guide page (if available)

• College Website Link-often the first time they’ve looked at a college website!

• College Report-a feature for consultants to create college list reports; I embed links within the reports for the student based on majors and their other key college criteria

College Websites:

• I tell them some are easier to navigate than others

• Dashboard-selecting Academics first to explore; discuss what schools and colleges are at universities

• Major/Department Sites-Course Requirements (incl. descriptions)-while foundational courses are similar for majors at many colleges, upper division electives/opportunities will vary, Clubs/Organizations, Publications, Research-faculty interests; opportunities

• Student Life (various names depending on the school)-usually has a searchable list of clubs/organizations including Greek life, Sports (Intramural, Club, NCAA/NAIA), Housing/Residential Life, First Year Experience programs, Honors Colleges/Programs

• Virtual Visit Opportunities-many colleges have retooled and improved their offerings; videos, virtual tours, webinars for prospective students. I show students where to find this information

Social Media:

• Abundant-seemingly no limit

• Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snap Chat

• Residential Life, Greek Life, Sports, Admissions, Departments/Majors, etc.

• Can gather information but also demonstrate interest for colleges that track it

•

Narrowing the List:

So, once a student knows how to research colleges, how is progress made to narrow to a final list by June before senior year? With intentionality!

• To Do’s: In CPP, a feature that I love and use often to break down the various admissions & application tasks into smaller, doable chunks for the students.

• Assign To Do for researching 3-5 colleges, reminding them what to look for and to allow enough time to gather the information

91

Donna Sakabu, continued

• Notes: I show the students how to add notes, including links, for a particular college to their CPP accounts. Most love that feature but not all students use it, at least right away.

• Meetings: I ask for feedback on their research; some will have added notes to CPP; Others have the notes in a notebook, on scraps of paper, or even on their phones so we add to the CPP notes. If it’s a college I’m familiar with due to visiting or attending a virtual presentation, I’ll offer what I know that pertains to their interests. We discuss what they liked and didn’t like.

• It does not matter to me how they gather the information. The main thing is that they are embracing the process! Some jump in with both feet while others skim the surface. It’s interesting as a consultant to see how they each do this work. The notes become a helpful resource if a student decides to apply to a particular college and is need of writing a “Why Us?” essay. Parents are kept in the loop on the progress with meeting summaries sent through CPP.

I have more success now with students taking ownership of researching colleges which helps tremendously in helping them finalize their lists. Teaching them how to gather information and breaking the process down into smaller tasks has been very effective!

*At the College Planning Center, we use College Planner Pro software, but other consultant software programs offer similar features

92

Lynne Scheurer-Foster

Students often come to me anticipating being “at the mercy” of decisions -acceptances or rejections- made by admissions officers in colleges and universities. I love to encourage them to reframe themselves as “educated consumers” embarking on the biggest, most important “shopping trip” / purchase of their lives other than a

home (with the possible exception of a very fancy car. FYI- I drive a 2004 Subaru!). I remind them that 3,500 of the 4,000 schools would likely accept them. If they do the research and legwork resulting in a solid list, then there is no drama at decision time! For almost 40 years, for me, it’s been all about respecting and empowering my students!

93

Julie Simons

My ideas all relate to working with students in groups. Though most of my work with students is individual, over the past two years, I’ve started incorporating some group work into my practice. Students have responded positively, and it has helped me explain some of the same things fewer times and get students more engaged. I find students often remember what they discuss as a group better than what we discuss individually. I begin the personal essay process with a Mock Admissions Committee Workshop. I offer several dates and have students sign up for them using SignUp Genius. I provide a packet of 10 former student essays (names removed, permission received from essay authors) to provide to the workshop participants and explain that they will be role modeling admissions reps and be responsible for “admitting” a “class.” I make it clear that we are assuming that all applicants are being reviewed separately for grades and extracurriculars; their job is to figure out who they’d want as part of their community from reading the personal essays. Each workshop participant has to read and evaluate all 10 essays using a form I provide, deciding which applicants to “accept,” “waitlist,” or “deny.” Then I break the participants into 2 groups, and each group has to come to consensus about which 4 applicants to “accept.” Finally, both groups come back together and have to come to consensus about which 4 applicants to accept. My goal is for my students to understand that there isn’t one correct style for a personal essay but also to understand some overall principles of successful personal essays and also to help them understand how subjective the process is and how hard it is to choose one applicant over another. As we dig into what makes one essay more successful than another or what makes a reader connect better with a particular essay, we discuss the importance of incorporating specifics, emotions, and values into the essay; showing rather than telling; using memorable examples and language; and creating ways for the reader to relate. The students really enjoy the workshop, and they all tell me it makes them more excited and less scared to write their own personal essays.

I also use group workshops to help students set up and fill out the common app and to learn how to write effective activity descriptions. For the activity descriptions, we work together as a group to write one strong activity description for each student in the workshop. Then students write the rest of their activity descriptions on their own, and I edit them.

Finally, I use drop-in essay hours each week in October, November, and December - a three hour block of time each week. I do this on Sunday afternoons at the same time each week because that’s what’s best for my schedule, but it could be any time - as long as it’s the same time each week so students can plan for it. Zoom actually worked extremely well for this. I sent out a Zoom link, informed students that it’s first-come, first-served, and told students they would wait in the “waiting room” until it was their turn to be admitted to work one-on-one with me. I work one-on-one with students for 10 minutes or so, and then move onto the next student. Students know this is not a replacement for longer, one-on-one meetings. It’s an additional touch point, and I found it incentivizes students to get more work done because they know they can meet with me an extra time during the week.

94

Jason Vallozzi

I find it is imperative to get new client engagements off to a good start. There are many free resources that we know very well but are completely unknown to families. Scholarships are always a popular but daunting topic to students and their families. For example, scholarship platforms such as RaiseMe and Going Merry provide great scholarship opportunities for students. They are wonderful ways to engage clients early on while making the scholarship process approachable.

95

Leslie Watson

Last year, I left the Professional Members’ Retreat with a significant number of tasks to undertake. I have been working on systemizing my processes and have implemented many of the ideas shared by others.

One area I wanted to focus on was how I organized the application completion process. I found I was spending a lot of time every week revisiting where each student was in their process; different students worked at different rates. Another concern I had was that I was repeatedly delivering the same information, yet sometimes (I felt) I might miss a minor thing I needed to tell a student that could turn out to be not-so-minor later on.

During the retreat, I discovered that different people manage the application process in different ways. I became interested in the idea of the “College Application Week.” Some IECs implement this as a one-on-one session, and others offer it as a group program with individual-level feedback. The benefits were obvious: I would be able to focus on the work of a couple of students for one week and know they had completed the core of the Common Application. The student would benefit from relieving the weight of the application, potentially affecting their entire summer.

So, I implemented my college application week in June and July of 2020. I will admit that COVID assisted me; students I had met in-person previously accepted the move to online meetings, which were a very efficient way to deliver the curriculum I developed.

Here is how I set it up for 2020: The student and I had a regular appointment at the same time each day for five days; I told students they needed to commit to the same two hours each day for our work. On the first day, our meeting lasted about an hour. Subsequent days were shorter, but the expectation was that the student worked on the assigned task during the two-hour meeting time. The student submitted their work for the day by midnight. I had the student sign off from Zoom during our meeting time each day while they worked, but I remained on to facilitate the student’s “dropping in” with questions during their scheduled time.

In between each session, the student accomplished several set tasks related to the Common Application. I proofread their work in the morning, gave them feedback at that day’s meeting, then introduced the next task.

I created a video for each daily task that gave the students background information on the task’s objective and essential considerations. The video format for the presentation of information ensured consistency in content for each student. By the end of the week, my students had completed the main Common Application, including a very solid draft of their personal statement. We revisited the application after August 1 to see if the story contained therein was still the story they wanted to tell and double-checked whether any activities, etc., had changed.

At the end of the summer, I reflected on the program. Students loved it! The biggest problem? I killed a HUGE chunk of my summer because my Common Application Week format required that I be committed to being at my desk for much more than usual during the summer months.

This year, instead of working with a maximum of two students per week, I will increase the number to four or five to compress the work to four weeks in the summer. I will run Day 1 as a webinar, then break students off into daily set times for the week’s remainder.

96

Betsy Woolf

Do you know whether everyone with whom you work gets the same information, such as reminders about deadlines, asking teachers for recommendations, etc.? One easy way to let your families know that they will be hearing from you once a month and how. Send out a monthly email, formal in the form of a newsletter or informal in the form of a simple email, to all of your students and families, and include pertinent information. Then, when someone says, you didn’t tell me that, you can show that you had.

97

Technology

98

Chris Bell

Being an IEC is repetitive and cyclical. We do the same thing, send the same messages, ask for the same things, client by client, year by year. And daily we send messages with similar content, like how to connect to a Zoom meeting, or how to schedule a meeting. <The following to be read in Infomercial Announcer’s Voice>

Wouldn’t it be nice if everything you wrote were stored in a sort of super-duper clipboard that you could call up whenever you wanted? Text Expander does just this. Install Text Expander on your computer and realize a new world of productivity.

You can use Text Expander to improve your life in three amazing ways!

Way 1: Quick abbreviations expand into longer words!

Here’s an Example: Type “uny” and text expander expands it to University.

Just think of the keystrokes you save in a day!

Way 2: Detailed snippets that you write all the time can be called up by your own custom “secret code.”

For Example: Type “zcal” and text expander expands it to details about how to schedule a meeting. Here’s what mine says:

To schedule meeting, please go to: https://www.bellcollegeconsulting.com/tools/

Click the “CALENDLY TO SCHEDULE A MEETING” button.

Feel free to grab a slot on the Calendly calendar. If you cannot find a time that works, just let me know and we can look to other times.

Way 3: Customized long Messages:

For long messages or documents, Text Expander allows you to store a template with custom fields for details to be filled in at the time of creation, MadLibs style.

Here’s an example scenario. Start an email and then press a special key combination to bring up a Text Expander search window. Search for your template by typing in key words such as “Getting Started.” You’ll be presented with related Text Expander templates that you had saved. Choose the one you want, and you’ll then be presented with a little window to fill in the custom details. For this example, perhaps you’re presented with the following fields to complete:

Meeting Date:

Meeting Time:

Parent First Name(s):

Student First Name:

Posessive_HerHisTheirs:

Pronoun_HeSheThey:

Once those fields are filled in, out pops a well-formatted, custom email.

<Still in announcer’s voice>

Text Expander is smoother, faster, and easier than keeping a document to copy/paste from. The fill-in fields help make messages sound natural. It is cross platform a and your templates are stored in the cloud -- so use it on Windows or Mac, and multiple computers, even with a team, where consistency of messaging is so important.

And as if that’s not enough, Text Expander also works on your iPhone! You can do all the same things on your phone that you can do on your computer. Every template, every replacement, every detailed snippet is available for you to punch into an email, text message, or anything else by using the custom Text Expander keyboard.

Learn more about TextExpander at: https://textexpander.com/

<No more announcer’s voice>

I have found it really useful and continue to put more and more content into this little tool so I can call it up whenever I want.

99

Bob Carlton

I’ve started using a tool called loom, which allows us to provide short video/audio context to answer student/family questions or to include in meeting follow-up notes. We’ve found it to be super effective, both in terms of our work with students and saving us time.

100

Eric Endlich

Part of a professional image is what people see during a Zoom call. I don’t want students seeing a virtual background or a random view of my home. Instead, I use an inexpensive folding screen with college pennants attached by Velcro. Many people have commented on how much they like my background. I also prefer to use a headset on calls, even if it looks geeky. When I talk to people who are using their computer’s external microphone, I find I can “hear” the acoustics of the room they’re in (not to mention ambient noise in their home), which is distracting...but maybe it’s just me.

101

Rebecca Grappo

For years I have resisting using a calendar scheduling app, but I finally relented and starting using Calendly last fall (there are lots of apps - Calendly does not have to be your choice). I have to say, I love it for the way it saves time.

But I’m learning how to fine tune this to make it better.

First of all, make sure you go through and block out all times and events that are sacred to you and that are recurring. (Wednesday Pilates that includes my prep and travel time is sacred to me.)

Secondly, set it up so that you have time in between sessions to get up and move.

Thirdly, make sure that regular clients have some parameters around its use - some overly eager mothers booked themselves more than I was expecting.

Fourthly, keep certain hours of the day/some days blocked off so that you can schedule last minute students, lead calls, crisis situation, out of office exceptions yourself.

BTW, I still manually schedule my college bound and boarding school students for the next call at the end of each call.

But overall, the $10/month for a pro account has been absolutely worth it. I just wish I hadn’t been so stubborn and had done this years ago.

102

Amanda Hirko

This year I discovered Cognito Forms (www.cognitoforms.com). In my opinion they are significantly easier to create and look nicer than Google forms and the results can be downloaded into a pdf for your records or a Google file for your students to then manipulate. You can also set them up to take electronic signatures (think contracts). There is a free version, but I am paying the $10/ month to be able to send a single template to multiple students and use it for signatures.

This is especially helpful for a form that looks similar to the UC application’s activities section (quite unwieldy) or the Common App’s activities section because you can set it for repeating sections (i.e., any number of extracurricular listings, any number of volunteer organizations, etc.) and give each box a character limit.

Make a single template, send a link to your students, each gets their own form to fill out and then they can add to it and edit it in their Google file as they get closer to needing it for their apps.

I’m using it for:

1. Intake information

2. A college research form

3. Activities lists for UC and C App

4. Parent Questionnaire

5. Freshman survey -- former students

6. My agreement/ contract w/ signature

This is a screen shot of the first part of the UC Activities form.

103

Michelle McAnaney

For juniors, I change my zoom virtual background to a photo of a college I want the student to consider. This way, there is a photo of the college present for the entire meeting. It’s a fun way to introduce a student to a new college.

104

Debbie Schwartz

Two tips for using Zoom backgrounds:

1. I took a photo of one wall in my office that students see when I am on Zoom. Then I uploaded that photo to zoom as a virtual background. Now, if I need to zoom with a client from someplace else, they still see me “in” my office.

2. I also uploaded photos I’ve taken at various colleges. (My personal favorite is the Eckerd College beach looking out at water.) When I’m working with students on college research, I sometimes choose one of those as the background. I might have them try to guess the college, or at least the state; other times we use the background photo as a starting point for our discussion. For example, students are usually intrigued by my photo of the library at Agnes Scott College. These photos lead to interesting conversations about the architecture and surrounding environment at different colleges.

105

Melanie Talesnick

Do you ever wonder why movie sets and the Kardashians spend so much time and money on lighting? It’s because proper lighting (and filters) bring out the best in them. While my “stage” has changed from my office to my dining room table, and I missing seeing students and their families in person, I have tried to jazz up my sweatpants and PJs with a light that freshens up my look! There are MANY, many brands and you don’t have to spend a lot of money. So, before you head back into the office, a ring light may help brighten your day while on Zoom calls

https://www.amazon.com/Whellen-Selfie-Tablets-Photography-Rechargeable/dp/B082447KJ8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=0807bestringlights-20&linkId=0daac04c9172a523551ab76cba02bf53&language=en_US

106

Travel or Zoom Tip

107

Kathie Carnahan

Consider the advantages in acquiring a Global Entry Card. This nifty pass allows travelers to skip crowded security lines for swifter and less stressful travel.

108

Cheryl Chamberlain

I keep a travel toiletries bag packed and ready to go. For other items, I use a packing list. My list includes international and Airbnb considerations. The list is subdivided into general travel, carry-on items, to-do’s before traveling, and business-related items.

Suitcase

Long/short sleeve shirts Pants/shorts Dresses Socks Underwear Pajamas Hat Sweatpants Sweatshirt Jacket Swimsuit Water shoes Beach towel Sandals/flip flops Swim goggles Raingear Workout clothes/shoes Robe/slippers Toothbrush/toothpaste Brush/comb Deodorant Hair ties First aid Bug spray Sunscreen Hair dryer Makeup Moisturizer Jewelry Vitamins Snacks/Via Probiotics Backpack Water bottle Watch Binoculars Booklight

Carry On Computer Chargers—phone, computer, kindle Kindle Book Headphones Battery backup Wallet/purse Cards Passport/travel docs Sunglasses Reading glasses Phone Gum Music

To Do Need detergent? Need converters? Housewatch Paper hold Mail hold Pay bills Get cash Travel insurance Photocopy wallet Load kindle books Nails Lights on security Unplug appliances Turn off pilots

Business Business cards Name tags Backpack Paper for notes Extra battery charger

109

Laura Seese

Winning with Points and Miles

As IECs, we visit schools throughout the country and travel to big cities and tiny towns. Sometimes our favorite “brand” airline or hotel (where we’ve accrued travel points) may not be available – or not included on a School Tour. For this reason, it’s beneficial to enroll in ALL of the free Loyalty Programs – and to do so BEFORE you travel (rather than submit receipts after returning home). Even at the lowest entry-level, many programs offer benefits like early boarding, room upgrades, internet, and free snacks upon check-in.

Double-Dipping: Review your credit cards regularly to ensure you’re using the best card for specific purchases (and update to take advantage of new-card Sign-Up Bonuses). The best cards are usually those which allow you to “double dip” and earn transferrable rewards. Popular options include Chase Business Ink (no fee) and Chase Sapphire ($95 annually) which both earn “Ultimate Rewards”: these have high sign-up bonuses ($750 or 60,000 points) as well as 1-to-1 point transfers to United, Southwest, JetBlue, Marriott, and Hyatt – as well as a 20% discount on travel if booked through Chase. Other double-dip options include American Express Membership Rewards (which transfer to Delta, Hilton, Marriott, Barnes & Noble, and Best Buy) or Citi Thank You Rewards (with gift cards for merchandise, cruises, or Hotels.com). Many companies have cards with no Annual Fees which also incorporate Trip Delay, Trip Cancellation, and Rental Car coverage – all very helpful during School Tours.

Loyalty-Brand Cards: Many airlines and hotels also offer their own credit cards. While these can be less versatile that the “double-dip” cards, they often have unexpected benefits and no Annual Fees. I recently received the IHG Hotel Card. While IHG has limited properties (which include Kimpton and Holiday Inn), it offered an impressive 140,000-point sign-up bonus. In addition to hotel rooms, IHG Points can be converted into airline miles (for American, Delta, JetBlue, and United), magazine subscriptions, Amazon/Walmart gift cards, and a $100 credit towards Global Entry or TSA Precheck.

Matching Loyalty Status: For hotels and airlines, having their branded credit card often bumps you up to an “Elite Level” in their Loyalty Program (where you earn more points at a faster rate). Once you’ve achieved Elite Status in one program, others will often “match” that same status (for example, Best Western’s “Status Match, No Catch”, where you submit details about status in a different hotel program and they will match it). A good resource to find these is “StatusMatcher.com”. Many programs also offer bonus points if you shop through their online portal, using any credit card.

The Best Card for You: Always assess your own personal spending habits to determine the best card for your specific purchases. (For example, Chase Ink offers a high 5% bonus on Internet, Cable, Phone, and Office Supplies: I use that particular card to pay those bills - but use a different card for gas, travel, or groceries. When I discovered I was doing more online shopping, I signed up for a free Amazon Prime Account – which offered a free Amazon Credit Card (with 5% back, travel insurance, rental car waiver, and $100 Gift Card – with no annual fee.) With multiple cards, it becomes harder to keep track, so explore database options like “Award Wallet”, “Trip-It Pro”, or “Points.com Loyalty Wallet”: these have free versions for transferring points between programs and monitoring expiration dates. (Tiny notes taped to each card have been helpful, too.) Favorite websites for tips, tricks, and bonuses include “The Points Guy”, “Hustler Money Blog”, and “Million Mile Secrets”.