Most college admission consultants are probably good at helping students submit grammatically and structurally correct essays and applications. Blue Stars Admissions Consulting, however, goes well beyond that. They are exceptionally adept at connecting with their students at a deeper level, helping them to discover and better understand who they are and to produce extremely personal, reflective applications that are impactful and demonstrate personal growth.
At Blue Stars, it all starts with Dr. M. She is an extremely bright, energetic, and positive person who works well with teenagers. She has a unique ability to connect with them, to get them to drop their teenager attitudes, and to look at themselves and the broader world from a more mature perspective. Together, she and her students constantly probe and dig deeper to help the student develop a better understanding of themselves, what their interests are, and how they might pursue those interests in the real world. All the while she is constantly challenging her students, both in terms of setting and achieving concrete goals and in terms of honestly looking inward. The results are applications and essays that tell a compelling story of who your student is and what they want to do.
We used Blue Stars first for college counseling starting in our son’s junior year and then for college admissions during his senior year. During his junior year, Amy helped our son explore his interests in engineering, computer science, and creative writing by having him read articles and other resources, discussing with him what they meant and what he thought about them, and then pointed him in new directions accordingly. She helped him discover that engineering really wasn’t what he wanted but that computer science and creative writing were. Since creative writing is usually a self-driven passion, she helped him focus and organize his efforts so that he wrote regularly and created specific writing exercises and challenges for himself, all of which enabled to him develop a portfolio of writings that he submitted with his applications. She also helped him find summer opportunities that allowed him to explore his interests further and afterward required him to reflect on those experiences in a self-exploratory way that helped him grow personally.
Throughout our experience with Dr. M, she worked extensively with our son and developed a special relationship, but she wasn’t alone. She had a very competent team supporting her, and at the college admissions stage, she included a talented and dedicated reader/editor, Helen, that worked with Amy and our son throughout the whole process of drafting, submission, updates, decisions/waitlists, and the final selection of a school. Amy’s team even assisted our son by helping him connect with current students for meetings or tours at the short list of schools he was considering.
Blue Stars doesn’t just hold their student’s hands. Blue Stars makes a sincere connection with them and challenges and holds them accountable, all in a positive, upbeat manner, which results in students that are positive and confident in who they are and ready for the next step in their lives.
