Went here for SAT prep for two months last year and got the score I wanted. I recommend!read more

After estimated and interviewed with a few pretty expensive high-profile college admission…read moreconsultation companies on both west and east coasts, we decided to go with the B2A in Austin, hoping that face-to-face in-person touch could help my younger son, P, go through the strenuous process of applying for colleges. There were hiccups on the road but the result turns out terrific. P has been early admitted by his dreamed school. We started to work with B2A in late June due to P's summer camp schedule, and the counselor initially working with us found another opportunity and would leave B2A in 3 weeks. Thankfully, after we informed Emily of the situation, she quickly assigned André to work with P. We couldn't be more grateful for this transition. André has helped P develop essay topics most relevant and resonant to his personal experience and kept encouraging him to be himself. P is strong academically but not much a leader type kid. His essay is touching but by far inspirational. P had disagreement with the head counselor after final-review, and after some back and forth email exchange and amendment, decided to submit without the head counselor's final endorsement by the end of October. Now we look back, it would be helpful if we had started to work with B2A weeks earlier in June. Hope our experience with B2A could benefit other incoming seniors.

Just don't do it. Learn from our experiences. $2.950.00 down the drain…read more You hire a college counselor to help pick schools, manage application processes, manage deadlines, apply to scholarships and work on essays. She failed at all of these, minus working on essays and. quite frankly, I didn't think she was very good at that. I won't drag you through our year-long agony with Ms. Hicks. But, let me give you taste. She made my daughter completely paranoid (and depressed) about being accepted into a college, causing her to add 5 or so extra schools to her list. Then, Ms. Hick complained about the number of schools she was applying to. Oh, the irony. She MISSED a deadline for application to an honors program (that might have caused my daughter to go to that school). She did not help fill out a single scholarship application, saying she didn't think she'd qualify. Of course, I made my daughter fill out a few... and she got some. Save your mental health and don't use Hicks Consulting! College application season is stressful enough.

I agree that they should remove advertisements regarding helping kids with learning disabilities…read more What they really need to advertise is that they will help kids, starting in grade ten. So...basically three years of investment. No seniors/no learning disabilities. As soon as they found out, they recommended how to get into UT Austin, (she doesn't want to go there). If you are willing to commit to years of their "help", they could probably find someone to help you.

This company advertises at length that they provide services finding colleges and gap year programs…read morethat support kids with ADHD and learning issues. I was so excited when I read Lisa Carlton's blog as she sounded like exactly who we needed to help make choices for our child's future. When I made my initial appointment, they cancelled hours before and then acted as if they couldn't provide the services to my child. Oh, and they included it would be over $8,000. Very confusing and inaccurate advertising. I went elsewhere. It was very clear they didn't want to work with children who weren't typical college bound students despite the information they provided online.

When applying to undergraduate programs, I worked with numerous college admissions counselors that…read moretended to induce, rather than alleviate, the stress associated with the application process. They would place me on a strict schedule based on the number of sessions I purchased and were so caught up in writing what they thought college admissions boards would want to read that I ended up submitting personal statements that were not so personal. With that said, Sean is not your typical college admissions counselor. He treated me like an actual person, not just a paycheck. At our first session, Sean took the time to simply talk to me and figure out what drove me to this particular career path. He then helped me channel my passion into an eloquent, interesting general personal statement that was later tailored to four different graduate programs. In working with Sean, I did not get just a personal statement, I got complete application support. He gave me his cellphone number and encouraged me to text him with any questions between sessions. He was always quick to respond and would also text me to check-in on my progress. This type of regular communication allowed us to get the small details out of the way and focus on the more important aspects of each application during our face-to-face meetings. Applying to graduate school is overwhelming, but Sean made the process nearly stress-free. I believe his genuine interest in my success was key to writing a personal statement that stood out in a pile of cookie cutter essays. It feels so good to say that I was ACCEPTED TO ALL four graduate programs I applied to and will be attending my dream school starting this fall. Next time I need support on any type of professional application, I will not hesitate to contact Sean and you should too!

I used AAC to help me get into the extremely competitive MBA program at SMU. After being out of…read moreschool for a few years, I was really overwhelmed, but Devan helped me evaluate my strengths and weaknesses and was able to make sure I understood the admissions process. He helped me with my professional resume and essay, as well as with GRE prep. He is not only very intelligent but is great at very quickly understanding what areas someone needs help in. I only applied to one school and Devan made sure that was the school I got into. He was motivational and logical throughout the entire process. I am extremely glad that I chose to work with this company rather than any others. I would definitely recommend them to others!

Do not waste your money. They do absolutely nothing you can't do yourself with a google search…read more Such a predatory business on parents desperate to get their kids some help.

We had originally requested Academic Answers to help us construct a care team to mimic an inpatient…read moretreatment facility (our daughter's outpatient clinic recommended inpatient, but we didn't want to send her to one). Academic Answers LIED to us and told us that all three of the people they had spoken to on our daughter's current care team (psychologist, psychiatrist, bio-feedback practitioner) all agreed that she needed to be placed in a facility outside the home to improve her condition. When we called each care team member to verify this, they ALL emphasized that this was completely untrue, and they in fact thought the opposite: that sending her away would be more traumatizing given the nature of her condition. The team from Academic Answers recommended we send our daughter to a facility in Utah whom, upon research, had a nefarious and scandalous history involving abuse by the staff to the kids. Academic Answers advised that had been "decades ago and none of the staff was still there", however in our interview with the facility they had incidentally told us they had changed names several years ago but the staff was still the same.... When confronted with these facts and that the scandal was actually three years ago, the response from Academic Answers was "well that's almost a decade". In an initial interview with Academic Answers, we had asked about a certain facility (where Academic Answers had placed the child of the parent who referred us to their company) and they told us that place was horrendous, and they would NEVER recommend a child to be placed there. When asked for a refund, Academic Answers offered to return $5,000 of the $7,000 we had given them if we signed an NDA stating we wouldn't discuss our experience. If reading this saves even one family from these vultures, preying on families in a compromised situation who are desperate to help their children, it was worth it to decline that option.

Our daughter was entering her senior year of high school and ready to start applying to colleges…read more We had no idea how much the college application and admissions process had changed since we attended college. After attending an informational seminar at More Than a Teacher we decided to hire a college advisor to help us get through the college application process. After the 1st of five meetings, the advisor was very slow to respond to any of our voicemails or emails. It became apparent that we would not be able to get through the process in our remaining 4 sessions which were $250/hour. I could have upgraded to the 'unlimited' package to get additional help but I did not feel that this advisor would have my daughter's interests in mind irrespective of how much money we spent. I decided to pay a visit to my daughters school and talk with the school counselor in hopes of getting some direction. The schools don't typically endorse or recommend college advisors in the private sector but luckily I was able to get the names of a few private counselors that had previously worked in our school district. I reviewed their websites and proceeded to phone the first counselor... Carol Niemann. Wow what a difference! Not only had Carol just retired from my daughter's high school so she already had a huge advantage but she took the time to talk with me and understand our needs. We set up an initial consultation, free of charge, with my daughter to make sure it was a good fit. My daughter loved Carol and I realized that not only did she have a wealth of knowledge about college applications/admissions but she also knew how to effectively communicate with today's teenager. Carol was able to get my daughter through the application process and we successfully applied to 8 colleges. Throughout the process, Carol always responded to any questions we had and she was fabulous to work with. Without her help we would have had a lot of drama and fumbled through the process. We highly recommend Carol Niemann to anyone that is interested in having their student work with a college advisor that thoroughly understands the process and also cares about the individual.

From the owner: College planning and transition services for high school juniors and seniorsread more