Julian Brooks at EDMD has been absolutely amazing! He supported 2 of our 3 daughters with their…read morecollege experience. With both of our daughters, he provided feedback and created a customized plan, suggested courses and even took the time to help us during the dreading appeal process. His grounded approch to deal with the schools has been stellar. Because of his creative approach my daughters aid and grants increased significantly compared to what was originally offered at UC Santa Cruz and at the University of San Francisco. Not to mention, being admitted to multiple great schools. I'm extremely greateful and if I could rate him 10stars I would. Best investment ever! Thank you so much, Julian, we're looking to continue to work with you!

Julian Brooks at EdMD was an asset to have for my daughter's college preparation. He listened to…read moreall of our needs, he walked her through the preparation for college applications and admissions. He was there for all of our questions and concerns. He prepared her months ahead of time for the application and financial aid processes. He meet with her on a regular basis and updated myself. He was amazing when it came time for the application process and he made it so much easier on all of us. He stayed on top of her regarding her deadlines and helped her begin preparing her admissions essays and information months in advance along with reviewing and giving her insight and advice on improving her essays. I recommend using the service and especially recommend Julian. My daughter was accepted into several schools including UC Berkeley and UCLA. She will be attending UCLA this fall.

Gerna is the best in his field and he does it all with a smile and a lot of Aloha! He has helped…read moreme throughout my son's entire college career and he makes the application process for FAFSA painless. Gerna is a blessing and a gift to the parents who ask for his advice and support while applying to FASFA. Gerna keeps it real. Gerna IS the Great Kahuna for college financial planning. Janet Welsh Somatic Arts practitioner/ choreographer/educator.

We had great result with Bay Area College Planners. Our daughter was accepted in multiple colleges…read moreincluding UC-Irvine, UC-Santa Cruz, UC-Riverside. We are extremely happy with the results, given our daughter had multiple great choices. Gerna was always helpful, he walked us through the entire process. He was always available to answer any of our questions no matter what time or what day we called. Great results, great service. We will absolutely go with Gerna for our son who is graduating in 2 years.

My daughter joined the Elite Prep San Ramon counseling program during her sophomore year when she…read morefirst arrived in the States, and it was truly one of the best decisions we ever made. Our counselor, Mr. Yeh, has been there every step of the way. He assisted with managing her school GPA, providing English tutoring, TOEFL test preparation, college selection consulting, coaching for application essays, and interview prep. He constantly kept in touch with us to ensure everything was on track. Thanks to Mr. Yeh's dedicated support, my daughter received an admission offer to an excellent four-year university, rather than a community college as her school counselor had previously suggested. Elite Prep San Ramon is a fantastic place for college counseling, and I highly recommend their services.

I originally found Elite Prep San Ramon looking for SAT prep for my senior son -- but honestly, we…read moregot so much more than that. Helen Kim and Sam Rim really took the time to counsel us and pointed us in the right direction. They helped us see that focusing on AP courses was going to do more for my son than just chasing SAT scores. Their guidance gave my son the tools he needed to apply to UC schools, and now he's happily finishing out his senior year. You can just tell his confidence has grown so much through this whole process. He's excited and ready for college -- and that means everything as a parent. If you have a kid going through the college prep process, I can't recommend them enough!

I completely agree with the other review saying that Gloria provided limited essay help. I was also…read morediscontent with my essays, but she only looked at it a couple times before saying it's good to submit. Most of her edits were very minor grammar changes or things that don't make a difference. She gave very little advice that was actually useful (e.g. changing the topic, changing the theme, etc.). The edits are definitely not worth the thousands of dollars she charges, as you can get similar quality edits from current college students for MUCH less money. Furthermore, I was busy at a certain point in my Junior year, but she refused to reschedule my meeting for a later time "because everyone is on the same boat". So she's very unaccommodating. One time she failed to show up to one of our online meetings, and instead of apologizing, she blamed me for not calling her. She also wastes a couple sessions on personality tests and career tests that you can easily do at home. I ended up getting into UCLA/Berkeley, but rejected from most privates. The top-UCs are mostly based on stats (not essays), so it's clear her essay edits didn't really do anything. The success of her clients is mostly because the type of people she accepts are already high-achieving. Unfortunately, many parents (many of whom are immigrants) will continue to be willing to shell out thousands of dollars for the useless counselor.

I completely agree with all the other reviewers. My child had a hard time coming up with ideas for…read moretheir personal statement and she did not brainstorm and help in any way. Instead, she made them feel their writing ability was sub-par and it was something they could not achieve. Also a week before the application deadline for rea college she said the supplemental essays are not good enough. I wonder why she did not give that feedback earlier. When they got rejected by the school they had applied for rea, she made them feel that this was not something they could achieve and asked them to apply for lower-rated schools. That is when we decided in December to hire another consultant to rewrite the personal statement. Our whole winter vacation was spent rewriting the essays with input from the new consultant. This new consultant provided an essay structure and walked them through the essay. My child finally got into 6 or 7 top-notch colleges, but no thanks to Gloria for that.

Thank you, StrivePath! As a mom navigating our first college process, I can't say enough about…read moreSaumya--she was patient, supportive, reassuring, and kind from start to finish. She built a realistic summer plan for my son that helped us complete the college research and essay work early, so when October 1 arrived, our applications were already submitted. The organization and calm she brought to the process were a huge relief. She reassured my son that he would have many options and celebrated each college admittance with him. We felt guided every step of the way. Get ready for Kid #2!

Our son is currently working with Strive Path for his college application process, and we couldn't…read morebe more grateful for the guidance and support he is receiving, putting our mind at ease that he is getting the support needed to plan for his college applications. From the initial consultation, Strive Path has been incredibly supportive, organized and thorough, providing a clear timeline and a checklist of what our son needs to prepare, on a monthly basis, that helps him ensure he is on task, while including us (parents) on all correspondence to support him in such endeavors. Our consultant, Saumya, along with Sunny, have always been available for questions, no matter how small, and provided prompt and thoughtful responses that eased our son's anxiety during this stressful time. While we are close to mid-way through this process, we are confident of the outcomes that lie ahead and highly recommend their services to any student looking for comprehensive and personalized guidance on their college applications. Their expertise not only prepares you for the application process but also empowers you to present the best version of yourself to your dream schools!

We are so happy for our daughter that we selected BEEC to help her prepare for her second attempt…read moreat the SAT exam. She worked with Aadi for two months and increased her score to a 1470 from a 1280! Her number one pick for college went from a reach to a match. Aadi taught her so much in such a short amount of time. she went into the second exam full of confidence and came out feeling great about how she did. Aadi and the BEEC team were very accommodating of our daughte's busy schedule and they were an absolute pleasure to work with.

Exactly what I needed the most earlier in the year. I was searching for a professional agency, and…read moreBEEC is exactly what I was needed. They are professional, and they offer clear guidance on everything. You won't get confused. The team is caring and friendly. I usually get answers to my questions immediately. If they are busy, I get answer within the same day. Additionally, when I write an essay, I write a lot. It was difficult for me to squeeze things into limited word counts. BEEC not only helped me to stay on track but also provided alternative opinions to assist in tidying up my thoughts. They also have systematic practices that helped me in developing my ideas. I am pretty satisfied with my works. Thank you Jonathan and Jesse!

1. Every year a change of coach, with no clear plans till the last year in senior year…read more 2. Coaches are overloaded and do not dedicate enough facetime to students. 3. It took 3yrs of pestering to finally bring onboard a planned, systematic website to organize all work and put a plan together 4. No materialistic help in terms of finding internships, helping create a brag sheet, or suggestions on differentiating. Newsletters are fine, but coaches wouldn't personalize or guide 5. No tangible help in recommending scholarships or how to get one.

I researched this business and after an initial meeting signed my daughter up. We explained our…read moredaughter needed help starting the process of preparing to transfer from Las Positas to a 4 year university. This included providing all the assistance needed with the application process and giving her confidence to go away. After her initial meeting which was the most valuable, she got little direction and came home even more apprehensive to move away. I had to ask for updates for what they discussed and in the end she stopped going as she didn't find the meetings valuable. We ended up doing all on our end. Very disappointed.

Enrolling our son in Intelos' tutoring and test prep classes has turned out to be one of the best…read moredecisions we've ever made for him. Our son has been a top straight A student all his student career until the 2nd semester in his Sophomore year. He received his first ever B+ in math. We have noticed his math grade has gradually slid down and offered to help him, but he strongly resented any type of help from us. He didn't want us to teach him or review his assignment. The resentfulness then led to countless intensive and bitter quarrels and anger on both sides. Fortunately, one of his friends recommended Lauren (the math teacher and co-founder of Intelos) to him when summer started. Just like the other 99% of the teenagers in the world, our son doesn't listen to his parents, but he listens to his friends. His friend told him Lauren was able to help her a lot in math previously. Thus, he was willing to give it a try with Lauren. He started weekly math tutoring with Lauren at the beginning of the summer. Later at the end of the summer we enrolled him in the two-week intensive ACT prep class to prepare him for September's ACT test. His math has improved tremendously just within these 2 months and he scored 35 out of 36 on September's ACT composite score. Lauren and Hugh (the other co-founder of Intelos and teacher for English/reading/writing) are not only very knowledgable but also experienced in how to work well with teenagers so that they listen, follow, and benefit from the instructions. Before Lauren and Hugh started Intelos, they were the former head teachers at the well known Elite Educational Institute. We are so happy that we didn't have to send our son to Fremont and he was able to receive all the help he needed locally in the Danville/San Ramon area. In addition, Lauren and Hugh are always very willing to work around the client's constrained schedule. My son has many activities and heavy work load from multiple AP and Honors courses. Once the school started, his available time became very limited. Lauren and Hugh were able to come up with a specially designed course plan and schedule for my son based on the restricted time he is available. We are very grateful for what they have done for our family to make all these possible and guide our son to develop his potentials.

When I was looking for SAT and ACT prep in this area, I searched the web and found that Intelos…read moreEducation had just opened this past summer. I stopped by to talk to Hugh and Lauren, who are founders, and I feel so comfortable sending both of my children there for ACT prep. Hugh and Lauren are very intelligent, caring, flexible, and interested in the subject matter. They are not only teaching my children; they're very personal and willing to spend extra time to coach and to help my children to achieve the goal. They also give lots of practice tests so students would well prepare for the real test. I trust that Intelos knows how to prepare students to do well. They have created a personal bond with my children, which I have never received from other prep centers, such as Elite. Hugh and Lauren really got to know my daughters and gave them the one-on-one time that they needed. Hugh and Lauren, you are outstanding! We're extremely pleased and grateful for your dedication. Thank you so very much for making a big difference in my children's education.