How Our Team Works
Personalized Support, Collective Expertise
When you work with Smart College Selection, you work closely with one dedicated consultant. But that consultant doesn’t work alone.
Behind every student’s list, every essay, and every challenging conversation is a team of seven professionals who meet weekly, sharing learning, puzzling through decisions, and thinking together about every family they serve.
Most educational consultants are either one expert working solo, or a group of independent practitioners operating under a shared name. We’re different. We keep the full process in-house with every consultant on our team working full time, managing her own students, and collaborating with our entire team weekly.
This means you get the personal attention and trusted relationship of one dedicated consultant, backed by the collective knowledge and experience of our entire team. When you hire one of us, you benefit from all of us. The expertise here doesn’t belong to one person. It belongs to all of us — and to you.
How Our Team Collaborates
WEEKLY TEAM MEETINGS
Every week, our full team meets to discuss individual students — sharing insights, talking through challenges, and drawing on each other’s experience.
Seven knowledgeable people are never more than a conversation away.
COLLEGE KNOWLEDGE
All of us visit colleges every year — individually, face to face, meeting with admissions offices and walking campuses. What one of us learns, all of us know.
That’s 70+ campus visits annually flowing into a single shared pool of current, first-hand knowledge.
COLLECTIVE ANALYSIS
We think honest, structured self-examination is essential. Every spring, we sit down together to reflect on student experiences and see how we can better support the families we serve. Where did outcomes differ from expectations? How did families most benefit from our guidance? How can we learn and improve our approach?
How We Work with Families
SUPPORTING STUDENTS
We work directly and closely with each student — teasing out their college criteria, building their list, developing their application strategy, guiding their essays, and helping them understand why they’re applying to each school.
The goal is a student who arrives at their decision confidently and on their own terms, choosing from schools they are genuinely excited to attend.
“The experience for the student is much more than completing college applications. It is a process of self reflection and discovery.” — EMO, Indianapolis IN
SUPPORTING PARENTS
We work with parents as intentionally as we work with students. This means a meeting summary after every student session, a direct line to your consultant separate from your student’s, and built-in family meetings at key milestones.
We spend a lot of time thinking about the parent role in this process. Most parents tell us this is something they didn’t know they needed and something they can’t imagine having gone without. We know it is essential because we’ve been there.
“As parents we felt informed and respected, while at the same time allowing our daughter to really be the driver of her own decisions.” — MW, Ann Arbor MI
How We Built Our Team
The team has grown slowly and deliberately since we began in 2014. Every consultant has joined not because there was a job listing (we don’t do that), but because the fit was undeniable. Some were found in unexpected places — a three-and-a-half-hour coffee conversation, a college tour, a university classroom. Every story is different.
Between our team members, we have 13 college degrees, three dogs, 17 children, and three grandchildren. We’ve lived in seven countries and 35 states. Among our own children, we have artists, teachers, political advisors, students with learning differences, linguists, college and professional athletes, doctors, goofballs, engineers, neurodiverse students, and several who love a karaoke party.
Our own children have helped us see the possibilities, understand the challenges, and celebrate the successes. They make us better consultants — both to the students and to the parents we support.
We work with a limited number of students each year.
Not because we couldn’t work with more, but because it allows us to provide you the personalized experience you deserve. Most years we’re fully enrolled midway through junior year.