CollegewiseReviews of collegewise.com

Liz Majors made the college application process less painful for my daughter (and me!). Even though I have been through this process four times before, it is a daunting journey and it was comforting to meet with Liz regularly. Having her tips and tricks made this easier and gave us peace of mind. I would highly recommend.

I worked with Ali during my college applications process, and it made everything easier. The service itself has great built-in tools for organizing your essays, ranking your colleges, and adding additional notes if you’re still on the fence about applying. Having Ali as my college counselor helped me set deadlines and write essays about better/more relevant topics. I’d fully recommend this to anyone who needs help with the college process!

I had Lori Jones as my counselor, and she was absolutely wonderful. I started with her during the middle of my sophomore year. I would give her 10 stars if possible. She was incredibly supportive and helpful in guiding me during both my application process and the years leading up to it. She is such a compassionate and caring person, always giving me a clear direction when I was confused on which extracurriculars to participate in, which activities to spend the most of my time on, and figuring out which classes to take each year. She was an amazing counselor, and I couldn’t have asked for anyone better. I also wanted to acknowledge my wonderful editor, Nico Flint. I felt that she gave me insightful and strong feedback that turned my essays for both colleges and summer programs into truly competitive and authentic pieces. I am truly grateful to both Lori and Nico for their help. I will be attending MIT in the fall, and I don’t think I would have been accepted without their help. I rated the overall program as 4 stars due to some improvements that Collegewise can make, none of these related to Lori or Nico. I participated in some of the add-ons, including the Passion Project (I did not work with Lori on this). For me, I did not believe that this program was very helpful, as I ended up finding different and more meaningful extracurriculars to spend my time on. Additionally, I found the interface of Collegewise’s website to be confusing and non-user friendly at times. Due to these aspects, I rated the overall Collegewise program with 4 stars; however, I would give Lori and Nico as many stars as possible.

My family and I got the UC Application package in the beginning of the school year. I worked with Ida Lonnqvist, who was seriously so sweet and personable. I ended up getting into UCD, UCSB, UCLA, and waitlisted at UCSD with her help!

My counselor, Ida was very good with helping brainstorm and outline my essays so that I could get a good start to my essays. However, some of my essays did not directly answer the prompts and I was not told by the editors, leading to me having to change the flow. Otherwise, it was a good experience and a lot of help to get you started, as well as guidance through the actual application process.

Takes the pain out of the process. This was my third child going thru the college process. With the first we were very involved and the coach was very knowledgeable but a jerk— challenging my child to do better but in a destructive way. Teasing him and making him feel inferior. The coach we hired for my second son was just useless and due to a family situation (it happens) disappeared mid way through the process. Matt was very involved and kept my son in track. He was a bit laissez faire — very pragmatic. He gave sound advice even when it was hard to hear. He wasn’t super-creative re suggestions for hidden gem colleges but would provide insights in response to our proposals. Re essays, we were a little surprised that errors got passed editors —but we were able to be really hands off for the most part. Matt was also super responsive when we had moments of panic. Overall a very positive experience.

I felt like I was well prepared for the exam and learned all of the content I needed to be successful. One thing that my tutor can work on is doing more individualized work towards the student where the student talks about what they want to work on and their weaknesses.

When I started the College Wise process, I was greeted by reassurance, attentive listening, and warmth during my conversation with program advisor Jackie Muralla, who matched me with Caitlin and a few other counselors. Caitlin was a supportive guide throughout every step of the otherwise stressful, intimidating college process. I entered the application process the summer before my senior year, and many other college counselors I interviewed with were reluctant to take me on as a client because of this. Neither Jackie or Caitlin ever insinuated that I was "late in the game," instead responding promptly to every email or question I had. I also appreciated Caitlin's approach of encouraging me to take the reins for many of the steps and decisions involved. Aside from a good experience with my counselor, I was a bit disappointed in certain aspects of the editing process for my personal and supplemental essays. I completely understand that the editors have an enormous amount of essays to edit at a quick turnaround rate, but I felt that their suggested edits often lost sight of what I intended to convey in my essays. For the price we paid, I did feel that some of the editing process was a bit rushed.