How Phoenix-Based Going Ivy Can Help

Most high school students recognize that the choices they make and their academic records may either propel them forward or hold them back from getting into college and moving on to achieve their life goals. Many students and their parents view the college admissions process as being highly stressful, and for good reason. The process has changed dramatically since parents applied for college. There’s more competition. Top schools are more selective. And it feels like to be admitted, you have to be perfect. The stress may be even greater for students who have set their sights on getting admitted to one of the nation’s most exclusive schools. For the top U.S. colleges and universities, there are more arduous application questions and requirements, and more appealing promises of success for those that rise to the top. Securing one of the few available slots, especially as a student from Arizona, isn’t easy. But high school students who understand what colleges are looking for and adequately prepare for the admissions process have a distinct edge.

The founders of Going Ivy are graduates of Xavier College Prep and Brophy College Prep who have gone on to some of the most elite schools in the nation. We help our students from Arizona and around the country with preparing for the college application and admissions process through offering educational consulting, tutoring and test preparation services. The challenges of high school and applying to college can be stressful. But with the right support, they don’t have to be overwhelming. We are available to help you unlock your own potential so that you have the best possible chance of gaining admission into the school of your dreams.

Taking a Holistic Approach

At Going Ivy, we firmly believe preparing for college does not have to be so stressful. It starts with a focus on finding a list of schools that are the right fit for you, and then it’s exciting to visualize yourself there and answer their questions about you and submit your application confidently. Elite institutions take what they deem as a holistic approach to admissions decisions. This means that they look beyond the numbers that make up your grade point average and your admissions test scores to other aspects of you, including your writing skills, extracurricular activities, background and other things. In order to stand out, you must demonstrate who you are and why an admissions officer should advocate for you.

Because Going Ivy understands the approach that the top schools take to admission, we also employ a holistic approach to helping our students prepare for their portion admissions process. We start by asking questions so that we can better understand your strengths, weaknesses, personality, interests and potential. By building on your strengths and interests and keeping an open dialogue, we are better able to help guide you while you are still in high school and to find a university or college that might be the best fit for you. We work with our students one-on-one to help them to achieve the results that they want, and we believe that every student has a perfect university or college. By taking the time upfront to get to know you, including your passions and the future that you want, we believe that we can help you to gain the confidence that you need to reach your goals.

At Going Ivy, the focus is on:

• Helping students and families understand the college admissions process, including how high school grades and standardized tests influence the process
• Exposing students to college options and helping discover best fit schools
• Addressing stress and time management
• Promoting confidence, organization and internal motivation
• Staying patient, honest and open

Sparking Your Internal Motivation

The approach that we use is tailored and unique. Everything that we do is designed to help you by sparking your own internal motivation. If you do not have this drive, it may be more difficult for you to reach your goals. We take a three-pronged approach in order to offer you the most benefit. After identifying your strengths, we can help you to research which schools may fit you the best and then organize a roadmap in order to help you navigate the steps that are needed to reach your goals. This can help you to feel more confident and motivated, and this motivation and confidence may last you well into your adulthood.

We function as your personal team of independent educational consultants, and we understand that gaining admission into college doesn’t depend on employing a series of tricks so that you say the right things to earn acceptance letters. Instead, we are focused on helping you show the best of who you are while communicating the person you want to become.

Step 1: Reviewing Who You Are

When you meet with your Going Ivy consultant, you will be asked lots of questions. You will not simply sit down and fill out a questionnaire in our Phoenix office. Instead, we will talk to you one-on-one so that we can find out what type of leader you are, what kind of neighbor you are, what your personal attributes might be and who you are. We will want to elicit information from you so that we can understand the story that you are beginning to tell to the world. We work directly with you, and we’ll give you the time and energy that this monumental transition into adulthood deserves. By spending more time than other counselors or tutors getting a good idea about who you are and from where you are starting, we will be better equipped to help you with a personal, tailored plan.

Step 2: Designing Your Personal Roadmap

During our time getting to know you and your personality, we will identify your strengths and what might help you to stand out to admissions officers. We’ll develop a comprehensive roadmap that contains concrete steps to guide you through the process of working toward your goals. Your roadmap will be tailored to you and will include such things as strategies to help you find the motivation to complete everything along with specific milestones and the timing of taking your tests, writing your essays and submitting your applications.

Step 3: Working Toward Your Best Results

In order to help you to achieve your best results, we work directly together as a team to help you implement your tailored plan toward reaching your goal of gaining admission to your top-choice schools. Beyond securing acceptance letters, we want you to enjoy lasting results from the work that we will do together. We want you to learn the ways to boost your self-confidence, become more organized, market yourself, manage your stress, set goals and to truly know yourself.

Our Expertise

Our mission is to offer you comprehensive guidance from start to finish. Our team of consultants is made up of people who have graduated from Xavier College Preparatory and Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix. As graduates from top universities and as former admissions officers and current admissions experts, we understand how to achieve your admissions goals. We have worked with students throughout the Valley for almost a decade to teach them the life skills that they need to internalize so that they can be properly motivated to reach their goals. We are able to offer tips from the perspectives of insiders so that you have the necessary skills to write your own ticket to get into the top universities. Our overriding goal is to efficiently and creatively help you to maximize your admissions chances for your dream school.

Why We Are Different from the Big-Box College Prep Companies

We are different from some of the big-box, generic college preparation companies in multiple ways. We recognize that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to preparing for the college application and admissions processes. While we will talk to you about your college application, we go far beyond that. We work to inspire you through your sessions with professional motivational coaches and speakers. We will work with you to help you improve your interviewing skills, which can carry you beyond college and into your future career. We work directly with our students to help them present themselves in a meaningful and impactful way.

We offer the individualized attention that you need to be successful. While there are many specialists and experts within the college admissions coaching world, what we offer is much more comprehensive in its reach. We understand that it is not enough to get tutoring so that you can earn a higher class grade. That higher grade is necessary for you to gain admission to a better college. Similarly, the goal of your standardized tests is not to simply get a better score. Your ultimate goal is gaining admission into your top school, and the rest are simply stepping stones along the path.

Our time investment with our students is one of the largest differentiators between us and others offering assistance. At Going Ivy, we take the time to get to know who you are and the future that you desire. We will come to your home in the Valley or meet where it’s convenient for you, not require you to come to our Phoenix headquarters during “office hours.” We are just as invested in you as we are in our business. We don’t simply assist you with filling out your college applications. We work to inspire you toward attaining personal growth and motivation.

Throughout everything, you will have our team of experts to support and guide you as well as cutting-edge software to help you to build better organizational skills. Our passion in the process means that we will be fully invested in you and the results that you are able to achieve. We understand that there are many excellent schools, and we understand the importance of helping you to find your personal perfect fit.

The consultants, tutors and counselors at Going Ivy have the certifications and experience to help you to achieve your personal best. We have the track record of success to back up our approach to you. Many of our students have gone on to attend some of the most elite schools in the nation, including Princeton, Harvard and others. They’ve achieved As in classes that once seemed impossible, and improved test scores and felt confident doing so. Contact us to schedule your free consultation.

From our initial discussion and interview, we will then design plan options that are geared toward helping you to gain admission into the colleges of your choice. Your plan will include our customized and easy-to-use software to help you to stay motivated and organized.

Recognition

When you choose Going Ivy, you will be selecting a team that has been repeatedly recognized at a national level. We have been interviewed as go-to college admissions experts by numerous national publications. Going Ivy has been featured in such publications and news outlets as Forbes, US News & World Report and College Recruiter as an in-the-know source and college admissions expert.

Common Myths About College Admissions vs. Reality

Myths abound about the college admissions process. Here are a few of the most common myths compared with what is real.

1. Colleges always choose the best students.

Colleges want to find well-rounded classes of specialists, not just the students with the highest GPAs and scores. They might have already chosen a number of students who want to be doctors and are now searching for the next great mathematician. The best schools want to find the ideal mix of students, and that can change each year. You might be able to use the fact that your numbers aren’t everything to your advantage.

2. The most expensive schools with the most rigorous admissions standards are the highest quality.

This is not always the case. While some highly selective schools ask you to write more essays, others will just ask a single essay question and are not the most expensive. No matter the school, you should always use your full effort on the application.

3. The most important criteria for college admissions are your test scores.

Your test scores are not the most important criteria. Instead, what you accomplish while you are in high school is the most important criterion that will be considered by admissions committees. Such things as how rigorous your curriculum is, the classes that you take and the grades you obtain are significantly more important than the scores you receive on your tests.

4. You have only one ideal school, and not getting accepted to it means that you failed.

While you do have a perfect school, you will find it no matter what. If you take the time to research and visit schools before applying, you’ll find the colleges that you should choose for your applications. If you are denied by the school that you thought was your perfect college, it simply wasn’t the right one for you.

5. Applying to more schools is better.

The Common Application has made it much simpler for students to apply to many schools. Some students believe that applying to as many as possible is the best approach. The number of schools that you apply to does not improve your admissions chances. The only way to improve your chances of gaining admission is preparing during high school and applying to the schools that fit you and your goals the best. If you’re wanting a general number, some people suggest applying to two safety schools, three that reasonably fit you and two that are reach schools for you. If you are an excellent student and have achieved great test scores, then applying to more schools might make sense. It really depends on you.

6. There are tricks or shortcuts for getting admitted into an exclusive school.

There are no tricks or gimmicks that will work to help you to gain admission into the school of your dreams. Your success will depend on the amount of work that you put into the process combined with many other factors. You will not have to do everything yourself, however. Having an encouraging team that is made up of your parents, teachers and our independent advisers can be the key to your staying organized and motivated.

Advice Tailored to Schools — And Your Needs

The path to gaining admission is different for every college. There is no one magic formula. The process of getting into Cornell is vastly different from gaining admission to Princeton. At the graduate school level, your strategy for getting into Harvard Law School cannot be the same for getting into Yale. Each school has a unique character and needs for its student body. Our team understands what each school is looking for and the steps you can take to maximize your chances of making your college or graduate school dreams a reality.

Contact Going Ivy

Contact the Phoenix-based Going Ivy team today to schedule your free consultation. We will ask you the questions that help us to understand who you are and what your goals might be. We care about our students and are available to answer your questions 24 hours a day. We look forward to speaking with you and helping you on your personal journey.

Get Started

1. Call Going Ivy to schedule your free consultation.
2. We will review your circumstances and then develop a tailored tutoring, test preparation or college admissions plan.
3. We will outline the individual steps that you will need to take to get into your top-choice school, and we can offer options that fit your budget.

Read more about our process and how it works here.