Parents

Guiding students - as parents and educational experts

As parents ourselves, we understand the excitement and anxiety that naturally come with planning for your children's educational journey. As experts with a long history of working both in educational institutions and as independent advisors--we understand and have seen first hand the benefits of working with professionals to find the environment where your son or daughter will thrive academically and personally.

The team at HS&M provides highly personalized school, college, and graduate program counseling, maintaining close contact with parents and students throughout the process through appointments in our Boston office, web-based meetings, regular phone calls, and emails--whichever method best suits you.

Your planning process begins with our understanding your family's goals and needs and then creating the best match with an HS&M consultant. We value this relationship as central to our shared mission of finding the best school, college, or graduate program match for your child. From there, the HS&M consultant provides a thorough assessment of the student’s past academic performance, individual learning style, and potential for growth. The next step is a plan of action, breaking down each element of the search and application process into individual stages for review with the parents and student. Each stage has its own goals and strategy.

In the planning process for school-aged children, the parents usually drive most of the activity and thus work closely with the consultant. Parents most often complete their own part of an application, and meet with admissions official during visits with student involvement as warranted and requested. We prepare and guide both the parents and the students through each phase of this process.

By contrast, in the college process, parents play a more indirect role as facilitator. Our consultants believe it’s important to empower students to take ownership of their own process, while the consultant takes over the responsibility of establishing and enforcing deadlines. Done right, the college process plays to the positive elements of the natural adolescent urge to establish independence and allows for a venue of self-exploration. Parents usually support their children as they set goals and explore colleges by providing transportation, guidebooks, tutors, counselors and general encouragement.

By graduate school planning, students have successfully navigated the college application process and are largely independent. Many candidates also bring a professional background to the graduate school process. Students therefore lead the graduate program search process, while HS&M consultants provide direct guidance and counseling.

No matter the age, goals or capabilities of your child, the consultants at HS&M have one interest: long-term success and happiness for the student and family. For the past 55 years, our students have found the right fit at a wide range of schools, colleges, and graduate programs.