Most families come to us knowing something isn’t working, or that a decision is coming, and not knowing what to do about it. We help you see the landscape clearly, find the schools where your child will actually thrive, and get through the process without losing your footing.
“We don’t understand our options.” You know there are private, public, charter, and specialized paths. You don’t know which are real possibilities for your child, or how they differ in ways that matter.
“We can’t tell which schools are right for our child.” Reputation and fit are not the same thing. Sorting one from the other requires knowing both your child and the schools.
“The process is opaque, and we’re afraid of getting it wrong.” Deadlines, assessments, interviews, hidden expectations — with no clear sense of what actually moves a decision.
“Something isn’t working where we are.” Your child is bright and not landing, and you can’t tell whether it’s the school, the fit, or something you haven’t identified yet.
“A diagnosis just emerged and we need a plan.” This news changes the picture, and the school search has to change with it.
“We’re relocating and starting from zero.” A city you don’t know, a system nobody explained, and a timeline already running.
If you recognize yourself here, you’re in the right place. In 29 years, we haven’t met a version of this we can’t help you sort out.
Before we talk about schools, we get to know your student. How they learn. What motivates them. Where they struggle. What kind of place brings out their best. Everything we recommend comes from that — there’s no template here, because there’s no template for your child.
Admissions to selective schools and programs has rules. Most of them just go unexplained. We walk you through it in plain terms: how schools differ, what they’re really looking for, why the timeline runs the way it does.
Then we tell you what isn’t on any website. How tours are actually read. When you’re showing interest and when you’re overdoing it. Which questions land badly in an interview. We’ve spent 29 years in these rooms — you get that knowledge on day one instead of learning it the hard way.
A school list and a timeline made for your student: balanced, realistic, and ordered so each step sets up the next. You’ll know which schools you’re going after and why, what your child should be doing between now and then, and where your effort matters most.
Deadlines, forms, tour sign-ups, testing dates, recommendation requests, follow-ups — admissions runs on all of it. We carry it and tell you what’s coming before it’s urgent. Families doing this alone lose entire months to research and second-guessing, much of it on schools that were never right for their child. We cut straight to the work that counts.
A one-hour consultation
Bring your questions. We’ll walk you through the timeline, tell you what’s coming and when, and give you straight answers about where your family stands. For some families this is all they need. For others, it’s the first clear hour they’ve had in months.
A school list build and application strategy scope
The work of figuring out where and how your child should apply. We get to know your student, then build a school list and a plan behind it — which schools, in what order, on what timeline, and what makes each one a real possibility rather than a hopeful one.
An application build scope
Full support through the applications themselves, from one school to eight or more. Public and private, and every part of the file: essays, activities, interviews, forms, deadlines. We manage the process from first draft to final decision.
Additional support when a student needs it
Some students need more scaffolding to put a strong application together. We use APP MAP, our framework for mapping every part of the file a committee will see, and Projective Education Consulting, our approach to identifying who a student is becoming and helping them grow into it.
At this stage, parents carry the process. Your child is observed, in play-based visits that look at social-emotional readiness, motor development, language, and early pre-academic skills. We prepare you to build the file: the parent statement, the tour strategy, the timeline, and the sibling and enrollment policies that quietly shape who gets in.
Still parent-led, possibly across multiple buckets at once: private, public, and charter schools. Each has its own tours, assessments, and interview format. Your child sits for readiness screenings and group play observations, where they’re watched as much for how they join a group as for what they know. We prepare them for those rooms and you for the timelines.
Grades 1–5 run on availability, how many seats open, and when. Your child now participates directly: a visit day, a classroom shadow, a recommendation from a current teacher who knows them well. We help you read where the real openings are, and help your student understand which parts of their file need strengthening before they apply.
Here the process starts to split between you and your student. They take the ISEE, SSAT, or SHSAT, interview without you in the room, and ask teachers for letters. You still hold the strategy. We prep them for testing and interviews while helping you weigh independent, public selective, and specialized options at a developmental moment when fit matters more than name.
Your student carries this one. They’ll need to speak about themselves with some fluency, explain what the transcript shows, know their why for each specific school, and understand who’s recommending them and what that letter is likely to say. You stay in it, aligning with your child, supporting the file. We coach the student and keep the family moving together across NYC independent, public or parochial, specialized public, and tri-state day and boarding.
From kindergarten through the upper school years — we know the rooms, the readers, and the rhythms.
Westchester, New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island. Day, country day, and boarding.
Mapping a landscape you don’t know yet — with a strategy that fits your child, not the average child.
When should we start?
Earlier than you think. The strongest applications are built over time, not assembled in the fall. That said, wherever you are, today is the right day to reach out — we’ve started with families a year out and three weeks out.
What is APP MAP?
Our framework for mapping everything an admissions committee will see and weigh, so nothing is left to chance:
Every one of these is read. Mapping them together shows us where your student is strong, where they need work, and where one part of the file can carry another.
What ages do you work with?
Every stage — the twos through college, including boarding school. We work across public, private, and special education settings.
What does “projective education consulting” mean?
Most consultants package who a student is today. We identify who they’re becoming and help them grow into it. By the time the application is finished, it tells a true story about a student who has changed.
Do you help students who need special education?
Yes. We support families through evaluations, IEPs, and specialized school searches, and we hold this work in-house rather than referring it out. The goal is the same as it always is: the environment where your student can genuinely thrive.
What is the investment?
It depends on your student’s needs, your timeline, and the scope of work — a single consultation looks very different from a full application year. We walk through the options and the numbers in our first conversation. No surprises.
What if I only need help with essays and interviews?
We do that work, but not in isolation. Essays and interviews are the Performance piece of APP MAP, and committees read them against everything else in the file. So we start by understanding the full picture. It’s the difference between an essay that’s well written and one that’s doing a job.
What if it feels overwhelming?
That’s exactly why we’re here. We know the rules that go unexplained, we manage every deadline, and we stay beside your family through the hard parts. You won’t be doing this alone.
Admissions timelines, school fit frameworks, and the questions worth asking — all in one place.
Some families come to us with a recent evaluation in hand. Others want a clearer picture before any plan is built. We offer a curated set of assessments and use only what genuinely moves the work forward.
Academic Assessment
MindPrint Learning Assessment
Brown Executive Function & Attention Scale
Career Lift Off
16 Personalities
Kindergarten Readiness (virtual)
And more…
