My time spent with Manuel and his team was super helpful for me and my family!…read more When it came time to do essays for my college applications, his team was very specific and detailed in their criticisms. Since the essays used in my college applications were very particular about subject matter and word count, him and his team's pointers greatly helped me in conveying my essays' messages effectively. They also made understanding finances for my difference colleges easy to understand. Going into the federal financial aid application process, I was rather intimidated with the amount of steps involved. However, after consulting with Manuel and his team, they gave us a clear outline of what we have to do and what forms of financial aid to look out for--even going as far as to point out which of my chosen colleges offer the best financial aid. Overall, College Planning ABC offered me and my family a smooth, professional, and streamlined approach to the college application process that would've felt more time-consuming and stressful otherwise.

Working with Mr. Manny has been such an excellent experience! He answers my questions promptly, and…read morereally listens to my concerns from what classes to choose in high school to the whole college application process. Manny and his team also helped with my personal essays & advised my parents the alternatives on how to pay for college. Him & his team are always responsive & take the time to know my interests & assist me as needed. Thank you so much Manny & Team for all the support and guidance!

As a parent, I honestly felt we had started the college application process too late. We first…read morebegan working with Mr. Park during the summer before senior year, and I was worried there would not be enough time to really help my son. But after meeting him, my thinking completely changed. From the beginning, Mr. Park was very clear, organized, and realistic with us. He did not just give general advice like many other counselors. He took time to understand my son's strengths, personality, and goals, and gave guidance based specifically on him. That made a very big difference for us. He helped a lot with essays and personal statements. Many times he pushed my son to think deeper and explain his experiences better, and I could see the improvement over time. His feedback was very detailed and personal, not advice that I could find online. What I appreciated most was that he was honest and straightforward while still being very supportive. The college process can be stressful for both students and parents, but Mr. Park helped make everything feel much more manageable. My son also became more confident, organized, and mature during this process. I truly feel Mr. Park cares about his students and wants them to succeed long term, not only for college admissions. I would highly recommend him to any family looking for genuine and personalized college counseling support.

I write this recommendation as a reflection of the process we went through with Mr. Park. We…read moreweren't sure what to do or what we were looking for when we searched for a counselor. We searched and met with a few counselors before deciding to go with Mr. Park. It is one of the best things we did for our child and for ourselves. Mr. Park helped our child navigate through his entire high school and the college application process. Mr. Park continues to mentor him even after our son graduated high school and left for college. Mr. Park's guidance is very direct and genuine in the student's best interest. You can see he guides each of his students differently based on their capabilities and their aspirations. He is very honest with them if they are going down the wrong path and guides them back onto the right track in order to maximize their potentials. He can be critical at times, but as we reflected back, it was in the best interest of the student. He took the pressure off the parents. More times than not, parents worry more than we should and it can have an opposite effect despite us thinking its our good intentions. I strongly recommend him as a coach and guidance counselor for any students who really want to strive to get into the best universities in the country. He help guided our child into the top 10 colleges in the country. At the end when reflecting back....Mr. Park's impact was beyond just a high school planning and college application process, but he instilled some life perspectives that are very important for long term success. We have a second child that is a bit younger, but we do plan to have Mr. Park guide the younger one too!

I'm a mother of a 14 yr. old girl who struggles with school. We have been using Navigate Learning…read morefor 2 halves of 2 school years now. We first were introduced to Emily when my daughter was in 8th grade, struggling to graduate, understand how to organize & balance her school life. It's hard with a mother like myself, pushy & frustrated not able to see that she needed understanding & a guiding hand. We had FINALLY found the answer we needed in Emily & her tutoring skills. She is amazing, warm & intuitive, with a wonderful caring heart, that LOVES what she does, with each & every student she works with, as do her employees. The focus of her business is to give tools to each student to build confidence, become self reliant & motivated to do the very best they can in every situation or challenge that comes in school. My daughter is doing much better & definitely more happy. Words can't express how thankful I am for all the help that Navigate Learning has given us. I have 2 more children in school & will continue to come here for any help they need as well.

Navigate Learning and Emily have been a great help to me along my educational and career journey…read more Charged with the task of writing a Personal Statement, I found myself drowning in my own run-on sentences, run away thoughts, and flowery rhetoric. Emily pulled me out of the water and helped me concentrate on main points and communicate in a way that helped me land my first choice internship and send me along my way to become a Registered Dietitian and business owner. I have since called on Emily for career advice and consulted her for resume writing and personal advice. She is trustworthy, kind, and has a way of caring for people I have hardly witnessed in all my life. Entrusting her with your tutoring needs, or that of your child will be a priceless investment. I can't say enough about her. Thanks Emily for all of the help, sound encouragement and advice!

My brother worked with Angela for his college admissions, and she was instrumental in the process…read more College admissions had changed a lot since I applied to college, but my parents wanted me to help anyway. In the end, I realized I was out of my depth and we found Angela who had all the up-to-date information and was able to answer all our questions. Most importantly, she helped with the essays, the most difficult part of the application for us. My brother had issues with comprehensibility, keeping within the word limit, and having a voice that would make him stand out amoung the other applicants. End the end, we had much better essays and he was accepted to many top tier programs. He is very happy with his outcome. My only regret is that we didn't work with Angela sooner; we started late in the process after we realize we were in over our heads and had pretty middling essays.

This review is about Angela Sun's college counselling abilities. Our experience was exactly the…read moreopposite of what's written here and I would give negative stars if I could !! She was an absolute nightmare to deal with and has zero emotional intelligence or tact to deal with young teens !! She preys on parent's weaknesses and has clearly understood parents would do anything for their children as long as she says things like she got admission into MIT, Ivy's and self proclaims that she is the absolute best college consultant who will make your child write the absolute best essays he can ever write !! (I am paraphrasing it but she said something like that to me in our first meeting !). She made it amply clear even before I met for the first time that all she cares about is money and nothing else ! She charged me $300 per hr saying it's "the weekend rate" - whatever that means (although her website only mentions 250 per hr ). She was laser focused on the money in our conversations and showed zero interest in knowing my child before or after the meeting. Her website says parents will get a detailed report within 24 hrs of the first meeting, and we received no such report. The first meeting was a complete disaster. She was so rude (and please don't say she is strict/tough /good etc). No - she was plain rude and not good as a counselor !! My son was so scared of her that after a point stopped answering even basic questions ! She gave as little info as possible in the session and made it laborious by asking my son to type out literally every word that came out of her mouth (all of it was just general info and nothing anyone wouldn't know about college admissions)! Despite all these negative signals, I still tried to go ahead with scheduling a few more sessions, because believe it or not, my son insisted he wanted to try her a bit more before giving up ! I wanted to understand how many sessions my son would need and in her response she had the audacity to say my child was a "non high functioning" kid and hence would probably need many sessions (being vague and open ended of course to milk as much money as possible from me) ! The "genius" in her, inferred all this about my son from just the 1 hr meeting !! Not to brag - Honestly, my child is in a highly specialized gifted track at school and elsewhere and in fact the very reason I was looking for a counselor so early on was to make sure I give him all the advantages possible and guide him using the best counselors ! She quoted a ridiculous number of hours at the rate of $300 per hr and I told her , her website states she will only need 3-4 sessions for coming up with a 4 year plan and her response was "website is outdated " !!! (can you believe that ??) Parents, please be careful when choosing a counselor. Please make sure the counselor has the right emotional intelligence, credentials , experience to deal with your child in this vulnerable yet important stage of their life. Please don't select a counselor based purely on 5 star online reviews or what these counselors say they achieved for themselves. If in your initial interactions you detect the counselor's main focus is money, and not your child or if the counselor is rude, evasive about answering your questions , please take these red flags seriously and run miles away from her/him ! I am very thankful that I was able to detect this problem early on and not expose my child to a horrible 4 year counselling experience !

My child took PalmDrive Academy's SAT crash camp for about 1-2 months and seemed to have enjoyed…read morethe camp. Unfortunately, we did not observe an improvement in test scores. The actual SAT first attempt score the same as the ones on practice tests before the camp. While practice-test and actual SAT scores can vary, based on our experience, we did not see the score improvement we had hoped for from the program.

I studied in a California community college and have sought for PalmDrive's help in the process of…read moretransferring to a University of California campus. The consultant I worked with was very professional and patient. I couldn't have received offers from both UCB and UCLA without her help! Highly recommend!

Christine is the best! She has always been organized, methodical, and extraordinarily patient. I…read morewould have no hesitations working with her again.

Christine is a wonderful educator and deeply cares for her students. She has repeatedly shown her…read morededication and passion for teaching throughout my time with her. I would have no hesitation to work with her again if I needed to. She is smart, knowledgeable, and able to translate the problem so that it's easily understood. She is also patient, kind, and approachable with any concerns you may have. I have no regrets or qualms about my time with her. Thank you Christine for all the help.

We used services of Ivy Review for my son who started college this weekend. When getting ready for…read morecollege admissions for my son in his high school, we realized we needed expert guidance. We did paid initial reviews with two different consulting agencies. Second was Ivy that came highly recommended from a family friend. Soon after we spent an hour with Aditi from Ivy, my son as well as I agreed we needed her. She is an absolute professional, highly knowledgeable about colleges, and their different college admission criteria. She helped us focus on my son's resume gaps and what we could do to remedy. From then on, regularly working with my son, as well as me, she systematically worked through a) college selection, b) college visits plan and prep, c) applications preparations, d) following through to make sure we were on track for application submissions. The number of times that my son did back and forth with Ivy's skilled essay reviewers was itself worth all the money. Needless to say, she can't turn a B grade into and A, or write the essays for you or just get you into college X because you think you are worth it. But preparations are important. And with Aditi's help and rest of Ivy staff, I realized we did put our best foot forward. And that's what I was happy to pay for. We are in the east coast and Ivy on the west coast, but there was no issue working over the phone and emails. We did attend one of the Ivy workshops in person when we did college visits in CA. And I think if you are working remotely, attending one such is useful. If you read all this, you might want to know my son got admitted to Princeton, and UC Berkeley from his top 5 choices. And to my immense relief, he picked one close to home.. I highly recommend Aditi, and her Ivy Review crew.

Watching both of my kids successfully navigate the high-pressure world of college admissions was…read moreonly possible because of one person: Aditi at Ivy Review. She truly changed the trajectory of my kids' lives. We all know how stressful the college application process is, but Aditi turned that pressure into a journey of growth. Aditi is far more than a college counselor; she is a master strategist, a logistics expert, and--most importantly--a life coach who instills the habits of success. She possesses deep technical expertise and high emotional intelligence. What sets Aditi apart is her ability to hear what isn't being said. She identified my kids' hidden passions and calmed their anxieties, guiding them toward "hidden gem" schools that perfectly aligned with their personalities and their goals. She didn't just "place" my kids in colleges; she understood them. She saw beyond the GPA to their fears and their dreams, finding schools that were the perfect "cultural fit" while staying on top of the latest admissions trends. Her approach is holistic. She helps in building balanced, realistic lists of colleges, ensuring my kids are genuinely excited about their options. She also managed the "mountain of deadlines" (ACT, Leadership, Community Service, Volunteering, Essays, Common App, FAFSA, Scholarships, etc.--the list goes on) so parents don't have to hover. One thing that blew me away was her dedication and personal touch. She actually came to our home to help my kids set up their study spaces. By placing clocks with timers and hanging quarterly calendars with monthly goal trackers, she ensured they stayed focused. She optimized my children's study environments to eliminate distractions. Aditi knows exactly when to be strict and when to provide comfort. She was a bridge-builder between the universities, my kids, my wife, and me! She helped my kids find their "voice" in their applications and gave them the tools to thrive long after the acceptance letters arrived. I owe so much of that peace of mind to her. She kept my kids on track without me ever having to "nag." She doesn't just get kids into college; she prepares them for life. If you want a counselor who cares for your child's future as much as you do, look no further than Aditi

Best College Prep EVER! The education is phenomenal, all of the staff and teachers are excellent,…read morekind, and compassionate people. The students develop good life long friendships. I cannot speak highly enough about Bellarmine!

This is a nice campus and the school develops students socially and intellectually to prepare them…read morefor both college and adult life. Investing in your child where your boy becomes a man. You can't put a price on the future.

Here at the Santa Clara County office of education, supporting my coworkers and participating in…read morethe union rally because nobody wants layoffs

Working hard to help our county. Many who work here never leave. What does that say? :)read more