California College Consulting Boutique Services
We are a bespoke company composed of passionate educators and advisors who support teens to find fulfillment in their high school years. We take students on a journey of self-reflection and refinement to achieve alignment and a stand-out dossier for their college applications. Our creative Writing Advisors – from Disney and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program – use playful coaching to help students meet the requirements of successful admissions essays.
Students perform best when they are held accountable to a plan of action. Our structured approach prevents overwhelm and ensures that students work effectively and efficiently. Students always know where they are in the process. We provide a syllabus, calendar, online course and dedicate a team to each student – College Counselor, Writing Advisor, Administrative Assistant. We make certain that no opportunity to stand out goes missed. When it comes time to write essays, one of our creative writing advisors will propel you to capture your unique experiences in your own voice.
We don’t improvise. At Fahey Associates, we invest time in monitoring the academic world trends. Our Data Scientist tracks the ever-changing terrain of admissions, major trends, and graduation outcomes. With this research, we ensure our students eliminate risk, by leaving nothing to chance. We coach them to carefully strategize their positioning in preparation for the most recent admission expectations, the major pathway, and the building of a sound college list.
Over the last 14 years, our Founder, Felicia Fahey, has built her bespoke method by blending her own experience with the expertise of her network: colleagues and advisors from Stanford, the University of California, and UPenn-Jerome Fisher admissions teams, MIT alumni, Apple User Experience veterans, and creatives from the Storytelling Project and the University of Michigan. As a progressive educator, Felicia has shaped the core values of Fahey Associates. We lift all our students to their potential: high achieving students of all disciplines, athletes, artists, and students who are underserved or have faced medical and learning challenges. In our effort to make college more accessible, we donate our time to providing pro-bono support to underserved students and to educating the public sector including libraries, high school counseling departments, and learning enrichment programs.
We have perfected a structured, caring, rigorous process to elicit the essential qualities that bring students’ accomplishments and potential to life.
The High School Package provides a strategic development plan. It includes a student assessment and evaluation phase, followed by a 2-hour family meeting. In the meeting, we identify 3-4 goals to be carried out during the high school years. These goals put students on track to maximize the best admission results. The summary Report includes the following:
The College Application Package is a comprehensive positioning program that runs from the winter of the junior year through April of the senior year. It includes:
The program follows a syllabus that brings time efficiency and serenity to the student journey. Weekly meetings are planned ahead with a Creative Writing Advisor, and all key touchpoints are arranged between the student and College Counselor. The Counselor is always available to answer the student’s questions and meet as needed.
It is our mission to match students with colleges that are a social, academic and financial fit. We share our curated list of favorite schools that we have found offer a valuable, meaningful and safe college experience.
Resumes, portfolios, sample work, and video interviews are often required admission items, especially for students who are pursuing competitive, technical, or creative or technical majors. Additionally, providing an artistic supplement can improve a student’s admission chances. Our creative team helps each student tailor their dossier.
Summer is a great time for students to explore their leadership, interests and skills through coursework, internships, paid work, and volunteering. Our students pursue serious summer offerings and dive into “organic” self-designed projects.
Our caring, structured process inspires students to actualize their potential and develop distinctive qualities that will bring their applications to life.
We want you to maximize every opportunity to feel confident and flourish during your high school years. We consider this the best preparation for college admissions. Our services begin with our High School Package which consists of four steps: (a) You complete evaluative forms and prepare a dossier of materials for our assessment. (b) We review your materials. (c) We then gather for a two-hour appointment to address your questions and review our evaluation. (d) After the meeting, we present you with our concluding report and recommendations, including a detailed strategy for progressing through the high school years.
In their college applications, students indicate what majors they plan to explore. These major selections should align with the students' course selection and their resume of extracurricular activities. We prepare our students to develop their extracurriculars, investigate majors, and comprehend the relationship between their college study and the vast field of careers.
Colleges are looking for leadership. Our personalized process builds students’ confidence and prepares them to grow their leadership in their extracurriculars. Learning to network is critical to this step.
In the winter of the junior year, the college application process commences. At this time, Fahey Associates ensure that students are taking all preparatory steps in a timely manner.
The essay writing process begins in June after the junior year and comprises the most laborious work in the college application process. We will pair you with one of our writing advisors to compose compelling and authentic personal narratives that capture your voice. In August prior to the senior year, the college application process goes live. From August through November, Fahey Associates ensure that students’ applications are accurate and submitted in a timely manner.
Families new to the US may find the academic system daunting. As a globally fluent team, we work with students from all parts of the world, whether they are living in the United States or abroad. This year Fahey Associates is working with students from China, India, Ecuador, England, Spain, and Germany.
也许新移民家庭会发现美国的教育体系令人生畏。无论您身在美国国内还是国外,作为一支国际团队,我们都将协助您和来自世界各地的学生们深造。今年,Fahey Associates 斐弈协会就正一直在辅导来自中国、英国、西班牙、德国、印度和厄瓜多尔的学生们。
Las nuevas familias inmigrantes pueden encontrar el sistema académico de los Estados Unidos de una manera abrumadora. Como equipo con fluidez global, trabajamos con estudiantes de todas partes del mundo, ya sea que vivan en los Estados Unidos o en el extranjero. Este año, Fahey Associates está trabajando con estudiantes de China, India, Ecuador, Inglaterra, España y Alemania.
Neue Einwandererfamilien könnten das US-amerikanische akademische System als entmutigend empfinden. Als global fließendes Team arbeiten wir mit Studenten aus allen Teilen der Welt zusammen, unabhängig davon, ob sie in den USA oder im Ausland leben. In diesem Jahr arbeitet Fahey Associates mit Studenten aus China, Indien, Ecuador, England, Spanien und Deutschland zusammen.
Les familles Française fraichement installées aux US peuvent trouver le fonctionnement du monde universitaire américain un rien exotique. Nous sommes une équipe aguerrie à l'accompagnement de ces changement de repères.
Nous
travaillons avec des familles et des étudiants qui habitent près ou loin de chez eux. Cette année, Fahey Associates travaille avec des étudiants de Chine, d'Inde, d'Équateur, d'Angleterre et d'Allemagne. Inversement nous préparons
nos étudiants américains à postuler pour les écoles françaises (ex: Sciences Po cette année).
नए आप्रवासी परिवारों को अमेरिकी शैक्षणिक व्यवस्था कठिन लग सकती है। विश्व स्तर पर धाराप्रवाह टीम के रूप में, हम दुनिया के सभी हिस्सों के छात्रों के साथ काम करते हैं, चाहे वे संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका में रह रहे हों या विदेश में। इस साल फही एसोसिएट्स चीन, भारत, इक्वाडोर, इंग्लैंड, स्पेन और जर्मनी के छात्रों के साथ काम कर रहा है।
Kate Givens has extensive experience working with teenagers in academic and extracurricular settings to discover their unique interests and achieve their goals. Kate has a B.A. in English from The George Washington University and a Masters in English Education from The University of Virginia and spent over a decade working with high school students teaching professional skills such as correspondence, resume development, and public speaking. She has worked with hundreds of students to develop college plans and work on their application materials.
Shanley Jacobs is a dedicated educator and writer. She is inspired by students and devoted to their growth and success. She joined Fahey Associates after six years as the Administrative Manager for the Hume Center for Writing and Speaking at Stanford University. Before joining the Hume Center, she served as a Program Assistant at the University of San Francisco in the department of Art + Architecture, as well as the department of Modern and Classical Languages. She supported a range of students as a writing center mentor and tutor for three years at Virginia Commonwealth University.
In our many years of advising, Fahey Associates has observed that the majority of students are lacking the skills to elaborate a compelling narrative about their own person. With an average of 30 personal statements to write, students entering the application process must quickly learn how to tell a compelling story about themselves. To handle this challenge we've enrolled talented, creative writers to guide the delicate process of combining story-telling and self-reflective essay writing.
Danny received his BA in English from Loyola University New Orleans and an MA in the same field from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He first started his career as a journalist. His work is published at the National Association of Black Journalists where he has also interviewed and worked closely with White House Correspondents and journalists from CBS, NPR, and the Boston Globe. Danny left journalism to become an academic. Currently, he is an English instructor at Louisiana State University, where he teaches composition and literature.
Graham Barnhart earned a BA in English from Allegheny College and an MFA in Poetry from The Ohio State University. He is a US Army veteran, former Stanford University Wallace Stegner Fellow, and the author of The War Makes Everyone Lonely. His work has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and has been published in The Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, and the anthology The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall from W.W. Norton. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Allegheny College.
Kenneth earned a B.S. in Commerce (Finance & Marketing) from the University of Virginia, as well as an M.B.A. from the University of California Los Angeles where he worked with both admissions committees as either a student representative or alumni reader. He spent almost a decade working in the entertainment industry around film and TV Development for Walt Disney Company and a number of Oscar-winning producers. Kenneth now integrates the same storytelling and writing principles into his college counseling, writing instruction, and high school teaching over the past three years.
Susanna earned her BA in English and Anthropology from Columbia University. Her MFA in creative writing comes from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of two widely published, award-winning novels, Stiltsville and Sea Creatures with HarperCollins. She has placed numerous essays and stories in literary magazines such as Slate and Newsweek. She is the co-owner of the Madison Writers' Workshop where she coaches writers toward greater meaning, sense, and clarity.
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