Susie Watts, College Planner and Educational Consultant
Susie Watts is an educational consultant and college planner who believes that there is a school for every student who wants to learn and succeed. College Direction's goal is to help your teenager find a college that is a good match. Susie also provides college assistance with applications and essays and great college planning throughout the college admissions process.
Susie Watts is the founder of College Direction, based inDenver, Colorado. She has been in the field of education all of her adult life as a teacher, writer, test prep coach, and educational consultant.. Susie has an undergraduate degree in education and graduate work in counseling. She has also earned a certificate in college planning. Susie has many years of college counseling and a real passion for working with high school students as they prepare for college.
Susie talks openly with her students and gains their trust and confidence. She provides students with college assistance throughout their college planning.This takes them from the beginning of their college search through their final applications. Susie offers parents and students objective, professional college counseling. She respects the important role of high school counselors. However, she knows they often have too many students and other responsibilities to provide a lot of help with college planning, selecting colleges and collegeapplications.
Susie visits colleges and universities regularly. She knows about their programs and what makes one school different from another..As a college planner and educational consultant, she participates in national and state conferences. She attends college fairs and seminars to continue her professional training. She is also the technical editor of a 2005 book for the SAT.
Professional Memberships
Susie Watts is a member of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the Higher Education Consultants Association (HECA), the Colorado Council for High School and College Relations (CCHS/CR), Rocky Mountain Association for College Admission Counseling (RMACAC), and College Consultants of Colorado.
"Jack did not know where to begin his college search until he started working with you. Naviance was so much like other online college admission services and the schools it came up with just didn't seem like a good fit for him. Helping Jack organize his applications and essays and meet deadlines was what we needed a college planner to do. Many thanks for your valuable college assistance."
Just because you are a home schooled student doesn’t mean that you can’t get into the college of your choice. The prejudice against home schooling is changing rapidly as more parents choose to home school their children for a variety of reasons. Advocates of home schooling say that it has several advantages to traditional classroom settings, such as the ability to individualize the learning curriculum and provide immediate, personalized schoolwork help. Colleges are quickly realizing that some of the brightest young minds today have been home schooled and are looking for ways to compare them against more traditionally educated students.
Because grading is very different for home schooled students, college administrators are looking for other tools to help compare applicants. An SAT diagnostic test is one way to help provide a form of comparison -- a standardized test such as this can help show admissions boards if a student has completed the rigorous academic training and possesses the critical thinking skills needed to excel at their university. Many tutoring franchises can help home schooled students prepare for such standardized tests. Although their parents or other home schooling experts can provide them with a quality education, experts in how standardized tests work are best suited to prepare students to succeed and get the highest scores possible.
College admissions officers are also looking at other, more subjective ways to compare home schooled students to their more traditionally schooled counterparts. In many cases, the college admission essay is a valuable tool in making admissions decisions. The admission essay helps college administrators go beyond grades and test scores and understand what makes a student tick. In many cases, college admissions advisors want to know more about a student’s potential to become a successful student and graduate than about past achievements.
Home schooled students sometimes shy away from talking about their educational background because they are concerned it will reflect poorly on them. However, it is a unique aspect of their lives, and exactly the type of thing they should be writing about in their essay. Unique, intriguing content is what will grab the attention of an admissions counselor and make their essay stand out from the pack. Many services can provide admission essay help to give home schooled students the guidance to best use their unique schooling experience to their advantage.
Author: Sarah Michaels
College Planning: What Are the Basics?
Earning a college degree is one of the best tools available for increasing earning power over your lifetime. While obtaining this degree from either a community college or traditional four year university is no easy task, the experience can be rewarding in many ways.
To insure you choose the right school and then make the most of your college experience, it is vital to begin college planning as early as possible. Proper college planning can mean the difference between a cherished chapter in your life and a boondoggle that runs your career aspirations off track.
The first and most important college planning you must do is deciding how to pay for your education. College tuition rises every year, and a solid financial plan must be in place prior to applying to any colleges.
If you are not lucky enough to have a college fund already, there are still a number of ways to plan for the expense of college. There are a large number of scholarships and grants available and you should apply for as many of these opportunities as you are eligible. Financial aid is also available for the needy, but should be used as a last resort to avoiding graduating with a huge debt that will need to be repaid.
Prudent college planning also requires that the diligent potential enrollee find the right school for them. Many High School seniors graduate already knowing what their career aspirations entail and can plan for this by selecting a school that has an excellent reputation in that field.
For those that are unsure of their intended major, it is important to find a school that has a solid general academic curriculum to allow you to fully explore many possibilities. Once you find the right major, you begin your learning in that area.
Though most go off to college after high school to learn and begin the journey towards a degree, it is no secret that a large part of the draw is the college experience. College planning should take into account your desired social life while attending. Many universities have reputations as “party schools” which can be a plus or a minus, depending on the individual student.
Many potential college enrollees find it helpful to plan ahead for how they will handle dorm life and being away from home for the first time. This type of college planning should consider distance from home and whether or not you will take on a job while attending school.
