Service
Education
What we do
We help families find the right schools for their children. We work with placements for individual families and with corporations who are relocating employees. We work to place gifted children, kids with special needs, or any child whose parents want to make sure he/she is in the right educational environment. Our expert education consultants are trained to look beyond the superficial aspects of a school—the pretty campus, the brand-new gym, or how popular the schools is—and instead strive to understand a school’s culture, atmosphere, values, and educational environment. Above all else, we are committed to the concept of “fit” so that your child can reach his/her full potential.
How we help
Our clients benefit from our educational expertise. Any number of circumstances may cause you to seek assistance: perhaps you are moving to a new neighborhood or are being relocated by your employer to another state or country. Perhaps you have a gifted child who needs a school that can offer accelerated classes or a child with special needs, such as autism, dyslexia or ADHD, who requires a school with one-on-one assistance. Perhaps your child is not doing as well as you would like in his/her current school or you have seen the quality of your local public-school decline. Whichever solution is best for your child, we can assist in navigating the placement process. Our consultants will find the educational solution that works for your children. There are a variety of placement solutions that are available to meet you and your child’s needs—from a single consultation to step-by-step management of the school placement application and school admissions process.
College admissions
Ensure Your Child is Presented in the Best Possible Light
Welcome to School Choice International College Admissions Consulting and Planning Service. Whether you are applying from within the U.S. or applying to U.S. colleges from abroad, we offer a range of services to fit your needs, including guidance on:
- College target list
- Course selection decisions for the junior and senior years of high school
- Which college admissions tests to take and when to take them
- College visits and summer opportunities during high school
- College applications
- College admissions essays
- College interview preparation
- Scholarships and financial aid
- Selecting the college, you will ultimately attend
Types of service
We propose consultation in areas such as high school course selection, the college search, developing a balanced list of colleges, interview preparation, practice interviews, preparing a college application resume, summer planning and programming, the Common Application, application essays, scholarships and financial aid, waitlist strategies, evaluating admission and scholarship offers, making the final selection, and planning for the transition from high school to college life.
Group moves
When a company is considering relocating its employees to a new location, information must be provided to serve a broad constituency and ensure that key staff accept the offer to move. Employees will be interested in a wide range of information such as public, private or preschools, special needs, or gifted education. Our group moves services provides cost-effective information for a variety of employees’ educational needs for children from pre K – 12. This comprehensive report gives both a broad overview of educational systems and school options and also digs down into the details of individual schools, the difficulty of admission, and waitlist processes.
Challenge
Group Move of Multinational Employees
The country you are moving to may present many schooling options, but there are significant issues that affect school placement. It is very important for relocating employees to understand the factors that affect their school choices and to plan well in advance for these school placements:
- Debentures and other priority admission categories
- Governmental interference in schools—even international
- Huge influx of expats
- Many different school types
- Proliferation of new schools with no track record
- Traffic and housing location vs. school location
Solution
To research the schooling market in your destination country, we perform the required research into public/state, private and for-profit education. The type, location, and viability of schools may be strongly affected by the exponential growth of the city and the types of expats moving into it. Schools may open at a rapid rate which makes assessing quality difficult even with advertised accreditations. Established international schools have long waitlists and priority categories. The demand for international schools is fueled not only by the influx of expats, but also by wealthy locals. Using research tools such as interviews and on-the-ground consultants, we can map reasonable options and backups and manage expectations in the context of this environment.
Benchmarking
Employers must make informed decisions on how to best create or amend their education mobility policies. What should the company pay for? It is critical to have accurate, local data for HR to decide what subsidies will be given to expatriates. Our custom research provides HR with the necessary data to make policy on whether families go to local, non-fee charging schools or whether the company should subsidize private preschools or K-12 education. Our expertise includes a comparative analysis of international curricula to determine the best options for repatriation or localization.
Benchmarking
Employers must make informed decisions on how to best create or amend their education mobility policies. What should the company pay for? It is critical to have accurate, local data for HR to decide what subsidies will be given to expatriates. Our custom research provides HR with the necessary data to make policy on whether families go to local, non-fee charging schools or whether the company should subsidize private preschools or K-12 education. Our expertise includes a comparative analysis of international curricula to determine the best options for repatriation or localization.
Subsidy Policies
An international company may relocate employees from various countries into a capital in Europe. How can the HR department decide if children of localized staff should be put in public and free schools, or whether they should pay for private international schools? The local European system may present a very high level of academic rigor to those students who can master the specific local language and be successful in the strict tracking or streaming system:
- university vs. vocational
- Local school system may be very structured and there may be strict, early tracking of students
- Language of school instruction (not English, for example)
- Is there a best age for children to enter public system and be successful?
How we deal with it
The company may be trying to determine whether the English-speaking staff they are permanently relocating to Europe should be provided with permanent private international schooling for their children. A student must enter this system at an early to middle secondary school grade in order to be successful in testing and placement. There is language support for non-native language speakers, but in order to get on a university track, the student must quickly show academic and linguistic adeptness. For students who are transitioning to the local European public system in the upper secondary level, successful outcomes are less likely. Our recommendations may include: permanent private (English) school placement for students after age 12, local language tutoring for all children and spouses, and awareness needed for special needs students and the fact that the age cut-off of 12 might not be appropriate for those students.
- university vs. vocational
- Local school system may be very structured and there may be strict, early tracking of students
- Language of school instruction (not English, for example)
- Is there a best age for children to enter public system and be successful?
Location Profiles
With this service, we assist companies who are opening a new office, recruiting an employee, or deciding if employees can transition to local, state, or public schools. These profiles are tailored to address the specific needs of an organization or family. Lower cost/high quality alternatives can include assessment of local public school options, special program availability, or other factors that might impact school selection that is unique to that location.
Addressing a Unique Schooling
We may deal with a client in a unique demographic, geographic environment, and school system; it may be different from other cities in the way admissions and priorities in public schools are set. How can domestically relocating employees make informed decisions about schooling in their new city?
- Limit the number of boundary-assigned quality public schools
- Charters and magnet schools have strict deadlines and admissions criteria
- Relocating families do not usually move in time to establish residence in order to apply
- Private schools have testing and application deadlines
How we deal with it
Families considering city school systems find a complex system of diverse levels of academic quality in the schools and local area regulations and restrictions such as admissions deadlines. Navigating this effectively means that the research needed to examine each of the public-school options, i.e. charter, magnet, traditional, virtual, etc. needs to be completed quickly. In some cities, there may be a Choice Program that allows its residents to submit their preferred schools outside of their local area, but the admission and eligibility requirements can leave uncertainty about enrollment in a suitable school. Our service includes research about application deadlines, mandated assessments, public school diploma options, curriculum choices, and maps and samples of public boundary-driven and schools with special programs. Information for special needs, gifted, and preschool students is included. Private school information includes the application process, barriers to entry, selectivity of admissions, in addition to the map of selected schools. To further assist the families in the group, move, we also give families tips on transferring schools and charts to easily compare the possible curricula for students.
Children and students
Parents of children diagnosed with learning differences or those with special physical needs may want to consider an alternative school for their child if their local school is not equipped to meet those needs or if their child is not thriving in school. Parents who feel that their current school placement is not optimal for their child should ask themselves the following questions:
- Is the local school equipped to meet my child’s special needs and is it doing all it can to help my child succeed academically, socially, and emotionally?
- What other options may be available to better address my child’s unique issues?
- What provisions are made and what support is given for children with special education needs?
- What is the process for getting my child identified as being eligible for special education?
- Are children with special needs catered for within the mainstream education or are schools with special resources the best choice for them?
- Should I consider only private or only public schools to best address my child’s special needs?
Finding suitable programs for educating children with special needs is often not easy as it may seem. We assign a qualified special education expert to your family to assist you in making informed decisions about school placement and to help advocate for your child. The search for schools and supplemental support for children with special needs can be daunting, but our experienced experts make all the difference.