Emily and Gail: It’s a big maze

by collegebenestg | Jul 23, 2025

Key Takeaways

CBRG personalizes the college planning process. From matching students to best-fit schools to coaching them through interviews and test prep, Emily received tailored support every step of the way.
Strategic testing guidance can improve results. CBRG helped Emily discover she performed far better on the ACT than the SAT—insight that significantly impacted her admissions prospects.
Focusing on fit and four-year graduation reduces costs and increases success. With CBRG’s help, Emily built a realistic college list and a strategy to graduate on time, saving time and money.

Video Transcript

I’m Emily. I’m a senior, and I’m getting ready to go to college in fall 2011.

It’s so vastly different than when I applied. It’s just so much more technical—there’s so much more to it than there was 25–30 years ago when I went to college. I think I applied to two colleges, decided on one, and that was the end of it.

This is very different now. They’re encouraged to apply to so many, and it’s more competitive. More students are probably going to college than did years ago, and the colleges—their standards are higher. It’s kind of a big maze to get yourself through.

There’s a lot involved in the process in terms of applications, interviews, and portfolios—many things that we didn’t even know existed.

Coaching

The coaching at CBRG was so helpful for me. They gave me all these sheets telling me all about interviews with colleges. They gave me interview questions. They did mock interviews with me so I would be comfortable going to the schools and actually speaking to the admissions officers. That was so helpful.

They showed me all the different ways that I can take tests—the SAT, the ACT. They gave me a program that showed me colleges that would match me just by description—if I wanted a big school or a small school, in the suburbs or a city. They showed me lists and pages of schools that I could go to and then narrowed it down depending on my major. That was extremely helpful for me.

ACT or SAT

One of the things that CBRG suggested for me was to take both the ACT and the SAT. They wanted to see which one I performed better on.

Before I came here, I was just like, “I’m just going to take the SAT a few times and I’ll be done with it.” But when they showed me that some kids perform better on one than the other, I thought, “Maybe I should try that. Maybe I’ll do better on the ACT than the SAT.”

Oh my gosh—it definitely helped me so much and changed my whole college perspective. I did so much better on the ACT than I would have on the SAT, and I never would have figured that out without coming here.

Finding a Good Fit

One of the things they helped us with a lot was to find which schools were a good fit for her.

Most people know the top-name schools, but there are so many other schools out there that we had no idea existed. And CBRG reassured us—there’s a school for everybody.

Before I came to CBRG, I was looking at five schools. After coming here, my list went up to 23. In the past six months or so, I’ve cut that down to nine final schools.

Another thing that they told us—which I thought was wonderful—was: when you sit down, Emily, and actually apply to the schools, every one of the schools that you apply to should be a school that you’d be really comfortable in. You shouldn’t just have “reach” schools and “safety” schools.

Every school that you actually apply to should be a school where you can say, “I would be really happy to go there. I’d be a good fit.”

And I think they helped us realize that—to be a little more selective when we were looking, so that we were doing some of the selecting, not just the schools selecting Emily.

Importance of 4 Years

It’s a huge investment. One of the things that Steve and David at CBRG really led us to understand was how important it is to get a student through in four years.

It’s vital to get them into the school, let them have a good time certainly, but to come out in four years with a degree—so that they are prepared to work in the world.

When we heard the statistics on how many students take six years or more to graduate—again, for parents, that’s paying for two more years of college.

My husband in particular was quite interested in that. Dad was like, “Oh yeah, we like these guys—because they’re going to help us get you a degree in four years and not take six years to do that.”

I’m going to have to choose a college. And they’re going to help me choose a college that I will get through in four years, that I will love, that I will stick with—and help me get a great job when I’m done. And that’s what we want.

Hi David, this is Emily. I was just calling to say—I got my ACT scores in today. I got a 30, and I got in the 98th percentile for science—when before I was only in the 60-or-so percentile. Thank you, and I will talk to you soon. We have our next meeting. Thank you again. Bye.

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