Have a specific question about your financial aid situation? Not sure how a particular school evaluates need or awards merit? Need help understanding your Student Aid Index or estimating your real net price? Ask the Dean gives you direct access to 20 years of institutional knowledge, applied to your family’s specific situation. Come with your questions and leave knowing exactly what to do next.

This service does not include detailed tax-return analysis, financial modeling, school-by-school calculations, or extensive document review. This is better served in the Financial Strategy Review.

$250 for a 60-min session

An individualized review for families who want to understand how their income, assets, financial circumstances, or upcoming financial decisions may affect college financial aid and pricing.

Depending on your situation, we may review income, assets, home equity, business ownership, real estate, retirement contributions, capital gains, equity events, or other significant financial changes.

We’ll meet to discuss how the federal and institutional aid formulas are likely to treat your financial picture, what may materially affect your aid eligibility, and what you need to plan around.

You’ll receive written findings and next steps, including any timing considerations and questions to bring to your CPA, financial advisor, attorney, or other professional when appropriate.

Starting at $750

Pricing varies based on financial complexity, document review, and the number of scenarios requiring analysis.

You’ve built a list, on your own or with your college counselor, and you want to know what those schools will actually cost your family. In a Focused Fit Review, I evaluate each school based on your financial information and budget: what each is likely to cost you, and whether your student is competitive for merit there. We then sit down together to walk through what I found, so you leave with a clear financial picture of the list you already have.

The schools you submit at intake set your tier, so send your complete list when you’re ready. If you add schools later, we move to the tier that matches your new total, and you pay only the difference.

This is a financial read on a list that already exists. If you decide you’d rather have me build or reshape the list itself, that’s the College Fit Build, and everything you’ve paid in Focused Fit Review fees credits in full toward it.

Priced by the size of your list:

Up to 10 schools - $1,200   ·   11 to 20 schools - $1,800   ·   21 to 30 schools - $2,400

This is where we build the list together. After meeting with you and your student, I create a college list that fits on every level: academically, socially, and financially. I evaluate each school with an enrollment lens - how they will view your student, how they allocate need and merit aid, and whether the numbers make sense for your family.

The work happens in phases. We build your initial list together in the spring or early summer of the junior year, you take it to your campus visits, and we reconvene to revise it based on what you saw, adding schools, cutting others, and reshaping until the list holds together. Then we finalize. If you are working with a college counselor, I can also confer with them to gain their insights, if you choose.

I build the list. Your applications, essays, and admissions strategy stay with your counselor.

$3,000

The FAFSA and CSS Profile are where a lot of families quietly cost themselves money, usually on the questions no one explains: home equity, business or self-employment income, and how to report a divorced or separated parent. In this session, we complete your FAFSA and CSS Profile together, the right way, and I flag the entries that matter most before you submit.

$550

You’ve received your financial aid offers and something doesn’t look right, or you’re not sure whether it’s a good deal. I’ll review your aid letters and show you what each school is really offering, what they’re holding back, and where you have room to negotiate.

If there’s a case for an appeal, I’ll help you build it. I know what enrollment offices respond to and what they don’t, because I used to be the one reading the appeals. This includes a detailed review of all your offers, an appeal strategy and letter preparation, and a follow-up call after outcomes are determined.

$1,500

Senior year moves fast, and most of the decisions that determine what you actually pay get made long before an award letter arrives. Which schools went on the list. Which application round your student chose. How your assets were reported. By spring there is very little left to change.

Senior Year Financial Strategy families work with me throughout the year. We start with your list and where your student is positioned for need and merit. We work through the financial implications of Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision, and build a timeline around your actual deadlines. I prepare your FAFSA and CSS Profile with you. When offers arrive, I review and compare them, and build the appeal where there is a case for one. We finish with the final affordability decision once all offers are determined.

Throughout, I run scenario modeling so you can see how a financial decision would affect your Student Aid Index before anything is filed.

If your family works with a college counselor, you may choose to have me coordinate with them directly. Your applications, essays, and admissions strategy stay with them. My work is the money side. If you are managing the process on your own, I also track deadlines and application rounds.

I take six families per cycle.

$6,500

Paid in three installments: $2,500 at signing, $2,000 on October 1, and $2,000 on December 1.