Overview: CollegeAdvisor.com Client Success Stories
Every year, our team here at CollegeAdvisor works with hundreds of students, providing personalized guidance and support as they apply to college. In our Client Success Stories, we highlight some of our amazing students to show you how they made their college dreams a reality. Through these interviews, we explore why they chose CollegeAdvisor and how their advising experience helped them succeed.
CollegeAdvisor is proud to work with a wide range of students from many different backgrounds. We’re even prouder of their achievements, and this series is our way of celebrating and sharing their stories.
We hope reading these interviews will encourage you in your own admissions journey, wherever you are in the process. In this edition of our Client Success Stories, we’ll be getting to know Jamie Buck, a Florida native who is excited to be attending her dream school in the fall.
Meet Jamie
Jamie is a curious and motivated student who enjoys learning and trying new experiences. She grew up attending small Christian schools, where she stayed involved and took on leadership roles both in the classroom and in extracurriculars like competitive dance.
English has long been one of her favorite subjects. “I love getting to analyze and take a story apart as much as I can,” she told us. “And if there’s an argument there that I can find, I want to be able to find it, support it, and argue it.”
Jamie’s interest in college admissions — and her top-choice school — started early. “By about the end of sophomore year, I decided that UF [University of Florida] was my dream school.” Still, as she began the college process herself, she found she had plenty of questions about how to approach it.
How did Jamie feel going into the college admissions process?
Jamie has been thinking ahead to senior fall and applying to college for years. “I’d always been really interested in the college admissions process as a whole,” she said. “I even did an AP Seminar paper on it in sophomore year …. It was sort of to cope with the fact that I was nervous about it. I didn’t know how that would look and what I wanted my college experience to look like.”
By the time senior year rolled around, Jamie was on track to apply to UF, but still feeling anxious about the whole process. She recounted talking to one of her friends, saying, “I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing… I don’t even know how to go about writing essays. Do I have to write an essay? What does that look like?” Jamie had lots of questions and not a lot of answers. Then her friend stepped in.
“[My friend] was like, ‘Hey, I don’t know if you’ve heard of CollegeAdvisor.’ And I was like, ‘No. What’s that?’ And so she’s telling me, ‘I have this advisor that helps me in the whole college admissions process.’” As it turned out, Jamie’s friend had been working with CollegeAdvisor since her sophomore year.
With her first college deadlines still months away. Jamie asked her friend, “‘Do you think it’s too early?’” to which her friend replied, “‘No, I think you should go for it.’”
Within a day, Jamie had scheduled an introductory call with CollegeAdvisor. “We got on that first call, and I just fell in love with the program,” she said. “I started soon after that.”
Getting Started with CollegeAdvisor
For many students, working with an advisor is the first time they really take a close look at their college applications. Jamie came in a step ahead.
“We had a day at school over the summer, in early June, where we were there with our guidance counselor and we just did our whole Common App,” Jamie said. “So the application was, for the most part, done.”
Thanks to her counselor’s initiative, Jamie was able to bring a draft of her Common App to her advisors. What she really needed guidance on was fine-tuning her application. “Because it was still before school started, we hit the ground running. We started immediately [thinking of] what we wanted that narrative to look like and we started meeting right away… That was great, to be able to have that time off school to really connect with [my advisors].”
How Jamie’s Advisors Helped Her Find Success
Jamie had two advisors on her team. “I had Bria Bourgeois. She’s amazing, love her. She was my main advisor. And Theos Rizos was my AO [Admissions Officer] who was a former [University of] Florida admissions officer,” she said.
While all CollegeAdvisor clients get one-on-one time with an admissions expert, some also work with former admissions officers, or AOs. These AOs draw on their experience working in college admissions to advise students in crafting strong, compelling applications. Moreover, students like Jamie who already know where they want to go can get exactly the insights they need.
Jamie was thrilled to have Theos help with her UF application. “Because we had that connection of UF, he was just awesome in being able to tell me, ‘So, here’s the things that they look for. Here’s what you need to look for. Here are the things that you need to make apparent and stand out in your application.’”
Before turning to essays, Jamie and her advisors focused first on her overall application. “A lot of it at the beginning was my actual Common App,” she said. “From there [meetings were] like, … ‘Hey, let’s review. Do you mind reviewing my extracurriculars with me, if there’s anything that you think that I should change, or just anything that needs to be shifted?’ And from there, we also talked about where I wanted to apply [and] what I was thinking major-wise.”
As summer wound down, they needed to pivot to specific applications, as well as adjust meetings as Jamie’s schedule picked up. “About every week or every other week we would meet that summer. And then as school started, we met probably every two to three weeks — probably around every two weeks, because that was when we started supplementals.”
Crafting Her Personal Statement
Over their first few meetings, Jamie and her advisors discussed what she wanted to say in her personal statement. As you might have guessed, Jamie came in ready with ideas. “[I gave them] the narrative that I’d been thinking of… I’d had my idea [of] what I wanted to portray on the page and the overarching metaphor that I ended up using. I’d been thinking about that since early junior year.” From there, Jamie was well-prepared to start writing.
“My personal statement essay writing process was not super painful — more of a painless process,” Jamie told us. “It might have been because I’d been thinking of it for a while, and because I love writing.”
Still, translating those ideas to the page was ultimately a team effort between Jamie and her advisor Bria. “The part that probably took more energy and input from both of us was the revision process,” Jamie explained. “Bria had lots of different suggestions like, ‘I think that this is something you’re trying to convey, but it’s getting a little bit hazy. So let’s see if we can talk about it in a different way or a little bit more clearly.’ Or, ‘I like this metaphor here but keep extending it,’ or ‘don’t extend it as much.’ That kind of thing.”
The personal statement was only the beginning, however, as Jamie had to write and edit supplemental essays for several other colleges. On top of those, she had to think about scholarships and funding opportunities. Thankfully, she had CollegeAdvisor to help with those, too.
How Jamie Refined Her Essays and Found Scholarships
Each CollegeAdvisor admissions expert is great at what they do, but they’re also backed up by our specialty teams. Working with CollegeAdvisor means having access to a number of teams covering things like essays, scholarships, and financial aid. Advisors can connect them to students like Jamie who they feel would benefit from focused assistance in a certain area.
“Bri reviewed all of my essays,” Jamie said, “but I remember my personal statement and my UF supplemental we sent to the Essay Review Team. Their feedback was awesome, just super, super invaluable.” Our Essay Review Team gives feedback on students’ writing on a short turnaround. They’re especially helpful for getting a fresh set of eyes on an essay to check for cohesiveness and impact.
Jamie worked with another team, as well. “We also [used] the scholarship team. They actually made two lists for me,” she said. CollegeAdvisor’s scholarship team creates a custom list of scholarships for students based on a survey. Jamie explained, “We had this pretty detailed survey of the things that I’m interested in, the types of scholarships that would make sense for me specifically. … I’m majoring in business management. So I saw a couple of [scholarships for] women in business, which I thought was really interesting.”
After answering questions about her academic interests, financial needs, and scholarship priorities, Jamie sent off the survey. “Within a couple of weeks, I had a list of 16 or 18 [scholarships], which was crazy. And then I got in my second list, I think I had 12 or 15,” she said.
What did Jamie find most challenging about her college applications?
While Jamie clearly loves writing, she found that translating who she is onto the page was one of the most challenging parts of the application process. “The hardest part,” she said, “was having the narrative here, but translating it not only in the 600 words [of the personal statement], but also in the 25 words of a little honor statement or an extracurricular headline or description.”
For many students, condensing their personal narratives into a tiny space is a significant hurdle. Lucky for Jamie, she had her advisor Bria to guide her in writing short but effective statements.
“That was something that Bria really helped a lot with,” Jamie told us. “Like picking effective adjectives within those descriptions or the order that [words] were in. That kind of thing helps show colleges my priorities and things that I value. She was definitely a big part of that.”
In fact, Bria helped Jamie to infuse her words with a bit more of her personality too. “I volunteer at my dance studio helping to teach the little kids’ classes,” Jamie explained. “I just remember her saying, ‘That’s so wholesome. … That’s so you.’ [I was glad] having her support in that and knowing it was okay to be a more sweet and vulnerable person in something as small as a description of an extracurricular.”
What was Jamie’s favorite part about working with CollegeAdvisor?
We love to know about students’ favorite part of the advising process. Jamie’s answer? “I loved getting to connect with both of my advisors on that personal level.”
“[Bria and I] really connected and clicked in [regards to] the type of people that we are,” she said. “She had such great professionalism, but also was a real person at the same time. … I love being able to not only joke around with her and be proud of ourselves for something good that we did, but to get her amazing feedback and experience [her] professionalism was really great too.”
Advising sessions were, for Jamie, places where she could be seen as herself while also getting the help she needed. She went on to say this about Bria, “Every piece of feedback that you give, I trust that and I’m grateful for that. But also I’m grateful for you as a person and just the type of relationship that we have… We can have fun and joke around, but also fix an essay that needs fixing at the same time.”
Jamie’s AO Theos was also a huge supporter — even offline. “I remember I was on a [UF campus] tour a couple weeks after one of our meetings, and he was like, ‘Come visit me in the engineering building if you want. Come say hi!’”
Turning Guidance into Confidence
As for any student, the admissions process was long and involved. But for Jamie, she had two cheerleaders with her the whole way. “I applied to 13 schools, and I had at least one supplemental for all of them. So it was a lot of writing and that was definitely a draining process and a long process,” she told us.
“But [they said], ‘If you need me to read anything, I got you. We’re gonna get through this. We’ll have these two done by this date, but if not, that’s okay. We can revise something else or meet another time.’ … Having their support was really great.”
Jamie’s Admissions Results and the Road Ahead
Ultimately, Jamie applied to over a dozen schools, including UCLA, NYU, Emory, University of Georgia, Florida State University, and of course UF. For all but her reach schools — UCLA, NYU, and Emory — she applied early action. How did she do?
“I remember the first school that I got into was Auburn,” Jamie recalled. “They also were the first school that I got a scholarship from, and they gave me a very generous scholarship. So that was just more of a personal win.”
Decisions continued to roll in. Jamie was accepted to the University of Georgia and FSU, and waitlisted at NYU and Emory. “Which I’m still gonna take as a win,” she added.
One of the biggest shocks? Her acceptance to UCLA. “That was a really great accomplishment because the UCs had us write four essays that were 350 words each. So I remember that being a long process.”
Getting Into the University of Florida
Jamie was thrilled to get admitted to her dream school, the University of Florida. We asked her what she’s most looking forward to. “I love my academics for sure. … I’m so excited to learn there [and] go to a school that prioritizes academics like I do,” she said. “But it’s such an everything school, really. Yes, academics are crazy and midterms will be insane, but also we’re gonna have fun at this huge football game. And maybe our sorority’s gonna do this, or we’re gonna have this club go on this fun trip or do this.”
For Jamie, it feels like a dream come true. “Junior year I toured [UF] for the first time, and I just fell in love with it. … It felt like I had a crush on someone. Every time I thought about it, I would smile… I [felt] like this is the place that I’m supposed to be and I’m gonna do everything in my power to make that happen.” And that’s exactly what she did.
Jamie’s Advice for Future Applicants
Now that she’s finished the admissions process and gotten into her dream school, Jamie can breathe. Writing and revising essays was a marathon, but because she’d started thinking about them early, she’d been prepared. So, if you want a head start on your own essays, take Jamie’s advice:
“Try and discover the narrative in the story that you wanna tell, as early as you can,” she said. “It’ll never hurt you to already be thinking about what you want colleges to know about you as early as you can. … Knowing the story that you need to tell and just being confident in that, just sitting down, trusting yourself and just writing [is important]. Then even if it isn’t great, you can go and revise it after.”
We asked her if, looking back, she had any overall advice she would give future applicants like herself. Here’s what she had to say:
“Understand that right now it’s hard, and it might be stressful — and maybe even annoying — to have to write all those essays, but remember that there’s still beauty in the struggle and that you can still keep pushing through in order to reach those end goals.”
In short, Jamie said, “[Remember] to not only appreciate where you are, but keep looking forward to where you want to go.”
Why CollegeAdvisor?
Jamie, Bria, and Theos worked on scores of essays and applications in coordination with multiple other teams. It wasn’t easy, but with her advisors on her side, Jamie felt empowered to ace the admissions process.
“I’ve been so grateful to have the resources that I have with CollegeAdvisor,” she told us. “Not only just someone telling me, ‘Okay, so this is how you write this essay,’ … [but also] having that encouragement of someone who knows what they’re doing, telling me, ‘You can do it too. You’ve got it. You’re almost there.’”
If you’re getting ready to apply for college, you don’t have to do it alone. Hundreds of students work with CollegeAdvisor’s experts every year at every stage of the process, and our track record of positive feedback and proven results speaks for itself. In addition to individual advising, we also have a wealth of free online resources about essays, recommendation letters, and more.
This article was written by Gina Goosby. Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.
