Philosophy

The philosophy of School Match 4U, is to find the right match for each person. We believe “The BEST school is the one that brings out the BEST in your child.” That school may not be the best for your child’s best friend, neighbor, cousin or your co-worker’s child.

Parents and students frequently make the mistake of using:

• Name recognition,
• SAT scores,
• Rankings,
• Prestige,
• Facilities, and
• The perspective of friends and others

to conclude that school A is better than school B. These are all flawed metrics and will not tell you which school is best for your child.

A shoe can be made by a top designer with the best material and carry the best name, but if you try the shoe on and it doesn’t fit, that pair of shoes is not for you. The school matching process is like finding the pair of shoes that comfortably fit your child’s feet.

Things like rankings, acceptance rates, test scores, and prestige can be a factor when selecting a college but we vehemently do not believe that these factors are more important than “fit” and “match”.

If a family believes that rankings, acceptance rates, test scores, prestige, or the opinions of others are more important than “match” and “fit” then our advice is that you do not hire our firm. There are other counseling groups that emphasize status over match. A lot of the time they will put the word “Ivy” right in their name. If that is your worldview you are likely to be frustrated by us and we are likely to be deflated as well because we believe in our core the concept of finding the school is analogous to finding the right pair of shoes in the sense that “fit trumps fame”.

We are not anti-prestige or anti-selective schools. We have kids at virtually all of the most selective schools in the country, but we recommended those schools because they were the right “fit” for that child, even though they could be a terrible fit for that child’s sibling.

We think it is important when considering whether to hire us, who we are NOT a good match for, as well as those who we are a good match for. It is very important that parents accept our core belief of “fit over fame”. If you have any questions about our counseling worldview, please reach out to us to discuss this further.

The School Match 4U team passionately believes in great education and the power of schools to shape lives. The decision that you make about which school your child will attend is one of the most significant decisions a family can make, for the following reasons:

• Students spend more waking hours at school from Mon-Fri than they do at home.
• As kids get older, their peer group has increased influence on their behavior, and kids usually develop their closest friends from their school peers. For more on this subject, I encourage you to read Judith Rich Harris’s book, The Nurture Assumption.
• When you select a school, you are selecting a peer group for your child. As John Kuebler said, “Show me your friends, and I will show you your future.”
• Schools are not only about the academic growth of a child, but about their emotional, social, athletic and artistic growth, as well.
• Schools are powerful conveyors of values.
• School teachers and peers provide powerful mentors that shape personality and character for life.
• Schools either work in partnership with a parent’s vision for their child, or they work to erode parents’ years of work at providing a foundation and value set for their child.
• With a struggling economy and increased global competition, giving your child a leg up by giving them the best education possible has never been more paramount.