When you’re ready, message Mark and let him know you would like a face-to-face interview. If you are interested in working with another School Match 4U college coach, we can arrange to have them join Mark on this initial call. Most of the time, you will receive a response within 24 hours, so a complimentary 30-minute video or in-person meeting can be set up.
You should feel comfortable with the School Match 4U team’s personality, people skills, work ethic, and expertise. It is very important for a good chemistry to exist between an educational consultant, the parents, and the child.
You should also be completely clear about what School Match 4U does for your child. Zoom video is recommended for this initial session because a lot of communication is nonverbal, and we believe it helps each party get a sense of each other, but we will defer to you if you prefer a phone call for this initial call.
During the session, School Match 4U will:
- Listen attentively to your needs;
- Answer your questions about School Match 4U services;
- Elaborate on what is included in the Single Session, Bronze, Silver, and Gold Packages.
After the 30 minutes have passed, the family can end the session, commit to a particular package, choose to use our Single Session option and pay an hourly fee, or we can agree that we are not a match for each other. Should we agree that we are not a match for each other, you will find that we will be professional and wish you nothing but the best for your child’s future plans.
The earlier the School Match 4U process begins, the more options your child will have. Once you select a package and a payment option, the team will go to work right away as passionate advocates for your child. We have learned that the best time to start the process really varies from one student to another. There are times when the 30-minute session extends to 45 minutes, so we encourage you to book a 30-minute session but budget for 45 minutes. You can book by using calendly.com/mstucker.
The one thing we ask is that you review all of the service packages that we offer before this session. Reviewing all of our services allows you to come into the call very knowledgeable about the four different options we have for each family.
In this 30-minute consultation, you will learn what services we offer and how we build your child’s college list. This session is a chance to learn more about our services and how they would help your child. If two parents/guardians are involved in the decision to hire us, then you should select a time for this session when both parents are present. We also strongly recommend that your student be present so he/she can gauge whether he/she is comfortable with his/her School Match 4U college coach. Having said that, there are times when this may not make sense.
Complimentary sessions are NOT a time to just pick your School Match 4U college counselor’s mind to get 30 minutes of free consultation if you are not interested in considering hiring us for our services. If you are primarily interested in asking us questions to get our feedback on a college admissions–related topic, then you should schedule a single session.
We hesitate to include this caveat, and this language is only included because occasionally we have had someone who is not considering hiring us, but they see this session as a chance to get free high-quality information. We provide over 300 hours of free college content at https://yourcollegeboundkid.com/ that should help families looking for free information. We understand that the chemistry has to feel right, and you are under no obligation to hire us, but we ask for a good-faith understanding that the main purpose of the session is to discern if we are a match for your family to serve as your college coaches.
You can schedule 60-minute sessions that would fall outside the scope of the complimentary 30-minute sessions to ask any question on any college-related topic. We are not saying that you cannot ask a single college-related question other than questions about our service. In fact, we encourage you to ask a college question or two that is on your mind, but what we are saying is that the complimentary 30-minute session is primarily for people who are trying to assess which of our services are the best match for your child, and therefore this should be the focus on the session.
How to turn your 30-minute complimentary session into 60 minutes
If you complete our School Match 4U Updated Student and Parent questionnaire and send it to us 48 hours before your session, we will give you 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes on this call. We will also take 15–30 minutes to review your answers before the call. Furthermore, our session will be extremely productive because we will come into the call very knowledgeable about your needs. The questionnaire has 100 questions for students and 50 for parents, so it involves considerable investment on your part, but it really does allow us to have an extremely productive 45-minute session. If this is appealing to you, just email Mark Stucker at mark@schoolmatch4u.com and ask him to send you the questionnaire for you to review and complete.