The Silver Package

Includes ALL of the services included in the Bronze Package PLUS the following additional services:

• Ten hours of customized coaching for the price of less than 6.5 hours –  a $900 savings compared to hourly billing.

As noted above, this plan allows the student and guardians/parent(s) to receive 10 hours of coaching in any of the following areas:

• Administration and interpretation of our customized “School Match 4U Updated Student and Parent Questionnaire” (included).
• College Kickstart allows us to compare a student’s academic profile to other applicants at selected colleges with the most up-to-date data available. This tool enables us to ensure students have a balanced college list, assists in evaluating early admissions opportunities, tracks key application requirements, and considers affordability as part of the application plan for those hoping not to pay full price for college. (included).
• In-depth discovery interview designed to understand the optimal educational conditions the student and parents/guardians are looking for to discern what college environment the student will thrive in (included).
• Recommendation and interpretation of up to five different college major/career tests for the student to confirm their interests (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Examination of all academic records, teaching recommendations, testing, and activities for the student (included)
• Recommendation of at least fifteen colleges initially that match the student’s academic profile and the interests of the student and the parents/guardians (included). Note: Usually, we will recommend 20+ colleges
• Verbal communication and a thorough explanation of why the schools recommended were selected (included).
• Assistance in paring down these 15+ schools to a manageable level of schools that match what the student and parents/guardians are looking for (included).
• Communicate a detailed action plan for all juniors and seniors so they know what they should be doing every month.
• Assistance with curriculum planning and course selections for the upcoming year. (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Academic rigor and grades in rigorous classes are important admissions selection criteria for selective colleges. (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Divided the action plan into manageable “to do tasks” that your college coach can help you with rather than have a parent nag their student, often creating tension in the parent/student relationship. (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Delivery of verbal “Strengths and Weakness assessment” to give feedback on how your child will be viewed by admissions reps (included)
• Interview prep (one mock interview) with explicit interview feedback (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Strategic advice about how to utilize powerful questions to impress counselors with your intelligence (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Advice about what to include to showcase the student’s strengths in the written application and any interviews (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Help in planning and developing an effective strategy for college visits (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Specific advice about what to do on any college visits, including post-visit debriefing and consultation (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Strategic advice throughout the admission process; this advice can be done through phone calls, video conference sessions, or text messages (optional, may use within the10 hours).
• Strategic advice on how to utilize your school visits to create a maximum positive impact (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Consult with the student and parents/guardians to help everyone understand how the SAT, AP, IB, or ACT scores will be perceived by the various colleges on the college list (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Guidance on whether SAT, ACT, or AP scores should be shared or whether your child should apply as a test-optional applicant. This advice will be given on a school-by-school basis (optional and may be used within the 10 hours).
• Communication with your test prep professional (if applicable) to see how your child’s test scores are progressing (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Advice about the best test prep strategy to ensure that your child gets the highest test scores (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Assistance with which applications to use for which schools (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Assistance with how to maximize your effectiveness in working with your school counselor (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Assistance with the personal statement, supplemental essays, short-answer questions, scholarship essays, and résumés. Assistance involves brainstorming and idea generation, constructive criticism, and proofreading, but in no way, shape, or form will we write the essays on your child’s behalf. Multiple revisions are included. (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Discussions about specific schools that we recommended or didn’t recommend and how they line up with what you are looking for (included)
• Advice about how to be authentic while simultaneously making the best impression at college fairs, information sessions, or other interactions with admissions professionals (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Advice about summer planning and activities. This includes opportunities on campuses as well as other opportunities. (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Verbal or written advocacy directly to college admissions counselors is considered inappropriate for a private college coach at most schools. Still, we may recommend you connect with certain people at certain times who work for or have attended various colleges of interest. (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Willingness to thoroughly review all financial aid paperwork to ensure accuracy; this may involve the FAFSA, CSS PROFILE, IDOC, or any institutional aid form requests. This also includes assistance with FAFSA verification. This will not apply if you are not applying for financial aid. (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Assistance with interpreting communication from colleges, including recruitment correspondence and interpretation of aid awards (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Assistance with getting the best financial aid offer. This involves developing a scholarship strategy and game plan should this interest you. (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Advice about what steps should be taken after the enrollment contract has been submitted to ensure a smooth transition occurs when your child matriculates to the college they select (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Openness to research if you ask us a question about something that we do not know in our head (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Advice about how to utilize college fairs to present your authentic self in the most favorable and winsome way (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Advice about how to confirm that the college your child is considering is the right college major for him/her (optional, may use with 10 hours).
• Authentic, genuine, straightforward, and honest communication at all times about all issues (included).
• The plan includes a review of your personal statement by our grammarian. The review will result in you receiving a proofed copy (with the recommended editorial changes) and a clean copy. This review is something families love, and the time Margarita (our grammarian) spends here does not count toward your 10 hours. However, it only includes one essay review, whereas the Gold and Platinum plans include up to 15 college-specific and scholarship essays. These scholarship essays can be institutional scholarship essays or private/outside scholarship essays.
• Up to two 45-minute Spanish tutoring sessions designed to strengthen your child’s Spanish skills, introduce your child to Spanish, or go over a plan to master the Spanish language. Mark Stucker’s daughter has a degree in Spanish, and she was a Spanish middle school and high school teacher at a private school in Atlanta. She is a professional Spanish tutor and founder of Spanish Help Today. We will pay her to work with your child for two one-hour sessions. A parent or guardian can use these hours if the student has no interest or need for Spanish tutoring. Tutoring can be done for someone who does not know the alphabet or for preparation for the AP or IB Spanish exams (included).
• Up to two forty-five-minute wellness coaching sessions with Mark’s daughter, Joy Stucker, who has her master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and is a Licensed counselor. Joy is a wellness counselor, and she can help your student with anything from dealing with stress, anxiety, perfectionism, depression, loneliness, tension in any relationships, adjusting to new settings, or just functioning at her peak performance mentally in school, home or in extracurricular activities (included).
• The 10 hours of counseling consists of six hours of meeting time and unlimited texts and emails that amount to an average of four hours. The six hours of counseling combined with the four hours for texts and emails comprise the 10 hours beyond the list building included in this package. Should the texting or emails get excessive, they will be timed to ensure you stay within the four-hour time frame. This has never happened, not even once, but we include it here for our protection. Four hours of texting and emailing is equivalent to 20 minutes a month (20 minutes x 12=240 minutes or four hours.

Note: The Silver Package provides 10 hours of college coaching for the price of 6.75 hours (a $900 savings), and this doesn’t even count Margarita’s two copies of your child’s personal statement.

The Silver Package is recommended for:

• Families that feel an in-depth interview, a customized college list, an admission strategy session, plus 10 hours (six hours of meetings and four hours for texting and emails) of custom, individualized coaching and skill acquisition are sufficient to reach their goals.
• Families that want to start slowly but early with things like curriculum planning, summer planning, talent and interest identification, and college visits in middle school, 9th grade, or early 10th grade. The Silver plan is the best for families that want to start getting assistance before 10th grade, but they want the $900 savings they get by using a package instead of hourly pricing. The Bronze, Gold, and Platinum plans are best for 10th-12th graders, but this is the one plan that makes sense for Middle School or all grades in high school.
• Families who are not looking for help with the writing requirements in the application. The writing is very time-consuming, and sometimes, a family has another writing specialist who is working on the writing. Occasionally, a parent wants to work on the writing with their student. The Silver Plan is usually sufficient for families who do not need assistance with writing.
• Families who are getting outstanding counseling from their student’s high school want to supplement that counseling in specific areas but do not need comprehensive college counseling. Sometimes, students think their school counseling is outstanding, but the counseling starts later than they want to start, and they like to have us work with their students before their school counseling starts. Sometimes, families are very happy with their school counseling. Still, they want an outside perspective, or they want to be able to have a meeting on the weekend or in the evening, and they like our accessibility, but 12 thirty-minute meetings are all that they need.

The Silver Package is NOT recommended for:

• Families with a student seeking significant assistance with admissions or scholarship essays at multiple schools.
• Families that want a plan where hours are not tracked and can contact us anytime to request a meeting.
• Families who are applying to selective schools that have numerous college-specific essays. Multiple revisions of these college-specific essays can easily take over 20 hours, and the cost of such revisions and feedback is NOT included in the Silver package. The Gold and Platinum plans will save money for a family that wants a lot of work done on their college-specific essays. The Gold and Platinum plans include unlimited revisions until both parties agree that the content is great.
• Families that like to email and text. Emails and texting take a lot of time, and while we have built four hours for emails and texting into this package, this is only 20 minutes a month over 12 months. It is common for a family to want and need more texting and emailing than this plan allows. This plan allows for emails and texting, but after four hours, the emails and texts will count toward the remaining six hours of college coaching. The Gold and Platinum plans will save money for a family that wants a lot of texting and emails.
• Families that have a lot of questions that they want answers to.

Note: A family looking for these more robust services will find that the Gold and Platinum plans are much more comprehensive and have a better financial value for their needs.

How the 10 hours of college coaching work:

• Four hours are built into the plan for emailing and texting. Should the texting or email get excessive (clearly exceeding the four hours), we will track the hours and let you know that the time we take to reply to texts and emails is being applied to the remaining seven hours. Note: This has never happened since School Match 4U launched in 2010, but we reserve the right to include this to protect against abuse.
• Six hours of college coaching. Your college coach will let you know to schedule sessions.
• We will also let you know when you have two hours remaining.
• Should you need additional time, you can convert to the Gold plan, but you lose the $500 discount offered upfront to Gold clients who pay in full.
• You can add individual hours at the $250 per hour rate or 30 minutes at the $150 rate.
• No refunds will be issued if you do not use up your hours, but they never expire and can be used at any time.
• Access to our professional college counseling software, which will be immensely helpful for students and parents in this college admission journey. It is a resource that significantly improves our ability to serve your child. There is also a student portal, which can help students with their “to-dos,” and the parent resources, which are great for parent communication.
• List building applies to colleges in the United States and Canada (if interested). Families who are primarily interested in international universities. These families can learn here how School Match 4U helps students interested in international universities.

COST: $2,995 – $3,295

• Option 1: $2,995 – paid in full upon contract signing. Savings of $300.
• Option 2: $3,295 –  payment plan available for an additional $300; details will be handled on an individual basis.

Compare packages here.

Payment Options:

The two most common payment plans for Silver Plans are five equal payments of $659 or 10 equal payments of $329.50. All payment plans require post-dated checks to be sent in advance to Mark Stucker at 7797 The Lakes Dr., Fairburn, GA. It is our experience that parents are well-intentioned, but they get busy, and we are not bill collectors. We only want to talk about money if we are talking about paying for college or scholarships for your student, so sending post-dated checks is a requirement for all payment plans. Checks should be dated on the same day every month. For example, the first payment is made by Venmo or Zelle for $659 on 8/1, payments two through six would be dated 9/1, 10/1, 11/1, 12/1, and 1/1. The 10-payment plan would be similar.

Payment can be remitted using any of the following:

1. Venmo, (@Mark-Stucker is Mark’s ID or 404-664-4340), and you will see Mark Stucker’s photo. You can also request that Mark friend you on Venmo. Do not select Services when paying with Venmo, or a 2% fee is added to your fees because this is what Venmo charges us, if you select Goods or Services. There is no charge if you pay as a friend.
2. The Cash App ($MarkStucker11 is Mark’s ID or 404-664-4340). You will see Mark’s photo.
3. Zelle (404-664-4340)
4. For PayPal, use mark@schoolmatch4u.com to send payment. There is a 4% fee for this option.