Hear what my clients say

We contracted Amy to help us with our college search last year and it was one of the best investments we ever made. Like many parents, when it was time to start the college search, we had no idea what we were in for. We went to Amy’s workshop thinking that we wouldn’t need her services or be eligible for aid because of our income. We left her workshop with the realization that we didn’t know how much there was to do or how to do it all, and that we could qualify for financial aid under the right circumstances. We also left the workshop with the knowledge that because our son would be a senior in the fall, we were already a year behind in our journey which meant not only did we have a lot to do, but we also had a shorter time to do it in.

Amy’s services guided us step-by-step through the process.

She assisted us with college suggestions that “fit” our son’s qualifications and wishes, college research, writing academic resumes and essays, completing applications, financial aid paperwork, ensured we knew and were reminded of deadlines, reviewed college offers for accurate/fair awards, assisted with loan applications and was there every step of the way. Amy not only assisted us , she worked directly with our son which enabled him to take ownership in the process, which was very important to us. She was always very honest and up-front with us and our son. Telling us what we needed to hear, not always what we wanted to hear. Our son applied to five private colleges and was accepted to all five. He is now a freshman at his first-choice college which would have not even made our list if it had not been for Amy. We were so pleased with her service, we have renewed our contract for next year.

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I would like to take this opportunity to tell you how Amy made my dream come true. Ever since having my children, I have spent a lot of time and energy in assuring them the best education I could provide. As my daughter, Kara, approached her final years of high school, I knew I would not be able to afford the best colleges or universities especially in these economic times. However, a friend told me of Strategic College Planning and I attended one of the workshops. The workshop was very informative and I saw an avenue to attaining my dream. I employed the services of SCP any my journey began. I spent my daughter’s junior and senior years without any worries and was able to enjoy her final high school years. There were no arguments or stressing over test dates and deadlines.

Amy handed all deadlines and kept Kara on track.

Monthly meetings, phone calls, paperwork and best of all her insight on all the colleges and their processes were instrumental in achieving Kara’s dream college. Amy worked with Kara and walked her through the research phase, the application phase, and finally the interview phase. Amy’s services are without a doubt the smartest decision I have made in my daughter’s education. I was able to send Kara to her dream college, a private college that was suggested by Amy. The fit was perfect. I highly recommend Strategic College Planning.

When we found Amy, our son was a senior starting into the college selection process. Since I had been through the process myself as a teenager, I would continually prompt our son to complete certain tasks in narrowing and selecting a college. As a typical teenager, he would simply ignore dad. Amy’s experience and guidance caused our son to take control of the selection process himself. By using techniques that Amy suggested, we were able to increase the amount of grants that our son received from his first-choice college by $3,000!

Now I’m signing my daughter up as a high school sophomore in order to take better advantage of all of the services available.

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Just wanted to send a thank you letter. Kathy and I are both pleased with the services you have provided. Kinzi is certainly looking forward to attending Asbury College this fall. Asbury is the school of her dreams. Kathy and I are just so surprised that Kinzi will be able to attend Asbury for about the same cost as one of Indiana’s state schools. I would never have thought that one of our children could attend such a nice private school. Thanks again for your advice and insightfulness.

I had the privilege of working with Amy Sosnowski over the past year or so. My mom is a single parent as my father passed away when I was seven years old. When it came time for the college search to begin, my mom and I began to panic, as we both did not have a firm grasp on what to do and how to go about things. We heard about Amy from a friend of mine from high school, who recommended her services. She helps high school students through the entire process that lies within choosing a college. It is a difficult time for most students as the idea of going to college is scary and hard to face. However, when I met Amy, I knew right then that everything was going to turn out fine. She recommends various schools to her students based on their interests and previous experiences. She also helps with the financial aid aspect of going to college, which can be a tedious and overwhelming process. Amy provided me with great guidance on how to fill out applications, and other materials such as letters of recommendation, resumes, essays, etc. The struggle for many students comes down to choosing between 2 or 3 schools that all seem great. She gives advice and knowledge that she has about schools, even though it comes down to the student’s decision.

I am very thankful that I had Amy by my side through that whole process. She is reliable, trustworthy, and influential.

Now that I am in college, I realize how smooth the process went and how much more complicated it could have been if it weren’t for Amy.

Amy is a great asset in choosing the right college for you, your son, or your daughter.

Amy helped me figure out the right type of college for me to attend after getting to know me as an individual and finding out what was important to me.

Not many of the colleges that I applied to did I know of before I started meeting with Amy, including the school that I have fallen in love with and currently attend. One of the most important aspects of Amy’s job is filing for financial aid. There are so many items involved with taxes, income, etc and it was a major help to know that Amy was taking care of filing for me and that it was done correctly. I have a few friends who did it on their own and messed up some aspect of it. Amy also helped me prepare for interviews with college admissions counselors and critiqued my essays for admission. Working with Amy really was one of the smartest decisions that my parents and I made in preparing for college. Amy helped me so much that my parents are sending my little brother for her assistance. She does not make any decisions for you, your son or your daughter. The final decisions of where to apply and where to attend fall on you. It is very comforting to know that someone is there to help guide you to maybe a decision that you would have never considered.

We have worked with Amy Sosnowski for the past two years. Our daughter, Rachel, is now a sophomore at Anderson University. We believe, without the help provided by Mrs. Sosnowski, we would not have been able to send Rachel to Anderson or any other private university. Going beyond simple completion of forms, she provides information through meetings, classes and newsletters – that was helpful to all of us to know what was needed to attain the most financial aid form the most sources. She is professional in her dealings with us. Amy Sosnowski delivers what she says she will. She has an easy-going manner that allows her to work well with both parents and adolescents.

We look forward to working with Amy in the coming years.

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The first time we met Amy Sosnowski was at a free information seminar that we almost decided to skip at the last minute.

Boy, what a mistake that would have been! We found Amy’s services to be invaluable, from FAFSA filing, to college searches, to the application process and beyond. Since we had never been through this before, we had no idea what we didn’t know! She held our hand and our daughter’s hand from her junior year in high school right on through graduation. Our daughter was accepted to a private college that we would have never considered or thought we could afford. Amy showed us that with the aid awarded to her, we would be paying virtually the same cost as at a public university.

Amy is heaven-sent and we will continue to use her services for the next 3 years!

I just wanted to share with you how Amy Sosnowski has assisted me with picking my college and with financial aid strategies. Before I knew that I was going to attend Butler University, I was unsure as to what type of a university I wanted to attend. Amy provided many opportunities so that I could choose a university that would fit my personality and academic level.

Amy also assisted me with composing my resume and my essays that were sent to the five colleges that I applied to. She also helped me organize my financial needs and figure out what awards and loans applied to me.

I was also provided with sample questions to ask college representatives and lists of other things that are important to look for when visiting a college. Some of these tips included student interactions with each other, with the professors, among many other things, that one might not necessarily think of while visiting a brand new college. I feel that Amy Sosnowski helped me with a very important decision in my life, and I recommend her to anyone who wants and/or needs college guidance.

I am the grandmother of a college freshman who used Strategic College Planning, LLC to facilitate the college choice and financial aid necessary to attend. Amy was able to answer my concerns easily, whether by phone or e-mail, and was obviously highly experienced in college planning. She offered many helpful hints and detailed spreadsheets to compare offers. We were able to make the final choice of what school offered the best financial advantage and the best educational value. Amy is very personable and easy to work with. She goes out of her way to be accommodating to both student and adult. Detail-oriented answers and guidance made our decisions much easier.

I definitely intend to continue using SCP throughout my granddaughter’s college years. In addition, I am signing up her sister, who will be graduating this year.

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I wanted to thank Amy for all her help and direction in finding a college; I had no idea where I wanted to go or exactly what field I wanted to study. I had no idea where to start, with Amy’s help, suggestions, and guidelines, I was able to make an informed decision as to which school would fit my needs.

Amy was of great help to our daughter and ourselves during what ended up to be a pretty stressful time. Amy walked her through the application process and reviewed all that she did prior to sending applications to the schools. As with most teenagers...

our daughter listed to Amy when she wouldn’t listen to Mom and Dad.

It was a great relief to us to have the FAFSA process taken out of our hands. Yes, there were items that were our responsibility, but Amy kept us in line and made sure we did things in a timely manner. The service that Amy provides is very valuable to both the student and the parent.

It is our pleasure to recommend the services of Amy Sosnowski and Strategic College Planning to any families for help with the process of college selection, admissions and financial aid. This was a very stress-inducing prospect for our family, and having this resource available gave us confidence in the directions we should proceed, advice whenever needed, and reassurance that we weren’t messing anything up for our daughter! Amy’s services provided us with a time line for every part of the admissions process so that nothing fell behind or was forgotten about. No question was treated as silly and every concern was addressed promptly.

We believe that the advice given regarding positioning of our college savings funds allowed our daughter to receive considerably more financial aid than we could have otherwise expected.

Strategic College Planning provides help that our own personal reading and research, even the school guidance office, simply could not. We have already recommended this service to friends and will continue to do so.

The best description I can think of to describe our experience with Amy is “Peace of Mind”. We felt from the point where we first made contact with Amy that she really knew what needed to be done, and in what order. We pretended we knew, but there were more aspects than I can recall that we had not even heard of. I didn’t even really know what the logical starting point was. I think the word “strategic” is a focal point. Amy knows how to lay out a strategy to ensure success. There is a formula that schools like to see followed, and they respond best when everything they require is available to them when they need it. The government has its own requirements, and that is as confusing as you would expect it to be. She knows how to bring both of these pieces together, at the right time, in the right format.

One of the most intriguing aspects of her approach is that she coaches the student to become responsible for their own future.

Parents are certainly kept up to date, and involved where needed, but the majority of the work takes place between Amy and the student. That not only is a nice approach from a parents’ standpoint of time, but the student becomes aware of what they are committing to. When our daughter made her final decision on a college, it was informed. With Amy’s help, she was admitted to her top 4 choices, and received generous offers from the top 3. At this point, the decision became which school was best suited to her, and her career goals.

Now that she is at the one she chose, she has no regrets, and is not second guessing her choice. It was all hers, and she knows why she made it!

We will continue to utilize Strategic College Planning for the remainder of our daughter’s college years, and will certainly be coming back to see Amy in a few years, as our son begins to plan for his future.

Like most families, we began our college search during the fall of our daughter’s junior year of high school. We were confused, anxious, scared, and yes, short with each other. During the early spring we partnered with Amy and we are so thankful that we did. Amy put together a schedule that took our family month-by-month and step-by-step through our daughter’s college search, application process, family financial assessment, and offer acceptance decisions.

Our daughter is attending a school that appears to be a perfect fit for her, and is a university that we would never have visited had it not been for Amy’s wise and calculated suggestion.

It is with strong conviction that we recommend starting the wonderful college search journey with a partnership with Amy.

We employed Amy to help us with the college admissions process. Our eldest children were just finishing their junior year, and we had no idea what we should be doing when. This is where Amy came in; she answered all of our thousands of questions and was available by phone when any other questions came up. She worked with our sons to “groom” them for interviews, and helped them write a resume. She proofread their first draft and even their second draft to make sure the final result was the best it could be! She had appointments one on one with our sons and a couple of group meetings with several seniors at a time. Anytime they had questions...

all they had to do was call Amy or send her an e-mail, she was always available to meet with them.

Something as a parent that I really found to be the most helpful was the work that she does on the FAFSA form. We feel that Amy’s help on the FAFSA form really helped us; our sons applied to 4 colleges and were accepted to all 4 very quickly! Two of the colleges offered nice financial aid packages, and one of those two covered almost all of the first year expenses. We feel that without Amy’s help we would have been lost through the whole process. Thanks to Amy, the process of getting my boys into college was a fun and pleasant experience and we plan to sign our youngest son up too!

Thought I would let you know we got Mark moved into his school on Thursday, he is so excited to be there! We all feel this is a good fit for him and again want to thank you for telling us about this wonderful university. We have been so pleased with everything so far. I think he is going to get a great education there. I want to thank you for all the help and guidance you have given over the past few years, we feel very lucky to have found you to help us through the process. I can’t imagine how we would have done it all without your guidance, it is definitely an overwhelming journey, but you made it so much easier.

Again we thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

I thought I had it all figured out. I would just keep doing those “which college fits you best?” surveys and choose my college from there. After all, the survey was on a popular college resource website; they know what they’re talking about. However, not once did DePauw University appear on my list.

Through Amy I found my dream school and believe I made the best decision that has come my way yet.

The most valuable thing my parents did for me was to sign up for Amy’s services my junior year. Most of my peers thought I was crazy for looking into schools seriously that early, but I trusted Amy and had faith that she knew what she was talking about. Through the first from I filled out, she got my interests and compiled a list of schools I might be interested in. I researched all the schools on the list and found the ones that fit me. My first college visit was to DePauw and I felt right at home. I knew that was the school for me.

Because Amy helps proofread applications and helps with FAFSA, my preparation for college was made easy.

My parents did not have to stress about filing out the complicated FAFSA for by themselves and I did not have to worry about saying something wrong in my application that could potentially keep me from being accepted. The services that Amy offers are well worth the money.

Without her, I would not have found my dream school nor would I have been so informed as to what the process entails.

We can’t express our thanks to you enough, As college professors, you would think that we have the inside scoop to the college application and admission process. Unfortunately, we did not. Even worse, our eldest simply did not tolerate our suggestions and ideas about what she should do. Instead, her junior year of high school looked like a nightmare with many arguments about what classes to take, what tests to take and what schools to visit.

Working with you has been such a positive experience for our family. Our “jack-of-all-trades” had a mechanism for figuring out what she was really interested in. Then, you helped her identify a broader list of schools to consider. You trained her about how to approach the information sessions and interviews, formal or informal, with schools. She felt very empowered in this process. Even better, we hardly ever had to encourage her to get her applications done – she had an agreement with you that she was obliged to honor. As a result of working with you (and her academic background), she had a great success rate of acceptances. Moreover, broadening her consideration set lead to better offers for financial aid. We were able to use this information to secure better funding for her first choice school. This information helped us reduce our annual costs by multiples over your fee. Even without this cost savings, the value you added to our lives over 2+ years was worth every penny of your fee.

The absolute best part – our daughter is thrilled with her school choice. She’s found a “home”. She’s engaged in her studies and her activities. In fact, we hardly ever see her because she is so involved in what she is doing. While we miss her, we are thrilled for her experience. Now, we are facing the dizzying array of paperwork to continue to qualify for financial aid. We are so thrilled that you are still there to help us. In fact, we can’t wait to get our second daughter, a high school freshman, started with your program. It’s almost time to pick classes for next year and we can already see the arguments starting…We are glad to know we have someone to help us all get through the college selection process easily, with minimal arguments, in a way that leads to a successful outcome. Thanks for all that you’ve done and will do to help us.

Please accept out sincere thanks for helping us navigate the college waters on behalf of Lauren. Our relationship with SCP has been extremely rewarding and we are so happy that we made the decision to use your services. We look back on the journey to get to this place in time and we thin of how different it would have been without Strategic College Planning. Every step we’ve taken with you has led us to a great start. From our initial meeting, college inventory and visits, test prep, essay prep, submitting applications, FAFSA and finally acceptances, our transition from high school to college has been pain free! Lauren was accepted at every university which she applied and received lovely scholarship offers from each one. We can say with confidence that this amazing outcome was due in large part to the program of excellence you have put together at SCP.

We were thrilled that Lauren’s biggest challenge came down to which offer to accept! In the future, please share our experience with potential clients and use this letter as testimony to the amazing benefits families receive when they use SCP’s services.

It has truly been a pleasure working with you.