Administer sound and practical assessments

• The Birkman® Preview assessment of learning and work styles
  
  
• Taken by nearly 2.5 million people, the Birkman assessment gives a clear picture of a student's learning style in terms that students and parents can understand and use to make decisions. Details about the assessment and how to take it are below.
  
  
• OptiMind assessments of athletic strengths and competitive styles for the student-athlete
  
  
• The OptiMind assessment is described in detail for Student Athletes.

Develop a course of study & extra-curricular interests (the student's Portfolio)

• Know well the areas and interests where the student’s strengths are most apparent and pursue opportunities for growth and leadership in those areas
  
  
• Know what teaching and coaching styles will work best for that student and, together with parents, help select:
  
  
•  the best-fit teachers & coaches in high school
  
  
•  the best-fit teaching cultures and campuses for college

Select colleges which value that Portfolio most

• Know those colleges’ faculty, teaching culture & historical strengths
  
  
• Know those colleges’ recruiting & financial aid strategies

Develop the skills to perform in the important admissions settings

• Essays – topic selection, editing

• Interview preparation – sell strengths, address weaknesses, rehearse

Advocate for the student by helping him/her prepare a written:

• Narrative of their academic growth
  
  
• Description of how this student's Portfolio of assets fits that College’s needs and strategies
  
  
• Outline of how this student compares to other applicants

 Following up with the family until they’ve achieved the best possible decisions from colleges and universities at which their student will thrive.

Get started on the path to college discovery!

Take a Birkman® Preview assessment of your learning styles. 

The Birkman® Preview is administered online and consists of 125 forced-choice pairs; meaning that you pick your favorite activity or work setting from two choices presented. When you've made five choices on that first page, another five pairs are presented to you. The second and the later five pairs of choices are based partly on your choices among all of the prior pairs. There are lots of personality, temperament and learning style assessments available. But the Birkman® Preview is, by far, the most widely validated and easily adapted to the matching a student's learning style to the educational cultures a student will encounter in high school and college of all the assessments we've tried.

A 17-page report of your results will be in your e-mail inbox in 5 minutes. This report is invaluable to us at CollegeLab. In it:

• The first nine pages compare the student to a national sample of 2.5 million employed people and graphically tells us how the student compares to these people in the major elements of their learning style. That is, their:
• Usual work style;
• Emotional needs;
• Favorite ways of expressing themselves; and
• Usual behaviors when under stress.

• The last eight pages indicate how similar the student is to subsets of those 2.5 million people in 168 careers and job types. This detailed comparison helps highlight which extracurricular, summer and work experiences can give a student a chance to test their interests, possible academic majors or even careers.



It moves fast and it's surprisingly insightful. It's available from SSI, Inc., a Philadelphia area career counseling firm, for only $40. CollegeLab is not paid any commission by SSI, Inc.

This may be the most valuable investment you make in your college search!