Deep-Fit College Counseling: An Investment for Life
We often hear concerns about the cost of college counseling when we speak with prospective families. Families’ questions usually boil down to: what will we gain from college counseling, and is it worth the expense?
At Lantern, our work is intentionally high-touch, relationship-based, and deeply personalized. We support students not only in applying to college, but in understanding themselves, making grounded decisions, and choosing environments where they are positioned to thrive. Our pricing reflects the depth of this work, the continuity of support it requires, and the fact that we work with a limited number of families each year to preserve quality and care.
Should You Hire a College Counselor?
Given the costs of college counseling, you may wonder if this is something that you can do on your own. When families ask me this question, I suggest they think about college counseling as they do other types of services they might invest in, such as personal training. Is it possible to get in shape on your own? Yes. Would having a trained fitness expert to personally guide you lead to improved outcomes and a more positive fitness journey? Most people would say YES. Similarly, a college counselor can help your child’s college search process go more smoothly and result in stronger outcomes than otherwise.
Considering the cost and significance of college today, many families find that investing in thoughtful guidance early in the process is a small fraction of the overall investment—and one that can meaningfully shape outcomes. After all, ideally, college itself is an expensive four-year investment. I write “ideally” because, for many reasons, most students do not graduate from college in four years, often leading to even higher costs than families anticipate. College is one of a family’s greatest financial investments. College counseling arms families to be most thoughtful about this significant investment at a fraction of its cost.
What Are the Benefits of Hiring a College Counselor?
One reason students struggle in college is that they enroll in institutions that are not a strong fit for how they learn, grow, and engage. Working with an experienced college counselor can lead to more thoughtful college choices, increasing the likelihood that a student will thrive academically and personally and graduate on time.
In addition, families often express an interest in their child’s earning merit scholarships to reduce college costs. Most merit scholarships come directly from universities and colleges themselves. Some schools offer significant merit aid, while others provide none, including those in the Ivy League and many other highly selective institutions. An experienced college counselor can help your child build a college list that fits your family’s financial needs and goals.
A college counselor will help you navigate the emotional and psychological aspects of the college search, provide personalized attention, structure and organize your child’s application process (see our Complete Guide & Task Timeline For The College Application Process), and be a go-to source of expertise, all leading to stronger applications and less stress.
To see how our team-based model supports families throughout this process, read our article College Admissions Counseling at Lantern: A Team-Based Approach to Student Success.
I explain to families that when we support them, we guide them in the driver’s seat, customizing their child’s college application journey with their input. We anticipate forks, turns, opportunities, and hazards. Our structured yet flexible, highly individualized, and high-touch process meets each family where they are and makes what could be an overwhelming process manageable. Our balanced approach ensures that students have options they are proud of. Our expertise helps students make their strongest applications while developing through activities that help them learn and stand out. We play many roles as needed—a go-to voice of calm, expertise, and perspective. We enable parents to be parents, not their child’s college taskmaster, and we absorb stress to prevent families from spiraling up together. In sum, a college counselor can make the college search more manageable and less stressful, yielding better results and a happier final chapter of high school at home.
Our families say our work and “organizational wizardry” “reduces the stress for parents and the students,” makes the process “so much easier and more authentic,” and “makes the complex process manageable.” A current senior’s parent writes about Lantern college counselor Eliza, “Eliza has done a wonderful job motivating and organizing our son, and keeping him on task.” One mother shares that we have made her daughter’s college search process “stress free and enjoyable for a very anxious girl!” Another writes, “As parents, you made our job a lot easier.” And another parent says the process “would have been impossible to navigate without (us).” A mother who did not use a college counselor for her older son shares that her “stress level was so much lower” than when her older child applied to college. Lastly, a current senior’s mother writes, “Eliza has helped me off of the edge many times. ; ) Our daughter is always uplifted and happy after talking with Eliza.“
Why Choose Lantern College Counseling?
Many families looking for a college counselor are eager to know the counselor’s experience on a board of admissions and with helping students apply to college. Families often tell us that this background gives them confidence that their counselor truly understands how admission decisions are made. I share this perspective and have written about my own experience in From Wellesley to MIT and Olin: Insider College Admissions Counseling From a Former Admissions Officer, which offers an inside look at what happens behind the scenes in selective admissions and how those insights shape my approach at Lantern.
What many families don’t realize is that perhaps even more valuable than the experience of serving on a Board of Admission is the experience of working with college students after admission and while they are on their college campus. This experience is critical to guiding high school students to campuses where they will thrive. Lantern’s two college admissions counselors have been supporting and educating students on college campuses in mentoring and advising roles for over 45 years. Lantern College Counseling knows what makes students thrive and is acutely aware that getting into college is just the beginning of a student’s college experience.
This deep experience led us to develop a new paradigm for the college search and application process centered on the concept of Deep-Fit™ with college thriving as a foundation for lifelong success. At a Deep-Fit college, students can achieve their personal and academic goals, have impactful experiences, develop confidence and agency, and lay the foundation for a successful life. Lantern families have access to our structured process to support building a Deep-Fit college list and making Deep-Fit applications, including home-grown resources, so their child stands out in the application pool. Lantern College Counseling is the home of Deep-Fit!
When families hire Lantern College Counseling to help their child apply to college, they have access to our collective expertise: over 25 years of experience helping high school students apply to and transition to college and over 45 years of experience supporting and educating students on college campuses. At every stage, Eliza and Jennifer partner as a team to support your student, including key stages such as college list building and finalization, application strategy, review of the essays and application materials, and final college selection.
To learn more about how our collaborative, team-based approach works in practice, see our article: College Admissions Counseling at Lantern: A Team-Based Approach to Student Success.
Lantern’s CS, Engineering, and STEM Expertise
Lantern Founder Jennifer Stephan, PhD is an electrical and computer engineer educated at Johns Hopkins University and Carnegie Mellon University. Her work sits at the intersection of admissions, undergraduate education, and long-term student success.
This integrated, whole-student perspective actively shapes Jennifer’s work inside higher education. As Dean of Academic Advising and Undergraduate Studies in the School of Engineering at Tufts University, Jennifer guides curriculum, advising structures, and student support practices that influence how engineering students learn, navigate challenges, and engage with their education over time.
Jennifer is regularly invited to contribute to national conversations about college advising and student outcomes. She recently spoke at The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Virtual Forum on College Advising, reaching an audience of more than 3,000 registrants.
Jennifer’s approach to student development has also drawn the attention of leading universities. She was invited to join Duke University’s External Advisory Board for the Mechanical Engineering Department as part of a proposed National Science Foundation initiative focused on holistic student success, and was recently interviewed by Carnegie Mellon University to be featured as an accomplished alum for her work developing Deep-Fit college counseling. (Link coming soon.)
Her perspective reflects decades of experience supporting students not only through admission, but through the academic, developmental, and institutional challenges they encounter after enrollment.
Eliza was a key member of Jennifer’s engineering advising team at Tufts for six years before returning to Canada, where she now holds a role at Carleton University. At Tufts, Eliza advised all first-year engineering students — many of whom were undecided — as well as students seeking to internally transfer into engineering. Together, Jennifer and Eliza bring deep, practical knowledge of engineering disciplines and the developmental pathways students follow within them, allowing them to guide both directed and undecided STEM students with clarity and confidence.
Fun fact: Eliza was Jennifer’s daughter’s academic advisor when she was an undecided first-year student considering engineering at Tufts (while Jennifer was still working at Wellesley College), encouragingly guiding her through the internal transfer process and welcoming her into the School of Engineering! As a mother, Jennifer was so grateful to hear her daughter excitedly chatter about her caring advisor, Eliza, during her first year at Tufts.
Lantern’s Expertise in College Success
Beyond STEM, we are experts on college thriving, as evidenced by our 45 years of supporting and educating students on college campuses and our Deep-Fit approach—experience that applies broadly to all academic disciplines. In fact, over half of our students do not plan to study STEM in college! We are deeply experienced in supporting undecided students.
We’ve developed a roadmap for college success, including over 70 action items in five main areas: wellness, academic success, know and use your resources, build your community, and create your future (career readiness) to help your student make the most of their college experience. We also advise enrolled college students who need support finding their academic direction, are experiencing difficulty, or are considering transferring. This spring, we will be launching a formal offering of this service.
Deep-Fit College Counseling: Preparing Students for College—and Beyond
The college application process is about more than just getting into college. The steps and practices that build a strong application extend into college and beyond. For instance, we encourage our high school students to build relationships with teachers and mentors since doing so can help them make their strongest college applications and create their college future. Likewise, we teach them that relationships with college professors and mentors are among the most important impactful experiences they should seek in college and can help them create their post-college future. As adults, we call relationship building “networking,” a key to career success.
Similarly, through a Deep-Fit college search, students gain confidence and learn to be active agents in their college search, in college, and beyond. We challenge students to see what they can create for themselves and equip them with the skills and experiences to do so thoughtfully and powerfully. When we help students make their college choice, we know they are positioned to keep creating their future in college because they choose a Deep-Fit school that will likewise empower them. And, of course, they take the skills and lessons they’ve learned through our work not just to college but forward from college.
As our practice has grown, demand for our work has increased while our capacity has remained intentionally limited. Our pricing reflects not only the expertise we bring, but the care, responsiveness, and continuity required to support students meaningfully over time.
We believe deeply in long-term relationships. Returning families are always welcome, and we strive to make our work accessible to families in education, higher education, and public service whenever possible. These conversations happen individually, with care and transparency, as part of a thoughtful consultation process.
Deep-Fit college counseling prepares students for success in the college application process, college, and life. It is an investment in your child’s future — one grounded in helping students thrive long after admission. To see how we continue supporting students once they’re on campus, explore College Success Coaching: Personalized Support to Help Students Thrive.
