College Admissions, Simplified.

Most students starting a 4-year college program will not finish it in 4 years, if ever. If you want to improve your odds, I’ll help you swiftly focus on the 0.5% of colleges that are best suited to your goals, interests, and desires, and support your enrollment decision for the university that will help you become what you are and maybe even graduate on time.

But I get ahead of myself: I’m Jason Miller and I’ve been supporting teenagers going off to and then graduating from college for the past decade. I specialize in supporting academically high-achieving students, especially the eldest- or only-child demographic.

I currently offer service

À la carte:

$360 for two 40 minute calls (initial and follow-up) up to 2 weeks apart with limited asynchronous support between if necessary.

$160 for each additional 40 minute call with limited asynchronous support.

Common topics include: high school schedule planning and course selection, starting a program-oriented college list, adjusting activities for impact, considering summer programs, or comparing offers of admission. This can be an economically-efficient way of supporting a student who is only pursuing a few colleges with high acceptance rates.

As a full program:

$4000 starting from forecasting 12th grade courses (typically: February of 11th grade) running through January of 12th grade (typically: Regular Decision application deadline), plus a supplemental Decision meeting in the spring.

Package includes up to 30 hours of meeting time + 50 hours of asynchronous support. Most students use less, but editing supplemental essays for a full college list can rapidly consume meeting hours.

The purpose here is to provide comprehensive support, but it consistently includes 12th grade course selection, finalizing the college list, establishing an application strategy (and test strategy if needed), before composing Common (and UC apps) with extensive essay-writing support.

The full program also includes a complimentary initial meeting to determine if we’re a good match as well as an optional parent meeting to help me ensure that the customer (parent) needs and expectations are being represented in my work with the client (student).

Let’s chat about if we’re a good fit.

Here’s what people say about my work:

“Jason provided invaluable input on varying career and study paths from his varied experience in arts and STEM. … His feedback was always thorough, precise, and backed up with lots of incredible resources. … You can trust him to get you from where you are now to where you should be, even if you don’t know where that is yet.” —Lorena Colcer, class of 2014

“[Jason] brings a rare combination of insight, empathy, and expertise to this demographic… helping them feel both understood and empowered. Whether it’s preparing students for admissions or scholarship interviews or helping them craft compelling personal statements, Jason is a gifted storyteller who can help to bring out the best in students.” —Robyn Rose, teacher

Full text of endorsements.

Normal questions to have:

• What are the sources on your graduation statistics? National Center for Education Statistics (in the Department of Education) lists the pre-pandemic 6-year graduation rate from a 4-year college at 64%. Education Data Initiative notes that 21.5% of students graduating with a bachelor’s degree took more than 4 years, trailing the pandemic, and they list a dropout rate of 39% putting the current 4-year completion below 50%. While EDI numbers may include trailing pandemic anomalies, they odds were not much better before.
• Where are you? I generally serve Northwest Portland Oregon, particularly the Beaverton and Lake Oswego areas.
• What does your process do? My process is designed to:
  1. maximize the likelihood that the student will have several suitable admissions offers to choose from, and
  2. ensure that the student can confidently and intentionally make the best choice for the future they envision, and
  3. prepare the student to take initiative in engaging the opportunities that their college will provide to maximize the value of their educational investment.
• What are your qualifications? I am a member of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling with a BA in Communication, a MS in Applied Information Management, and a professional background including Finance, Software Development, and Marketing. This is in addition to over 15 years of coaching and mentoring teenagers, a decade of which has included college preparation.
• How is service delivered?
  • Meetings will be a mix of teleconference (current default: Zoom) and in-person (where logistically viable, generally at a coffee shop or library).
  • These meetings will be supplemented by asynchronous written work (current default: email, Google Docs) that distills analysis, feedback, and research.
  • Payment is accepted by credit card (processed by Stripe), due at time of meeting for à la crate service or 50% at signing + 50% on first application submission or contract expiration for full service contract.
• What is not included in this service? We do not guarantee admission to or financial aid from any particular university, intercede with admissions or arrange campus visitations on behalf of the student, or apply supplemental pressure on the student to commit to this this process. Additionally, while I will be employing multidisciplinary techniques in the service of my client, I am not currently a licensed therapist, teacher, or financial planner.
• And what do those words even mean? “Veridiction” is a term from French historian and philosopher Foucault that refers to a contextually-bound process of producing a functional truth, like the answer to “where should you go to college?” — that is a truth we will produce that won’t exist until we produce it. The neologism “Δαιμόνkraft” is a hybrid word, combining the Greek “δαιμόν” (guiding spirit) that, for example, Socrates credited with warning him away from things that would be bad for him (in his case: politics) with the “kraft” borrowed from the German as “energy” (or “power”). Synergistically hybridizing Greek and German was, of course, an aesthetic goal of Goethe in his Faust, part 2 masterpiece. Yes, I really am this much of a nerd. 📚🤓📚