Meet Sophie, Your IEC

Individual Education Consultants are in high demand. They'll help high school seniors get into colleges that are a good fit for them. In Proverbs, we meet Sophie, our own IEC.

Getting into the college of our choice can be quite an arduous venture. At the most academically competitive schools, thousands of students apply, and only a handful are accepted. If our first choice school is Stanford, for example, it's going to be very tough. They accept only 5.1 percent of their applicants. That's one acceptance for every 20 applications! Or, said a different way, 19 disappointments out of every 20 applicants. Harvard and Yale are a little easier, accepting 6 percent of their applicants.

Gaining acceptance to prestigious technical schools is also difficult. Massachusetts Institute of Technology accepts only 8 percent of applicants, and California Institute of Technology, only 9 percent.

Notre Dame's acceptance rate is more than double those at 21 percent, but that still means that 4 out of 5 applicants do not receive a letter of acceptance.

For a growing number of occupations, a college education is vitally important, and a degree from a prestigious university can...