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Why is Nomad Starting the TCK College Club?

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To help you get quality college counseling at an affordable price.

If you’re a subscriber, you may have already heard that Nomad is introducing group college counseling this August. If you’re interested, send me an email at lauren@nomad.com or sign up here for updates!

Nomad works FOR the expat and Foreign Service community, and this College Club is designed to help make college counseling accessible to all American TCK families. I’ve developed the TCK college club in response to customer requests for:

Accessibility: One of the goals of Nomad Educational Services is to make professional college counseling available to all expat families around the world, especially those who are at schools without a strong US-focused counseling program, or for whom a mid-high school move has disrupted their college planning process. Many of my current clients are enrolled at British, French, local, or schools where college counseling is focused exclusively on sending students to specific “brand name” universities to improve the school’s marketing to prospective families. 

US-equivalent experience: TCKs deserve the strong college preparation support they’d get back in the states: to find universities that fit them financially, academically and socially, and to get support developing strong, revealing, application profiles that will demonstrate their interest and fit for the schools on their college list. 

Affordability: For many expat families, however, the cost of individual college coaching is a barrier. In the mainland US, independent college coaches charge an average of $6-8000 over the 2 year period before college enrollment. While students who are advised by an independent counselor are more likely to be offered stronger financial aid packages, be less likely to transfer and be more confident in their choices, that cost is higher than most families are ready to pay. 

My Solution: In order to fulfill my goal of making college consulting accessible to all Foreign Service families who need it, I’m introducing the TCK College Club, a 10 month group counseling program designed for Juniors with Foreign Service connections. 

The program will include: 

  • Personality and academic profiles developed by YouScience
  • College planning and application software from Concourse
  • Regular assignments and personalized feedback An integrated, asynchronous online classroom
  • Monthly 2 hour live online-classroom sessions for discussion, hands-on research, and application development.
  • Parent meeting series covering all of the hot topics in college admissions today. 

Students who participate in the TCK College Club will develop a criteria-based list of best-fit colleges and universities in the US or abroad, and feel confident that they’ve got what they need to move on to filling out their applications. 

Ready to join? Send me an email at lauren@nomad.com. Or, sign up here for updates on this and other Nomad offerings.

No Extracurriculars?

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If you’re starting your sophomore or junior year and don’t already have an extracurricular activity that you can see turning into a leadership position, or something that you can describe as central to your life, it’s probably time to hunt something out.

College admissions readers definitely want to see you being involved in some kind of activity outside of class.

The type of thing you’re involved in isn’t as important as what you do in it. You can be involved in activities at your school, or have a role as a community volunteer, or be actively working a job, or learning a skill outside of school. You could be acting, running, writing or care-giving. Whatever you’re attracted by, do it!

But, don’t worry, not every activity has to be one you lead. You can definitely take a member-only role sometimes. Your dedication to these activities, even when you’re not in the lead position, is also admirable. If you’re just joining a bunch of clubs haphazardly to up your “activity list” though, that’s not going to help you so much. There’s no way that one over-subscribed person could be fully engaged in all 20 clubs that they are claiming to be a member of.

If you’re still not sure what to do, however, or are frustrated by a lack of activities offered at your school, or may you’re homeschooling in a country with few activity options at the high school level, look for activities you can do online, or independently.

Take a MOOC in a subject you might pursue in college.

Do an Outschool (https://outschool.com/) class in cooking, acting or computers, or teach one for younger kids.

Learn to code an app with CodeAcademy (https://www.codecademy.com/).

Take martial arts, language, or something else taught to mixed ages and adults in your current city.

Consider earning the Congressional Award (http://congressionalaward.org/), a program that honors Americans who devote time to serve the community, build up their personal strengths, and explore the world around them. The commitment is high, as with the Girl Scout Gold Award or the Eagle Scout Award, but it doesn’t require a team or troop to earn. Each aspirant sets their own goals, tracks them, and certifies them with a mentor. This same goal setting and achievement could be done without pursuing the congressional award as well. If a college sees that you’re the one who planned and achieved that goal, it will be intriguing, regardless of whether it was done as part of a formal program or award.

Are there other opportunities that TCKs could pursue when they might not have access to the kind of cool extracurriculars that are available to domestic high school students?