When scores are optional, the rest of the application has to speak for your student.

Here's what you're up against.

Picture your student this winter, logging on for an interview from the kitchen table, then going back to an essay draft that still does not sound like them. Every part of the application is a chance to show who they are, and that is a lot of pressure for a young teenager.

You have a parent statement to write and recommendations to request. The advice online is confident and rarely specific to Choate, and it is hard to know what to emphasize when testing is optional.

None of that is your fault, and none of it means your student is not ready. It means they deserve clear guidance and honest notes on their own writing, from people who know how selective admissions works.

We went through this. That's why we built it.

Growing up in Fairfax County, I applied to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, and my parents signed me up for a prep program. The instructor had never set foot inside TJ. There were 30 students in a single classroom, almost no feedback on our writing, and templates that had nothing to do with the real application. On test day, we realized we had been preparing for something else.

My friend Vishnu was right there with me, in the same classroom, with the same feeling that families deserved something better. We talked about it all through high school and into college. Vishnu passed away far too young, but his conviction never left me. EduAvenues carries his belief forward: if you are going to do this, do it right, and do it for the families who need it most.

So we built what should have existed.

After UVA's McIntire School of Commerce and five years in financial services, including time at Goldman Sachs and at Evergreen by Alpine Investors in private equity, I walked away because this mattered more. I also served on the Board of Directors of the TJHSST Partnership (Endowment) Fund. This isn't just work for me. It's personal.

Choate families deserve that same honesty. When scores are optional, the essays, the parent statement, and the interview have to speak for your student. Our instructors give notes on your student's own essays and on your parent statement, and help your student practice for the interview so it feels like a conversation.

Today our instructors include graduates of schools like Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, and UVA, and our team has spent more than a decade helping families through selective admissions. Meet the EduAvenues instructors.

And we built it to fit into your family's life. Lessons are online and self-paced. Prep should work around school, sports, music, and family dinners, not replace them.