FACES:BUSINESS
COLLEGE CHOICE COUNSELING Barbara Connolly, J.D. CEP 648 S. Bates Street, Birmingham, 48009 | 248.294.0099 www.CollegeCC.com
arbara Connolly’s clients come to her at one of the most stressful times of their lives: when they’re applying to college. As a parent of four children she helped through high school and college, Connolly knows what an intense process it is for both students and parents. That’s partly why she started College Choice Counseling more than 20 years ago. “I really didn’t understand what the school’s counselors were telling us...I thought there was a need for self-help,” Connolly said. “Once I started doing self-help...I became very expert at it.” What began as a kitchen table-based referral business has grown into a fullscale company, with a team of 25 professional college counselors and tutors. Her students have been accepted to schools like Michigan, Michigan Ross, UCLA, Harvard, MIT, and many others. CollegeCC offers tutors for numerous academic subjects for high school and
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college-level courses, SAT/ACT prep, essay writing, resume preparation, in addition to college application assistance. She said her holistic approach to educational consulting makes her unique in the field. Her qualifications do, too. Connolly is a lawyer, professional member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, and former admissions reader at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and the only Certified Educational Planner in Michigan. She’s an advocate for her students who finds watching them succeed and grow to be very rewarding. “When they genuinely, independently, come to me with excitement to tell me, ‘Look what I’ve done, look what I’ve achieved,’ that’s very, very gratifying,” Connolly said.