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Local Voices

Greenwich small businessman gets students in top schools by Tim Loh

Dr. Paul Lowe is managing director of Greenwich Admissions Advisors, a boutique firm that helps put local students into top-flight schools.

Generally, Lowe and his small staff work with between 200 and 300 clients a year who are applying to elite universities, boarding schools and medical schools. Lowe charges a flat fee that ranges from $1,500 for a several-hour consultation to $25,000 for a several-year consulting process.

Q: How did you get into this line of work? What's the learning curve been like?

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A: I was a physician scientist, worked on Wall Street for a year, was a serial entrepreneur, and a Brown University alumni interviewer for many years in Fairfield County. I discovered as an interviewer that applicants were not really prepared for the college application process.

I became a college admissions adviser about 17 years ago. There was initially a huge learning curve. College admissions is constantly and dynamically changing.

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Q: What schools do you primarily focus on? Why?

A: For college admissions, we focus on the Elite Eight: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell and UPenn, and the top-tier schools like Duke, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, MIT, etc. My wife, three children and I were all accepted to and attended the Ivies, so that's what I know. As an African-American family with West Indian heritage (I was born in Jamaica), it's always been important to me to focus on achieving the very best. It's the ultimate American and now international dream.

Q: What should new clients of yours expect?

A: I focus on successful admissions outcomes. I am enthusiastic and detailed in pursuing this goal and leave no stone unturned in preparing my clients. Many of my parent-clients say that I am a taskmaster, but they know that I truly care about getting their child accepted into top schools. I'm not here to hold hands so that my client can feel great and attend a "good-fit school" or, worse, a safety school.

The process really starts with a question: How can my team and I, using the inherent academic, artistic or athletic qualities of a student, present him/her in a positive light to an admissions committee of seven to eight different people?

Q: Who makes up the bulk of your clientele?

A: About 60 percent of our clients are international families who reside in the U.S. or other countries. The balance is mostly families who reside in the tri-state area. There is an even distribution of student clientele who attend suburban and elite private schools. All of our client-families can afford to pay full tuition to colleges; it was just the natural and organic evolution of my business. I believe that our clientele see our personalized services as an investment in their children's future rather than a cost or an expense.

Q: What should Greenwich parents grasp about getting into a top school?

A: Many U.S. parents have this idea that their children are only competing with other children locally and regionally. They have no idea or may be in denial of global educational competition. They are competing with international parents from Brazil, Russia, India, China and now Africa, who understand the effect of a private, on-call adviser and the global value of a U.S. educational pedigree.

Colleges are focusing on a diverse student body. The students who are accepted are those who can stand out and lucidly articulate their achievements, goals and personalities as future contributing members of an incoming class in a positive light to a committee of 6 to 10 diverse people.

Q: What's the hardest part of your job? What's the most rewarding?

A: Most difficult: When parents assume that they are the admissions experts during their child's admissions journey because they read several books on college admissions or an article on college admissions. Or when they believe that a "connection" will get their child admitted to a school. Parents, in our target market, are very intelligent, well-educated, in many cases well-connected and well-off financially. However, they fail to understand that their skill sets in business, finance, marketing, engineering do not apply or may be detrimental to successfully navigating their child's college admissions process.

Most rewarding: When I see parents and children celebrate the acceptance to their top-choice schools (the family hugs, pets included) or when I'm invited to my client's high school and (four years later) college graduation. They are just happy moments.

For more information, visit http://www.greenwich

admissionsadvisors.com/

tloh@scni.com; twitter.com/timloh

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