About College Prep Counseling

College Prep Counseling is a private educational consulting business with the goal of helping high-school students identify their interests and strengths, and follow their passions. Helping a student learn to follow their passions over many years leads to a well-prepared, motivated student with a good sense of direction, and the secondary benefit of a strong resume that can make all the difference in gaining admission to the colleges that best fit the student's social, academic, and career aspirations.

Beth Pickett, the founder of College Prep Counseling, attended Stanford University, where she graduated with distinction (top 10%).

After college, she became an associate scholar with the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society, accompanying expeditions with the National Geographic Society and the Cousteau Society, and traveling around the world for a year on this experience-based scholarship. She has also worked as a staff editor for the Cousteau Society and as a guest editor for six quarterly issues of Whalewatcher, the Journal of the American Cetacean Society. Later, she was a project manager for both Books and Beyond, a nonprofit educational organization, and for Archipelago Productions, the multimedia division of college publisher Harcourt Brace. She has written more than 50 articles for newspapers and magazines, including an article for Sports Illustrated for Kids. Three of her articles on college admissions topics appeared in the September 2007, October 2007, and January 2008 issues of San Diego Family Magazine. Ms. Pickett completed the coursework toward a Certificate in College Counseling from UCLA with a 4.0 GPA. She was also featured on the cover of the San Diego Union Tribune on April 3, 2008, in an article on independent college consultants.

Ms. Pickett also spent two years as the creator, producer and host of a weekly radio program, Countdown to College Radio Show, which aired on WNSH AM-1570 in Boston, Massachusetts and on wsRadio.com on the internet. The show is aimed at the parents of college-bound high school students, and answers important questions about preparing for college and the admissions process. Topics included:

• Dr. William Dement of Stanford, on the sleep needs of teenagers
• Coach Wayne Mazzoni on athletic recruiting and how to tell whether a high-school athlete has what it takes to play at the college level
• Dr. Suzanne Renna of Harvard University talking about the increased amount and complexity of reading at the college level, and how high-schoolers can be better prepared to meet that challenge
• Martha Barnette on the usefulness, and fun, of developing one's vocabulary, beyond just studying for the SAT
• Troy Hammond on Canadian universities and the options they offer for American students 
• Dr. Fred Zuker, president of Lambuth University, talking about the very predictable 10 stages of emotional ups and downs that students go through as they make the transition from high school to college
• Profiles of Olin College of Engineering, Bard College at Simon's Rock, Wagner College, St. John's College, and the Rhode Island School of Design