Our College Counseling has two phases:
- College Planning Service - to help with the holistic student and skills development
- College Admissions Counselling - Starting from 11th grade spring to help step-by-step through the entire college applications process
We offer private 1:1 College Planning Service:
The college planning session helps students to utilize the high-school years effectively and align their time and efforts with their passion and career aspirations.
The best time to get started is late 8th grade / early 9th grade. But, we are here to help even if you missed an early start.
Note: We offer one time advisory service for 7th graders to help get started. It is too early to create a full plan in 7th grade. (The fees is $200 for this one time advisory service)
Students who have followed the plan have found the later college applications 
process to be less stressful and felt well prepared.
College Planning Services:
Our Planning Process:
- Family meeting with parents and student
- Identifying student’s passion, strengths, and career aspirations
- Mapping to academic goals, personal and skills development
***FREE First 30 mins Consultation***
- Creating Individualized College Plan-
- We will provide individualized 4-years plan (for the school years and also the summer breaks) from academics to extracurricular activities, covering all aspects needed for building a holistic student profile.
- Please come prepared for a long first meeting, as it takes a minimum of 3 to 4 hours with the student and family
- Four follow-up guidance/advisory calls or in-person meetings per year
- Follow-up meetings helps student with mentoring for the implementation of their plan and also offers guidance for any changes that needs to be considered from academics to extra-curricular activities.
- Advisory and Nomination for the following awards (for eligible students)
-
- President's Voluntary Service Awards (PVSA)
- Congressional Awards
ONE TIME PAYMENT FOR COLLEGE PLANNING (covers the entire High School years)
College Planning Service fess = $2000
(for current 8th grader)
College Planning Service fess = $1800
(for current 9th grader)
College Planning Service fess = $1600
(for current 10th grader)
College Planning Service fess = $1400
(for current 11th grader) (Note: Joining late in Semester-2 = $500)
Payment Methods
Zelle pay to greenkidsnow@hotmail.com (no additional fees)
Personal Check (no additional fees): make check payable to "Children's Innovation Center" - P.O. Box 1855, Newark, CA 94560
PayPal payment below will add 3% tax for PayPal processing. You can also use the alternate payment options as stated above.
College Essay Writing Online Course
College Application Preparation and Essay Writing ONLINE-ASYNCHRONOUS course for CommonApp and UC Application
We offer private 1:1 College Admissions Counselling:
Our packages offers 1:1 college admissions assistance and will take your student step-by-step through the full admissions process, offering personalized guidance at every step, which includes:
- Resume Writing
- Offer guidance to students for obtaining Letters of Recommendations from teachers and counselor
- Create a customized college list of recommended “best fit” colleges
- Provide guidance for reporting activities/awards/recognitions and help prepare the descriptions for each
- Guide with academic history reporting
- Help select the majors for each college in the list
- Essay Writing Online Course is included in this comprehensive service
- Brainstorm to help select the right essay questions
- Provide ideation assistance for each essay question
- Unlimited reviews and feedback for essays - via shared folder, until the essays are polished and ready to submit
- Guidance for financial-aid and scholarships
- Admissions Interview prep
- Application full review before submission
Sample Recommended Schedule for Admissions work: (Grade 11 to 12) Starting early, will reduce stress!
- We recommend to start around February of Junior year, so all activities could be spread out.
- February-March: Understanding and data gathering of student's academic and extracurricular activities and achievements
- April-May: Prepare and ensure some important tasks are completed before the end of school year (Junior year).
- June: Student completes the essay writing course. We will then meet 1:1 to brainstorm essay questions, ideation, and work rigorously on all the documents/templates provided for application preparation
- July-December: meet as needed, along with remote guidance, until all applications are submitted.
- January-February: Interview preparation
- March-April: meet as needed to finalize college selection
College Admissions Counselling - Payment Options
Zelle to "greenkidsnow@hotmail.com" - no additional service fees
PayPal will add a 3% service fees.
PLEASE NOTE: If you do not want UC or CSU, then please select PACKAGE-2, as it can be customized with a total of 10 to 12 Private/Out-of-state universities.
College Admissions Counselling - Package 1
UCs + CSUs + up to 3 other colleges using either Common App or Coalition App
$3250
(Fees to be paid in full upfront-no exceptions)
PayPal payment below will add 3% tax for PayPal processing. You can also use the alternate payment options as stated above
College Admissions Counselling - Package 2
UCs + CSUs + up to 6 other colleges (OR) a total of 10 to 12 colleges using either Common App or Coalition App portals
$4000
(Fees to be paid in full upfront-no exceptions)
PayPal payment below will add 3% tax for PayPal processing. You can also use the alternate payment options as stated above
ABOUT US:
Ms. Shanti Balaraman and Ms. Kamala Rajanala together have more than a decade of experience helping many students to get into their top choice colleges.
We guide students to identify their own unique, authentic talents, skills, passions, and interests, and encourage them to pursue their curiosity. Our careful, thoughtful and individualized mentoring helps each student bring out their inner self and share it with the rest of the world, especially to College Admissions Officers.
We have the experience and the natural ability to look at each student as an individual, and we understand that no two students are alike, which is clearly reflected through our guidance that we offer to enable students to stand out. We do not believe in comparing students with others and trying to fit a student into someone else’s mold. So, you will not see any gimmicks or false claims from us.
Our approaches to college counseling have been more pertinent especially during this era of holistic selection process.
Please Note: Ms. Shanti Balaraman also teaches and mentors students in the Emerging Innovators Research Program. She is the current President of Stanford University Chapter of Sigma Xi – The Scientific Research Honor Society.(2022-2024)
Are you ready to start your journey? We'll be with you every step of the way.
Contact Us:
info@childrensinnovationcenter.org
Phone/Text: 510-894-1497
We usually reply within one or two days. If our reply is not in the inbox, please also check spam folder and move it. Please add our email id to your contact list.
Please submit the below form if you are interested in our College Planning and Admissions Counselling Services.
We will contact you back at our earliest.
Congratulations to the Class of 2023!
A very fulfilling year for our admissions counseling services!
This year, 60% of our students comprised of first-generation / underrepresented communities. We guided our students to secure their life-changing college admissions and secure financial-aid. (full-ride tuition aid, merit scholarship, Cal grant, Pell grant, need-based institutional grant, work/study program)
Through our student-centric, comprehensive and personalized counseling and guidance, all of our students have accepted admissions from their top choice colleges!
Here are their final destination colleges and intended majors (Each student had received several other offers and decided to attend the following colleges)
Duke – Biology BS / minor in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Boston University – BS in Business Administration (Information Science focus – minor in Entrepreneurship)
Santa Clara University – Computer Science
Purdue University (2) – Data Science; Computer Engineering
University of Southern California – Computer Science with an emphasis on game design
Indiana University – Kelley School of Business – Business – Economics and Finance focus
UC Berkeley (3)– Computer Science; Civil and Environmental Engineering; International studies (pre-law)
UC LA (2)– Nursing; Computer Science
UC Irvine – Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
UC Santa Barbara – Political Science (pre-law)
UC Santa Cruz – Technology and Information Management
Best Wishes to all students!
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Congratulations to the Class of 2022!
Academic Pathways Taken: Pre-med, Pre-law, Electrical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Computer Science, Business, Economics, Nursing, and Biotechnology.
Many of our students have received merit scholarships - Full-ride, UC Regents, Dean's Scholarship, Partial as large as $120,000 to smallest $5,000!
- UC Berkeley
- UCLA
- UC Davis
- UC Riverside
- UC Santa Cruz
- Purdue
- Cal Poly SLO
- San Francisco State University
- San Jose State University
- Georgia Tech
- University of Washington, Seattle
- Loyola Marymount University
- Santa Clara University
- University of San Francisco
- University of Texas, Dallas
- Arizona State University
- San Diego State University
- Oregon State University
It is notable that we do not pre-screen and pick our students to work with. Students have come to us when other private counselors did not want to take them. We believe that every student can be shown the path to success and the results speak for themselves. It is the mutual belief and trust that creates the positive energy and motivation to pursue academic success.
