Six parts, applied patiently over the high school years.
The Aquinas Methodology is the framework we have refined over more than three decades of preparing students for the most selective universities. It is not a curriculum and it is not a checklist. It is a way of thinking about how a young person grows into the kind of applicant a college is glad to read.
- 01
Personal Insight
We spend a great deal of time, especially in the early years, helping students come to know themselves as readers and writers do: their interests, their convictions, and the questions they find themselves returning to. This is the work that admissions officers read for most carefully, and the work that other firms most often skip.
- 02
Academic Trajectory
We help students and their school counselors choose coursework that reflects genuine intellectual interest and the appropriate level of challenge. Our work here is always done in partnership with the student's school, never around it.
- 03
The Distinctive Endeavor™
Over several years, most of our students develop a single, meaningful project, initiative, or body of work that becomes the heart of their application. We help students choose that project carefully and follow it through.
- 04
Public Record
Research, publications, and recognition matter when they reflect real work done in good faith. We help students identify and pursue opportunities for which they are ready, and to share what they have done in a way that is both honest and clear.
- 05
Network Architecture
Strong letters of recommendation grow out of strong, long relationships with teachers and mentors. We help students build and sustain those relationships, and we are careful never to substitute introductions for genuine connection.
- 06
Narrative Engineering
When the time comes to write, we work with each student on essays, supplements, and interview preparation that reflect who they have become. Every word is written by the student, with a senior editor at their side.
“A strong application is the natural conclusion of many years of careful work: the books a student chose to read, the questions she found herself asking, the teachers who came to know her well, and the projects she pursued because they mattered to her. Our role is to recognize that work as it is taking shape, to help refine it, and to make sure that, when the time comes, it is presented to admissions readers exactly as it deserves to be.”