First, a huge thank you to the Chai With Moms community for inviting us to speak. We know how overwhelming the college admissions process can feel, and we love being able to share real, practical advice that makes the process clearer and less stressful.

At Sierra Admissions, we’re a small team of former admissions officers who also write constantly about admissions—not just for our private clients, but for anyone looking for expert insights. We believe that access to great information shouldn’t be behind a paywall, so we push ourselves to create some of the best content on the internet about college admissions.

Here are five essential resources we think will be especially helpful for moms and families navigating this process. Some of these are hosted on AdmitReport.com, our site where we share a lot of our content. Another piece is hosted on Reddit, where we write all the time on admissions topics. 

1. The Incredible Power of a Cohesive College Application → The single biggest thing that differentiates a strong applicant from a weak one. This is a must-read.

2. How to hire a college consultant → I (Alex) wrote this guide because of how stressed and confused families were. It went viral on Reddit and then I remade it and improved it on our site.

3. How top schools actually score extracurriculars and soft factors → Not all extracurriculars are created equal. Here’s how colleges actually rank them.

If you want to know more about us, I recommend reading about our wonderful team, our outcomes data, and our California practice (and especially our work on the UC system). 

We hope these resources help, and we’re always happy to continue the conversation! 🚀