College counselling
Scheduled one to one sessions with the College Counselling Board, from the first question in Grade 11 to the final submission.
University admission grows more competitive every year, and the paperwork is different in every country. A student applying to Warsaw, Amsterdam and Boston in the same season is running three separate processes with three separate calendars, and almost nobody manages that well on their own at seventeen.
IAS runs a College Counselling Board so that they do not have to. Students meet a counsellor one to one, in scheduled sessions rather than in a queue outside an office, and work through the whole thing at their own pace: which countries, which courses, which documents, and in what order.
Where and what to study
The first conversation is rarely about a university. It is about what a student wants to do, and whether the course they are imagining leads there. Only once that is settled does the list of institutions start to make sense, and the counsellor works through entry requirements country by country, because a grade that opens a door in Poland may not open the same door in the United Kingdom.
Students applying in Poland and students applying abroad get the same attention. Both routes are normal here, and a good number of families are weighing one against the other well into the final year.
The earlier a student starts, the stronger their application becomes.
The pattern the counselling team sees, year after year
The personal statement
This is where most students freeze. The counsellor gives them sample statements and real document examples to read first, so they can see what a finished one looks like, and then reads their drafts and gives feedback. The aim is a statement that sounds like the student who wrote it. Admissions officers read thousands of these and can tell within a paragraph when a template has been filled in.
Paying for it
Financial aid is its own maze, and the rules differ depending on whether a student counts as a home applicant, an EU applicant or an international one. The same student can hold all three statuses depending on the country they apply to. The counselling team works through which category applies where, and what that means for fees and for the aid a family can realistically apply for.
The year after the offer
Advice does not stop at the acceptance letter. Where a student lives in their first year shapes how that year goes, so the team talks through the options: a university dormitory, a shared house, or something arranged privately, and what each tends to cost and to be like.
When to begin
Alumni have gone on to study in Poland and abroad, and into careers across many fields. The one thing that separates a strong application from a rushed one is when it was begun. A student who starts in Grade 11 has time to sit the right tests, draft a statement properly and apply to the courses they want. A student who starts in the final term is choosing from whatever is still open.
Planning ahead
Start the conversation early.
The office will put you in touch with the counselling team, in the year that suits your child and not the year it becomes urgent. We reply within one working day.
