Here five reasons how an educational consultant can help your student with college admissions:

1. Educational consultants do not guarantee students admission to any particular college. They do, however, assist students with the college search to find schools that are a good fit and affordable at the same time. They also provide information and assistance with financial aid, scholarships, and the FAFSA form. They know that some colleges are more generous with financial aid and scholarships and encourage students to include a few of these on their college list if they are a good match.

2. Educational consultants have the time and interest to help your student with anything pertaining to the college admissions process. They are available to talk with parents as questions arise. They advise students on what courses to take in high school, when to take the SAT and ACT, college visits, and even do mock interviews to help students prepare for meetings with college representatives. College counseling and assisting students with their applications and essays is their job and they are not limited in the time they can spend or distracted by other responsibilities.

3. Educational consultants make a point of finding schools that are interested in seeing your student graduate in four years, rather than the usual, five, six or more. Paying for two additional years of college can really add up. Most parents would be surprised to see the low four year graduation rate at many schools. The average six year graduation rate for colleges and universities in the U.S. is 54%, yet many schools are graduating 60% or more of their students in four years. This makes better sense to most parents.

4. Educational consultants help to keep your student organized in order to meet all deadlines for applications, supplements and financial aid and scholarships. Students appreciate having a schedule and completing an application so that there is plenty of time to review it before it must be submitted. This helps them feel more in control of the college admissions process. Colleges all have different application deadlines from November through June and many will not accept applications if they arrive late.

5. Educational consultants adhere to strict standards and have one purpose in mind: Helping your student navigate the college admissions process. They are trained in college counseling and attend national and state conferences to continue their professional development. They are active in professional organizations like the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) and Higher Education Consultants Association (HECA).

Most educators believe that more time and thought needs to go into college planning and helping students with the college search. Hiring an educational consultant to assist with this process has made a lot of sense to many parents and has helped their students make better college decisions. As one father commented, “If I am spending this kind of money on a college education, I want the best advice I can get.”

Hotel consulting is counseling and advice for those interested in or currently investing in the hospitality or hotel industry. Skilled hospitality real estate advisors work with clients to make important business and investment decisions with the use of analysis, research and valuations.

Who Needs Hotel Consulting?
If you are thinking about making an investment in a hotel, or are currently financially involved in the hotel or gaming industries, you can benefit from a qualified hotel consultant. Whether you are looking to elevate your assets, receive guidance on real estate litigation, or learn more about your investment through analysis, a specialized hotel real estate firm with true professionals will help you.

Why Hire a Hotel Consultant?
Relying on experts in the hotel real estate and hospitality industries, helps ensure that you make informed decisions about current or potential investments. Utilizing counselors and their wealth of resources as well as their access to research and analysis could potentially save you from embarrassment or bad real estate decisions. Working with a team of counselors gives you the unique opportunity to share and receive opinions, advice and concerns about your investment.

Finding an Experienced Hotel Consultant
Do your research when beginning the process of hiring a hotel consultant to help with your investment. Look into well-known firms with years of experience in the industry to ensure the guidance you will receive will be from an expert in the industry. Your hospitality investment consultant should be able to answer your questions and provide insight on scenarios you may not have thought of. In the end, your transaction will go smoothly and the relationship you form with your consultant will continue to lead down the road to success in your investment.

Monica Benger is a Littleton, Colorado-based freelance writer and editor. For more than 8 years, she has been focused on creating content for small and mid-size businesses including Hospitality Real Estate Counselors (HREC), experienced specialists in the hotel consulting and brokerage industry.

Case study interviews test potential management consultants in various ways through giving candidates a small problem to work through in an allotted period. First, they test the strength of a potential consultant’s problem-solving abilities. Second, they test how new consultants deal with unexpected and unfamiliar situations. Third, they evaluate how well the interview subject processes information. Finally, case study interviews were designed to demonstrate how well potential consultants work as a team.

What to do in Advance

Some firms, like Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company, and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) provide practice case studies and offer advice for interview preparations. It is advisable to do background research in advance. Before an interview is scheduled, already known facts should include the consultancy’s preferred methodologies, the names of the key players at the firm, and the types of clients and cases the firm works on. Recent press releases are helpful for researching the company and its current projects.

In addition to case studies found on websites, the business section of your local newspaper (or The Wall Street Journal) is helpful. Many news reports in this section provide case study preparation materials. Practice answering questions about how you would advise the company, what this advice would be based upon, and what would have to be worked out before continuing the process.

How to Prepare

In addition to collecting news articles, sample case study questions, and background information on any of the firms you will interview with, it’s important to practice how you would answer questions during the interview. Here are a few tips.

1. Use online, interactive, practice cases studies. You can find great case studies on company websites. For example, Bain & Company offers three practice case interviews to practice with in their applications area. Use case studies from the companies you will be interviewing for.

2. Look at recent press releases from the company you are interviewing at. What sort of work will be involved? Who will the clients be?

3. Practice creating a case from a newspaper article. If this company were your client, what would you advise them to do? Why? Work through the case as if you were in the interview situation.

4. You may want to purchase a book of case interviews such as How to Get into the Top Consulting Firms: A Surefire Case Interview Method by T. Darling or Case in Point: Complete Case Interview Preparation by Marc. P Cosentino and work through their example cases. These books will also give you additional tools to help you work through the cases.

5. Find a partner to practice with. Perhaps you have a colleague, friend, or family member who is willing to walk you through some of the cases in the books. The Cosentino book features a guide for those helping you to practice, instructing them on how to ask questions and reveal new parts of the problems.

6. For team work cases, organize a group to work through cases together. This is best when you are in an MBA program, or if you have a group of friends who are applying to work as consultants.

7. Speak answers into a digital voice recorder, play back the tape, analyze what could be better, and what worked.

On the Day of the Interview

During the interview, it is vital to come off relaxed and confident. Make sure the question and example are understood. Restating the case can be helpful. Do not be afraid to ask questions. Be ready for anything. Additional information regarding the case may be presented at any time. Speak slowly and clearly. Finally, structure the argument so that it is easier for your interviewer to understand your position.

Example Case Studies

Your client is a large bank is purchasing a large rewards credit-card franchise. They have two competing teams arguing about the new acquisition: either they can turn this franchise global, offering reward incentives to those with exclusive bank accounts, or they can keep the franchise open to any who buy into the program. To help your client, you will need to compare the potential for profit on both options and decide what would make the better outcome for the company. Be sure to list your reasons for your decision.

Your client is a realty company hit hard by the current recession. They hired you to recommend strategies to make the economic downturn profitable for them. You will need to work out ways they can market and position themselves for long-term growth and recovery. Once the problems with their current approaches have been identified, work out a strategy that will have the realty company bounce back.

Your client has been making sports apparel for adults for years and wants to open a new, children’s division. They hired you to find out whether this would be a profitable decision. Assess the potential for income from this business. Explain what areas you would need to explore to determine whether this would be a profitable business venture. What potentials for growth will your client have if they expand? What are the most cost effective ways for your client to expand? Why do you choose these methods?

Whether you are considering opening a business or you have an existing business you have a lot to think about. It is almost impossible to oversee every aspect of the business from marketing to shipping, human resources to information technology management. For many of these things you will need to outsource and one of the most important things you can do for the long term health of your business is to select the right partner for IT consulting.

When you’re thinking of approaching a company for IT consulting something you have to consider is that your employees will need to have support at all times. Before you enter into a contract with a company that is going to provide consulting services for you, you need to know that you will have an available help desk twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. The people that work for you might not necessarily be keeping regular hours and you might have important projects due for clients. It’s important that your IT consulting company is behind you at all times.

You should talk to potential IT consulting firms to see if they have the ability to prioritize projects effectively. There are going to be some things that simply involve an upgrade to systems that are not nearly as time sensitive as other matters. If you talk to the company that you’re thinking of using and suggest different scenarios for problem situations, they should be able to give you the answers you want to hear about implementing solutions immediately when they are required.

IT consulting companies should be able to provide you service level commitments that outline acceptable downtime for systems. It may not be possible to keep all systems running at all times, but it is important to know that the company you are working with is able to maintain a standard and will stand behind their commitments in terms of keeping your information resources accessible.

Whenever you are looking to outsource any kind of work, you need to get assurances that it will fall within your budget constraints. If you’re considering outsourcing IT consulting this is no exception. You should get a quote for an all-inclusive service contract that will allow you to know how much you will have to spend to get the services you require. Outsourcing is all about improving your bottom line by getting someone else to do the work that you can’t at an affordable price. You need to do long term budgeting to improve your bottom line and IT consulting should be a fixed expense.

Make sure to talk to your IT consulting firm about constant system monitoring. It’s important to have somebody available if you ever find a problem, but it would be much better if they were able to find the problem before you do and seamlessly develop a solution. Systems issues can cause your business to grind to a halt, and if you deal with an IT consulting firm that has the answers in place before problems arise, you can avoid losing business due to systems issues.