The questions parents ask.

The right program depends on three things: your child's grade, the time you have, and the specific goals in front of the family.

The fastest way to figure this out is a 20-minute fit call. We will ask about academics, testing, extracurriculars, and the schools your child hopes to attend, and recommend the program that fits, including telling you "no Altior program is right for you" if that is the honest answer.

Yes. The Urgent and Specific Help program is designed exactly for this. Focused, short engagements on a specific deliverable like a personal statement, a deferral letter, a transfer application, or a scholarship submission.

For full college list strategy and four-year planning, our longer programs are a better fit, but we are flexible about scoping and we will recommend what makes sense for your family.

We respect those firms and several of our mentors have worked at them. The differences come down to three things.

Founder background. Altior was founded by Eric Lee, with degrees and study from Yonsei, Korea University, Harvard, and Wharton, plus years near Stanford. That breadth of personal experience inside the schools we coach toward is uncommon in the industry.

Cultural framework. The Korean discipline methodology, structured cadence, direct feedback, and multi-year planning is the way we built Altior from day one. Most US firms have to layer this on top of an American consulting culture. We started here.

Honest fit. We will tell a family when we are not the right fit. We are not built for high enrollment volume. We are built for families willing to sustain the standard we set.

We keep the practice small on purpose. Each lead counselor takes no more than 10 new families a year, which lets us go deep on each student. We accept new families on a rolling basis until those seats are filled.

If we are at capacity when you inquire, we will say so directly and offer a wait-list date.

Every student has a 60-minute planning meeting each quarter, with brief checkins between: 4 a year in 9th and 10th grade, 8 in 11th and 12th. Juniors and seniors add milestone sessions when the year calls for them. Parents get a written report monthly in 9th and 10th grade and every two weeks in 11th and 12th.

Between meetings, your student works the quests in Ascend and can message their mentor. Drafts and questions get a reply within one business day.

By email and by phone, both. We treat every family question as a real one, large or small, and we respond promptly. For urgent matters, same day. For everything else, within one business day.

Both. The student is in the driver's seat of the work, and the planning meetings are with them. Parents see progress in Ascend, get a written report on a set schedule, and join a family review with Eric two to four times a year, and we are reachable to parents directly by email and phone whenever the family wants to talk.

Every Altior student is paired with one of our senior mentors as their primary advisor. That mentor leads the planning meetings and checkins, and is the family's point of contact for the duration of the program.

For long-term programs, the founder also holds family reviews two to four times a year, so families always have a senior mentor on the front line and a founder-level perspective on the trajectory.

Yes. Every senior mentor at Altior holds a degree from an Ivy League school or a peer institution like Stanford, MIT, Duke, or UChicago. We require this because it is what gives our mentors the credibility to advise students about those exact schools.

We are also clear with families about the difference between "Ivy graduate" and "former admissions officer." Our mentors are graduates of those universities. They navigated those admissions processes themselves and have spent the years since teaching others to do the same.

Yes. Mentor fit matters, and we would rather rematch than let a poor fit drift. Tell us in writing if it is not working and we will pair the student with a different senior mentor at no additional cost.

We support English, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese in family communications. Mentor sessions with the student are conducted in English, the language US admissions are written in. Strategy conversations with parents can be conducted in any of the four.

No. Any consultant who guarantees admission is not telling the truth. Admissions decisions are made by admissions officers, not consultants. What we commit to is a written plan, steady work, and reports that show you where things stand. If we ever fail to deliver the cadence, mentor support, or work product we promised, we make it right.

The honest answer is this happens, and it does not necessarily mean anything went wrong. Stanford has a 3.68% acceptance rate. MIT is at 3.5%. Strong, well-prepared students get rejected from these schools every year. Our role is to maximize the chances and to make sure the application reflects the very best version of your child.

What we promise is an honest school list with realistic targets and authentic stretch goals, an application that is the strongest your child is capable of producing, and a thoughtful Plan B that does not depend on a particular outcome.

No. Ever. We do not draft or ghostwrite essays under any circumstance. Every word that goes into a student's application is the student's own work.

What we do is push, edit, challenge, brainstorm, and rewrite together until the student's authentic voice is producing work at the level their target schools expect. The student does the writing. We do the coaching.

It varies by program.

• Middle School Early Start. About 3 to 5 hours per week.
• Freshman to Senior. About 5 to 10 hours per week, increasing in junior year.
• Junior Intensive. About 10 to 15 hours per week. This program asks for real time.
• Urgent and Specific Help. Highly variable, often very intensive for a short period.

This is in addition to schoolwork, not in place of it. Families enrolling should be confident the time exists in the schedule. If it does not, we should talk about which program or timing actually fits.

We will say so on the fit call. The Korean method requires the student to engage seriously and consistently. If your child is in a place where that engagement is not realistic right now, the program will not work and we would be wasting your investment.

In that situation, we will recommend a different timing, a different program, or sometimes a different consultant. Honest fit comes first.

Materially involved, but not in the day-to-day work. The most successful Altior families have parents who protect the cadence at home, attend the quarterly strategy reviews, trust the mentor relationship, and communicate openly with us when something is off.

Parents who try to do the student's work for them are the most common cause of program failure. We are direct with families about this on the first call.

Yes. The International Students program is built specifically for families in Korea, China, India, Singapore, the UK, the Middle East, and elsewhere. All sessions are conducted by video call. We work across time zones.

Yes, when families want us to. Our International Students program is intentionally end-to-end. From early planning, through admissions, through the move to the United States, the first years on campus, major and internship choices, and the long arc of life and work in America after graduation. We walk the entire path with you, from A to Z.

Not at all. We work with students from US high schools, Korean high schools (including and SKY-track schools), IB Diploma programs, A-Levels, and international curricula. Each system maps to the US application differently, and we know how to translate.