Every family arrives at College Torch on the same road. Here's what it looks like, and where it leads.
Late-night Googling. Conflicting advice from every direction. A teen who changes the subject when college comes up. You're not behind, and you're not doing it wrong. You've just never done this before, and nobody hands parents a map.
We don't start with a list of schools. We start with your teen: who they are, how they learn, and where they'll flourish. Fit over prestige, every time. From that self-knowledge, the college list, the essays, and the timeline all become clear.
A list your teen can defend, essays that sound like a real person, and every application submitted by December 15th of senior year. Your family enjoys winter break. In spring, you celebrate. That's the confident end of the road.
My own college search was a panic. I wrote every essay at the last minute and submitted my application on the night of the New Year's Eve deadline. I got into Johns Hopkins, but I arrived on campus not knowing why I belonged there.
Freshman orientationI met the admissions officer who had read my application and told her, "I think you made a mistake." I laughed. She didn't. She said, "we don't make mistakes in my office."
She had imagined me succeeding on that campus. I never had. That gap, between getting in and knowing why you belong, is the reason College Torch exists. My students do the reflection first, so they arrive on campus feeling the opposite of how I felt that day: certain they're exactly where they should be.
The full story, in Robert's own words.
This is the primary textbook high school counselors across the country use to learn college guidance. I authored its LGBTQ+ chapter alongside a professor at Marshall University in West Virginia, because guidance this important has to reach every student: in big cities, in small towns, and everywhere in between.
If your teen is LGBTQ+, you already know the college search carries questions most families never have to ask. Is this campus safe? Will my teen be supported, or just tolerated? Which states, policies, and dorms do we need to think about? Those questions deserve a specialist, not a generalist doing their best.
I'm one of only a handful of consultants in the country who specializes in guiding LGBTQ+ students to safe, happy, supportive colleges. I literally wrote the chapter on it: the LGBTQ+ chapter in NACAC's Fundamentals of College Admission Counseling, 6th Edition, the textbook school counselors nationwide learn from. I evaluate every campus with my 5 Ps framework: People, Places, Policies, Personal, and Pride. Schools that don't meet the bar for genuine safety and affirmation don't go on the list. Full stop.
This work is personal. I grew up in Georgia keeping silent about my identity, and I stayed silent through my first two years of college.
What a waste. No student I work with will lose those years the way I did.
Not all my students identify as LGBTQ+, but more than half do. Whatever your teen's identity, they belong here as long as they're an open-minded ally to others and believe that all people deserve to live safely and authentically.
That means your family actually gets to enjoy winter break. Not rushing. Not panicking. Done, and celebrating.
This promise came directly from my own experience: the New Year's Eve deadline, the terrified last-minute submission, the feeling of not knowing whether I belonged at the school I'd just applied to. My students don't go through any of that.
A well-run process isn't just less stressful. It produces better applications, because your teen has time to think, revise, and write essays that actually sound like them rather than whatever came out at 11:58pm on December 31st.
Every College Torch partnership begins with a free 20-minute Right-Fit Call. We'll talk through where your teen is in the process, what your family needs, and whether we're the right fit for each other. No pressure and no pitch. Just clarity.
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