SUM TOTAL
The families who start early arrive differently
Begin →We Counsel Families — Not Just Students
College planning is often treated as a student-only process. We believe it's a family milestone — one that touches aspirations, expectations, financial realities, and the future your child is beginning to imagine.
Our programs intentionally include parents alongside students so the entire family develops the knowledge, strategy, and shared understanding needed to navigate what's ahead.
"This was the first time our entire family understood the college process. We stopped guessing and started planning together."Parent Testimonial
A Roadmap for Every Stage of the Journey
Early Risers
Grades 8–9
- Build confidence and self-awareness
- Explore strengths and interests
- Align as a family on expectations
- Begin academic planning with intention
Transfer & Graduate
College Students
- Navigate transfer applications
- Essay development
- Strategic positioning
How This Works
College planning is not just a student process — it's a family transition.
Family-Centered Conversations
Students and parents participate in guided discussions about aspirations, expectations, and possibilities — creating space for every voice in the family.
Understanding the Landscape
Families learn how admissions, financial aid, and timelines actually work — from counselors who spent decades inside enrollment offices — so decisions are built on knowledge rather than assumptions.
Aligned & Prepared
With shared information and stronger communication, families approach high school ready to make thoughtful choices with less stress and more confidence.
Families approach the college journey informed, aligned, and confident.
Why We Start Early
Agency Is Built — Not Rushed
Starting early allows families to move from reactive participants to informed decision-makers — with time for the conversations that matter.
We spent decades inside university enrollment offices. We saw the families who arrived prepared — and we saw what it cost the families who didn't. That gap is what we built SUM TOTAL to close.
It's not about accelerating childhood. It's about giving families time, clarity, and choice.
Our Philosophy
College planning is one of the first major transitions families navigate together. It involves aspirations, expectations, financial realities, and important conversations about the future.
We built SUM TOTAL because we saw — from inside university enrollment offices — that the families who started these conversations earlier arrived in a fundamentally different position. Not because they were wealthier or more connected, but because they were informed.
By starting early and including parents in the process, families gain the clarity and shared understanding needed to approach the college journey thoughtfully — rather than reactively.
Frequently Asked Questions
You're asking this question because you're a planner. That instinct is exactly right.
Our early work isn't about college applications — those are years away. It's about helping your family understand what motivates your student, how to make thoughtful academic and extracurricular choices, and how to have productive conversations about the future before those conversations carry the weight of deadlines.
Starting now means more time, more options, and better decisions later.
Most college counselors begin working with families in junior or senior year and focus primarily on the student. We start earlier — because we've seen from inside enrollment offices what happens when families wait — and we include the whole family, because the decisions ahead aren't just the student's to make.
Our approach creates space for shared conversations, aligned expectations, and informed decision-making from the very beginning.
We deeply value our colleagues in school-based college counseling. Our programs prepare families to fully benefit from the services already available at their schools.
When students reach the junior and senior years, they arrive informed, organized, and ready to engage with their school counselor from a position of knowledge rather than uncertainty.
We do not promise admissions to specific colleges — no ethical counselor can. What families gain is clarity, strategy, and preparation: a student who understands their interests and goals, a family aligned on expectations and financial realities, and the communication tools to navigate the years ahead together.
Families consistently tell us the most valuable outcome is the shift in how they talk about the future — from guessing and worrying to planning and understanding.
This is common — especially with 8th and 9th graders. When a young person feels genuinely listened to — not lectured, not directed — they open up.
Our sessions are designed to be engaging and student-centered. We meet them where they are, not where we think they should be.
SUM TOTAL is a new company, but our experience is not. Our founders have spent decades inside university enrollment offices — one as a Vice President of Enrollment, the other as a Director of Enrollment. Both have served as presidents of major regional college counseling organizations.
We started this practice because we saw the same pattern year after year: families arriving at junior year with decisions behind them that couldn't be undone. We believed the counseling industry should serve families earlier — and when no one else did, we built it ourselves.
Start your family's journey
Choose your student's grade level to explore program details, pricing, and how to schedule an introductory conversation.
Schedule a Conversation →A 20-minute conversation — no commitment, no pressure.