Every college admissions cycle brings HelloCollege new reasons to celebrate: competitive acceptances, life-changing scholarships, and students achieving goals they didn’t think were possible. Our Class of 2026 was no exception.
Our survey results reveal that 92% of students were accepted to one of their top three college choices, nearly half (49%) were accepted to their #1 choice, and 76% were accepted to at least one reach school.
Our admissions results add to our strong track record. Across the Classes of 2024-2026, HelloCollege students have been admitted to every Top 50 university and every Ivy League school, plus MIT, Stanford, Duke and more. These stats also reflect the type of results families are looking for when they start working with us.
But behind every impressive acceptance was a parent afraid of making a mistake, a student unsure how to tell their story, or a family navigating the process for the first time.
And when we looked at feedback from the Class of 2026, one statistic stands out.
College Admissions Counseling: Building Confidence
Among the respondents to our 2026 survey, 99.7% of students said they felt more confident applying to college.
For many of college-bound students and their families, college admissions can feel like a moving target that they’re trying to shoot in the dark. HelloCollege Founder & Manager Director, Kevin Krebs, describes our approach as “pulling back the curtain” on admissions process, helping families understand what colleges are really look for and empowering them to take control.
“If you look at our reviews, the majority of our students say, ‘My counselor cared about me. The whole team was responsive. They believed in me, and they took the stress and uncertainty out of the process.'”
– Kevin Krebs, HelloCollege Founder
The Class of 2026 survey suggests that approach made a difference. 98% said HelloCollege made the process less stressful. We replace the stress and uncertainty with strategy, personalized to each student’s needs and goals. “College admissions is not a cookie cutter process,” Kevin says. “There is nuance to how we position your application.”
And it starts with our team of college admissions counselors. We pair each student with a counselor, who gets to know them as a student, a college applicant, and a person. As Kevin describes it, the counselor’s goal is to develop the student, helping them become the best version of themselves rather than chasing prestige and rankings. “If you look at our reviews,” Kevin says, “The majority of our students say, ‘My counselor cared about me. The whole team was responsive. They believed in me, and they took the stress and uncertainty out of the process.'”
And it isn’t just students who feel the pressure. As Kevin jokes, “What do high school kids do? They procrastinate and they make parents crazy.” HelloCollege acts as an intermediary, keeping students on task so parents can stay involved without having to project manage the whole process. And as a result, 99.7% of the Class of 2026 reported stayed organized and met their deadlines.
“As a parent, you want to enjoy this next year, year and a half,” Kevin says. “You don’t want it to be filled with stress and uncertainty.”
What students said about counseling
99.7%
felt more confident applying to college
98%
said HelloCollege made the process less stressful
99.7%
stayed organized and met their deadlines
College Essay Coaching: Helping Students Find Their Voice
When it comes to our survey findings related to college essays and working with our essay coaches, confidence again emerged as another key theme, with 98% feeling more confident about their college essays and 95% reporting their Essay Coach helped them tell a more compelling story.
Chris Bench, HelloCollege’s Director of Essay Services, credits this stat to our student-centric approach: “By learning who our students are—their histories, their interests, their hopes, and their fears—the Essay Coaches can see students as they might not even be able to see themselves.”
What students said about essay coaching
98%
felt more confident about their college essays
95%
said their Essay Coach helped them tell a more compelling story
While we did see the largest reduction of supplemental essays last admissions cycle since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chris believes personal writing will remain important to the admissions process, particularly at highly selective institutions where grades and scores alone can’t distinguish every qualified applicant.
As Chris says, “Essays. help readers to understand students’ character and personalities, qualities that are more important when you recall that admissions readers are creating not a list but a community of learners.”
Academic Tutoring and Test Prep Tutoring: Developing Skills That Last
Our results also show that confidence plays a major role in how students approach challenging subjects and standardized tests.
Tutoring Director Paul Bowden, says the real key is in our people: “It starts with the match. We have a diverse team, and every match is carefully considered—the coach selected is chosen for a reason, with input from across the HelloCollege team. When students are paired with coaches they can trust, they can clearly feel that their coach is invested in their success.”
And HelloCollege students noticed. Of the students who responded to our 2026 survey, 100% reported feeling more confident in the subjects they studied, while 95% said they looked forward to their weekly sessions.
Our tutor goal isn’t simply to help improve a test score or pass a difficult class. It’s to help students develop the independence, skills, and love of learning to tackle whatever comes next. Through deliberate practice, students learn to recognize their strengths, understand their mistakes, and take ownership of their education. It’s why Paul tells families to think of HelloCollege tutoring more like coaching: “Tutors are like Band-Aids—they fix a problem after it already exists,” he explains. “Coaches are proactive.”
HelloCollege’s tutoring test results show the value of our proactive approach. Students who completed 10 or more hours of SAT tutoring improved by an average of 150 points. And students who completed 10+ hours of ACT tutoring improved by an average of 5 points.
What students said about tutoring
100%
felt more confident in the subjects they were tutored in (60 of 60)
95%
looked forward to their weekly sessions (54 of 57)
Results That Matter Beyond College Admissions
When we look back at the Class of 2026, our admissions results are important. But at HelloCollege, our goal is to build lasting confidence that carries each student to the next chapter, and that’s what our student feedback reflects. College admissions last a single season, but the skills and knowledge students build along will last long after stepping foot on campus.
Ready to start your student’s story? Schedule a free consultation with our team to talk through your family’s goals and build a plan that fits.
