Jamie Reich, long time educational consultant and college advisor, is a superwoman. A college advisor, businesswoman, mother, and author, Jamie is doing it all. Recently, she has moved back to Port Washington.
Jamie says the goal of her independent college advising business is, “To stay on top of her students, giving them advice, so that they don’t look at the college admission process and say, ‘Oh my God it’s so overwhelming, I can’t do this’. I give it to them, as they need it.”
She explains her methods through the example of eating a steak:
“If I put a steak in front of you, an entire steak with the bone and I say, ‘OK eat it,’ how do you do it? You take a bite, you chew it, you swallow it, and then you cut the next piece. Nobody can look at an entire steak and shove it in their mouths and swallow. It doesn’t work like that. It’s the same thing with the college process. I can just break it down so that they can manage it, they aren’t so overwhelmed.”
She sees students from Port, Manhasset, Roslyn, Manhattan, and even Skypes with different high school kids from around the world. Having her own four kids helps her understand what each kid needs, and how to keep them realistically on track and organized throughout the process.
“I think that organization is the most important thing to get through the college process. I think it’s the most important thing for everything in life” she says. “It’s the way I was able to handle four children under seven an a half years. I can stay on top of the student and help them to be calm.”
Jamie is not some outsider looking in on the college process. She’s been keeping up to date on how colleges change and reshape. On top of being a college advisor, she’s also a professional member of Independent Educational Consultant Association and is very proud of it. She’s visited more than 75 different schools, taking tours and information sessions. Recently she returned from visiting Stanford and Berkley College. She says happily that, “Everywhere I go, I visit colleges. That keeps me up to date and also keeps me young. I find that students of colleges always love to talk about their school, so I sit in the dinning hall and I speak to them, get all kinds of information you can’t get from a tour or info session. This is real life information.”
Jamie Reich is truly involved on her profession. Her dedication and love for helping students allows her to hold a personal touch. She’s able to focus on each kid individually. “I’m learning so much from every one of my students, because everyone is different,” she says, expanding on her methods. “There is no cookie cutter method working with kids for the college process, because no kid is the same. So everything has to be tailored individually and that’s what we work very closely on: that we’re able to find the right place: a match is very important.”
She invests herself in her students and treats them with the same respect and diligence as she would her own children. To her, it’s important that she was a mother first. Her student’s become her kids. Her generosity, patience, and ability to understand are unmatched. She has experience.
Alongside her work as a college consultant, Jamie is the president and co-founder of Cancer Cured Kids: a program to assist children with cancer in the school re-integration process by addressing their emotions and psychological needs.
In spirit of her calm nature, Jamie Reich’s college advising practice is built entirely on recommendation. Right now, she’s working with the fourth child from one family. She’s someone who stays with the family.
“I am aware of how kids are, even if they’re from the same family, different. I appreciate their differences, and applaud them in the areas they shine. I’ve gotten to know kids and teens, and what they need, when they need to push back and when they need you to be more on top of them,” Jamie says.
On top of her college advising business, Jamie Reich is also the co-author, along with Wesley Berkowitz (a guidance counselor for 33 years at The Wheatley School in Old Westbury), The Book Of Answers: The Experts Guide to Navigating College Admission, published in 2014.
This book is no ordinary college admissions book; made of entirely Q and A, it is designed for the true high school student and parent. She laughs, “You tell me what kid is going to be reading a 300 page book on the college advising process while they are also studying for the SATs, ACTs, studying to do well in school, doing other extracurricular? They’re not doing that. It’s not happening. So I wanted to create something that was very user friendly.”
Jamie Reich recollects, “In creating this book, I felt that the most important thing was for parents and students to be able to read it, refer to it, and know there are parts of it that they don’t need; it’s written for the student who wants answers. And I think every student does.”
She reassures her students that, “You don’t have to be scared. I handhold every step of the way. We will finish this early and quickly and successfully. I don’t want to feel the pressure myself and I don’t want them to feel the pressure. I just love the entire interaction with my students and their parents. There is not one day that I don’t feel fulfilled. I think working with children at this time in their lives is very special.”
As a native Long Islander she is familiar with the school systems. “I know how they work. I know the personalities of these different towns, so I know the personalities of the people and how to address certain issues, that I couldn’t if I wasn’t from here.” She knows the kids of Port unlike any other.
Last December, she moved back to Port.
After growing up in Roslyn herself, she started raising kids in Port and then moved and stayed in East Hills for a remaining twenty-seven years. Now she’s back in Port.
“I recently moved back to Port Washington and I couldn’t be happier. I came full circle,” she says half a year later.
She says she moved back to Port because, “My kids were grown and I knew I wanted to simplify things. The only place I really wanted was Port because I think it’s a town that encompasses everything you could ever want. It offers a good life style. I know a lot of my friends’ kids, as they’re getting married, are looking at Port. So it’s going to remain a young town. I also really like the diversity. Port really has a wide variety of cultures, religions, and races. In my days as a college advisor I learned that we learn from differences, not sameness. I think there’s a great combination of everything. I could have moved anywhere, but I knew I wanted to move back to Port.”
Jamie looks forward to spending her days closer to her own children as she ushers in new waves of college bound students, and comes home to a place in Port near the water.
