Tom and Ardeth Meier
We are a husband and wife business team and have worked together for 30 years. We function well as a team because we understand division of labor. Tom and his team work with the parents helping to find funding or advising on the best ways to fund. Ardeth and her team work with the student in the complete college prep process. This September we will begin our 16th year in this business.
Ardeth’s team meets with students to assess where they are in the college prep process. Ardeth’s team looks at curriculum completed and advise on upcoming curriculum for the student. The team makes recommendations for classes available at a specific school. They advise on preparation for the national testing through SAT or ACT. High school freshman, sophomores, and juniors are provided with a plan to prepare and study for these tests. Online preparation, local prep courses, hard copy study materials, and private SAT preparation consultants are all suggested as possible options for helping the student prepare. We look at the student’s contributions to the community and the responsibility level the student has achieved. We help the student find the proper niche to volunteer in the community looking for areas that fit with the student’s other activities and with the student’s interests. We do not provide cookie cutter service. Each student is treated as a unique individual.
Tom and his team evaluate the cost that the family will incur with college expenses. They give an approximation of any need base funding that may be available. Ardeth’s team may provide insight into the possibility of merit money. The parents are asked to provide the names of 2 to 3 colleges they think might be possible school choices. They may recommend more schools which the parents and student will add to their list and do their due diligence.
70% of our new students are referred by previous students or their parents. Once a family starts their first child in our program, they will start their next child even earlier so that student can benefit even more.
Marcia Haygood
Marcia has been with Advanced College Solutions for over five years. She is a college counselor and the Director of Educational Outreach for Advanced College Solutions. Marcia is a graduate of USC and has taken graduate courses with Pepperdine and has a graduate certification in College Counseling from UCSD. Marcia has worked in the private, public and non-profit sectors.
Marcia combines a professional coaching approach with the genuine passion for helping students. Her youngest daughter is at the University of Iowa on a full scholarship studying Speech Pathology, and she and her husband are enjoying and lamenting an empty nest.
Michelle Osburn
Michelle has been working with Tom and Ardeth for more than 11 years and is an expert in helping transfer students and also works with our graduate students. She is a graduate of CSU Northridge. She has three children who have all been a part of the ACS program. Her son will graduate from Soka University of America this spring. Her older daughter who is a freshman at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and her younger daughter is finishing her junior year in high school.
Nidia Rivera-Ramos
Nidia has worked for Tom and Ardeth for the past 10 years and has grown to be an integral part of the Advanced College Solutions team. While working for ACS, Nidia is also studying Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting.
Melissa Osuna Gonzalez
Melissa has been working with Advanced College Solutions, Inc. for two years and is very delighted to work with students. She is a graduate of the University of California, Riverside, majored in Latin American Studies with an emphasis in Business Administration.
She has worked with college bound and college students for the past 5 years as a Peer Advisor and the Marketing Coordinator’s assistant at the UC Riverside Career Center. She is excited for her daughter Mia Elise to join ACS’s college prep program in 11 years!
Carole Beeson
Carole is a retired classroom teacher from the San Marcos Unified School District. Upon retiring she founded Kid’s College, an after school enrichment program, which is now in six districts in North County San Diego and has served 65,000 kids in the almost 20 years since its founding. After retiring from the executive director position, she is now serving as Program Director of a youth orchestra called, Fortissimo, in a San Marcos elementary school. She enjoys writing, and is working with Advanced College Solutions, Inc. as an editor. She enjoys helping with the essays during the application season.
Gail Miller
Gail has been working with Advanced College Solutions for two seasons and thoroughly enjoys collaborating with students on their essays and teaching some of the writing classes. She is a freelance editor, recently certified as a Professional Editor though UC Berkeley Extension’s certification program. In addition to editing essays for students at ACS, she has also edited resumes and professional personal statements, Internet blogs and correspondence, scientific abstracts and research papers, and a young adult novel. After starting professional life as a teacher and then pursuing a career in accounting, she is now most happy combining her love of teaching with that of editing. ACS provides a perfect forum!
Alana Rosario
Alana graduated from the University of Washington in Business Communications, and was a senior executive assistant for a number of years in Los Angeles. She moved with her family to Temecula last July, and started with Advanced College Solutions in August. Alana is an integral part of the Application and Financial Team, and looks forward to her 4 year old son being a client in ten years
Seth Meier
Seth has been with ACS for two years. He keeps our computers and server happy so that our staff and clients are happy! Seth was in the U.S. Coast Guard for 7 years installing and repairing military communication equipment up and down the Pacific coastline.