I just got back from the IECA conference in Baltimore. Three days with the best college counselors in the country. Sessions on Class of 2027 testing reversals, Early Decision math, the new Common App activities section. I came home with one observation I cannot stop thinking about.
We are all very good at building things for the kid. Almost none of us are naming the mental load that the mom is carrying. And nobody is building the toolkit to take any of it off her.
The mom carrying it all
When my older son Jake started his college process, I figured I had this. I had been a school counselor for over fifteen years. I knew the FAFSA. I knew the rhythm of senior year. I had walked hundreds of other families through this exact season.
What I did not know was how much I was about to be carrying.
It was not just the grief that broke me with Jake (though there was plenty of that). It was the WEIGHT. The mental load. The invisible carrying nobody saw and nobody acknowledged. I was the one who knew when every deadline was. I was the one who remembered the test dates and the scholarship windows and the visit weekends and the rec letter follow-ups. I was the one who held all of it in my head at 11pm and then again at 3am and then again on my drive to work the next morning.
Jeff was a great dad. Jeff is. But Jeff was not the project manager. I was. Just like every mom I have ever worked with has been. We carry it. We carry all of it. The college process just turned the volume up on the carrying.
What our industry calls you
The college admissions industry treats the mom like she is “involved.” Like that is a word that covers what she is actually doing.
She is not just involved. She is running a small business with one client (her kid) and seventeen vendors (the colleges, the testing companies, the rec writers, the scholarship orgs, the FAFSA, the counselors). And she is doing it on top of her actual job and her marriage and her body and her parents and her house.
Nobody calls THAT what it is. Nobody builds for it.
What I noticed in Baltimore
Three days at IECA. Brilliant people, brilliant sessions, every technical detail of the Class of 2027 cycle taught well. Not one session on the mental load moms carry. Not one panel on what to actually do for the project manager of the whole operation. Dashboards for counselors. Apps for students. The mom doing the most logistical work in her own household has nothing built for her hand.
That is the gap. That is what I have been trying to fix without quite having the words for it. Coming home from Baltimore, I finally had them.
The brand is for the mental load.
A different kind of late night
A few months ago, on a random Tuesday in March, I got an email from a school my younger son Josh is interested in. Their business program is changing the direct admit requirements. My brain started doing the thing it used to do during Jake’s process. The tabs. The spiral. The list of things to add to the already-too-long list in my head.
The Jake-version of me would have tried to hold it all in my head alone.
The Josh-version of me did something different. I poured the wine, sat down, and started outsourcing. I opened a Google Doc and broke it down. The policy change. What it affects. What questions to ask. The new timeline. I gave it to myself in writing so my brain could put it down.
And as I worked, I realized I was naming the room I needed. I was three months into building the Parent Collective. The room I wished I’d had with Jake. AND I was building the toolkit moms actually need — the playbooks, the checklists, the “here is what to actually do” templates that take some of the load off the mom’s brain.
The Collective is brand new. It opened this year and I am still building it. The toolkit is being built alongside it. The whole point: you should not have to carry every single moving part of your kid’s college process in your head. I am carrying some of it on your behalf.
And the cycle just added more weight
While we are talking about it, the Class of 2027 application cycle just dialed up the mental load. Testing requirements are back at sixty-plus schools, including every Ivy except Columbia and the entire Florida and Georgia public university systems. USC and Michigan just added binding Early Decision rounds. UGA dropped a supplemental essay, UVA pulled their diversity prompt, and there are more changes coming before August.
What that means in plain English: more to track. More to remember. More to add to the list at 11pm — the list you are ALREADY carrying for everything else in your life.
No. That is not how this should work.
That is exactly the kind of moving target I track on your behalf so it does not have to live in your head.
There are options on the kid side
Some of you, the second I name the room for the mom, are going to wonder if I forgot about the kid. I did not. The kid work is half of what I do. It is just not the half I had to fight to invent.
The kid side of my world has options. Pick what fits your family.
The Dream Team is one-on-one counseling for the kid, year-round, all the way through. List-building, essays, test strategy, decisions. For families who want a counselor in their kid’s corner the whole way.
The Personal Statement Huddle is small-group essay coaching. Four moms, four kids, four weeks, all on Zoom. For families who want essay help without the full year.
The podcast, the Thursday email, the weekly newsletter. That is the path most of you are on right now, and it is not less than. It is what fits.
Pick what fits your kid. Pick what fits your family. Pick what fits your wallet. Pick what fits your sanity. None of it is a test.
Two seats at the table
This is the whole thesis.
I am a counselor for the kid AND a counselor for the mom. Most counselors are very good at the first half. Almost none are building the second half. The mom is doing a parallel job, holding the mental load of the whole operation, and nobody is helping her do it.
That is the part I built.
The kid gets a counselor for the strategy. The mom gets a counselor who carries some of the load. Who tracks what she does not have time to track. Who builds the tools that take some of the items off her mental list. Who names the weight she is already carrying so she does not have to do that part alone too.
The most-involved mom in the carpool line is not asking to be coddled. She is asking to be acknowledged and equipped. I am the one who finally treats her like the project manager she already is.
Same brand. Same family. Two seats at the table. Both because both are needed.
If you have been doing this alone, the door is open. The Parent Collective is here. You are a mom carrying a load nobody else sees. You are in.
