Our Story
Welcome To Your College Concierge!
If you’ve landed here, you’re likely in the throes of some type of code red state of emergency, wondering both where - not to mention, if - you (or your child) will get into the college they want, let alone how the {insert bad word here} you’ll pay for it.
We Get It -You’re Definitely Not Alone
And You’re In The Right Place.
I’m Peter ‘College Pete’ Ratzan, the founder of Your College Concierge, the first curated college-specific marketplace with tools, tips and resources to make your entire college journey easy and enjoyable!
For the past 18 years, my wife Jill and I have made it our life’s work to make college accessible and affordable, and the process of applying to it – painless – for regular, normal families (like ours – see ‘Our Story’ below). But after nearly maxing out our bespoke, 1-1 college coaching services (and determining that Jill couldn’t – or wouldn’t – clone me), we decided to cull 18 years worth of content and contacts to build you an end-to-end college planning and college lifestyle service.
Here’s a little bit more about our life and personal college journey
What she said...
I met Peter on my very first day of college and he instantly fell madly in love with me. After we graduated, he followed me to Washington, DC (stalker much), and we both went on to receive MBAs. Peter is an over-achiever so he actually received his Masters and his MBA. You know what else we got? A whole boatload of student loan debt. So, teaching - Peter’s true passion - was no longer a realistic option. After working our collective butts off in corporate America to pay back our aforementioned student loans, Peter was finally able to combine his love for education and his expertise in finance and opened a boutique college planning firm with the sole purpose of preparing students for college and keeping their parents from losing their life savings – and their sanity - in the process.
What he said...
Jill exaggerates! We met on the first night of college. The rest is completely true. 😉 She did, however, leave out that I was a high school social studies teacher and basketball coach (which I loved doing), that SHE FOLLOWED ME to Miami (before we both decided to move to DC), and we also have two pretty cool children… one of whom graduated from Drexel University in Philadelphia and is now a social worker at a local high school – and applying to grad school. And the other is a soon-to-be rising senior at Tulane University. We’ve got two more tuition checks to go. Both kids got institutional scholarships and are debt- free; so, in the words of Hair club For Men Founder/president Sy Sperling, I too am not just the President of YCC, I’m also a customer.