COLLEGE CHOICE COUNSELING

Barbara Connolly’s clients come to her at one of the most stressful times of their lives: when they’re applying to college.

As a parent of four children she helped through high school and college, Connolly knows what an intense process it is for both students and parents. That’s partly why she started College Choice Counseling more than 20 years ago.

“I really didn’t understand what the school’s counselors were telling us...I thought there was a need for self-help,” Connolly said. “Once I started doing self-help...I became very expert at it.”

What began as a kitchen table-based referral business has grown into a fullscale company, with a team of 25 professional college counselors and tutors. Her students have been accepted to schools like Michigan, Michigan Ross, UCLA, Harvard, MIT, and many others.

CollegeCC offers tutors for numerous academic subjects for high school and college-level courses, SAT/ACT prep, essay writing, resume preparation, in addition to college application assistance.

She said her holistic approach to educational consulting makes her unique in the field.

Her qualifications do, too. Connolly is a lawyer, professional member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, and former admissions reader at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and the only Certified Educational Planner in Michigan.

She’s an advocate for her students who finds watching them succeed and grow to be very rewarding.

“When they genuinely, independently, come to me with excitement to tell me, ‘Look what I’ve done, look what I’ve achieved,’ that’s very, very gratifying,” Connolly said.

The Hagopian family name is synonymous throughout Metro Detroit for rugs.

Large, antique, and Oriental, anyone decorating a home knows this is the place to go. But what Suzanne Hagopian, of Hagopian World of Rugs, wants people to know of the family business that’s been serving the community since 1939, is the depth and breadth of their offerings.

“We have quite a bit of modern, textural, contemporary things. We have tribal rugs, Tibetan, Deco and '50s mid-century – we have such a wide variety. I’m always looking for cool, interesting, and unique rugs,” she said. They also offer a lot of versatile high-performance and indoor/outdoor rugs, including those made by well-known outdoor fabric company Sunbrella at a variety of price points. “It’s rare to see so much variety in one showroom.”

Suzanne has been in this business for nearly 45 years. She travels the world to source rugs from suppliers who have similar values around quality and craftsmanship. “I like to offer rugs that are unique and fresh.

“My staff is very experienced, and they love rugs as much as I do. We all love the opportunity to help our customers and designers with important decisions around selecting rugs for their home or projects.”

Another thing that sets Hagopian apart is their Free In-home Trial program (FIT). “Customers love trying rugs in their home before they buy.”

“Some of the projects I love to support is our Student Design Competition with College of Creative Studies. We began this project over 30 years ago. Our Concert Series with Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings is another special project that we have supported for over 30 years, where we transform our showroom into an intimate venue for music lovers.”

Hagopian is not only the place for rugs but has been woven into the community for 84 years.