I found out today that my company offers a free benefit to Bright Horizons which includes college coaching sessions and essay reviews for my dependents. Does anyone have any feedback on BH for this service? It’s free to me, so just wondering about their credibility and experience level. Thanks!!
MOD NOTE: This service appears to be a work benefit for this employee.
I don’t have any feedback, but in your research, ask the Bright Horizons counselor(s) for references. Also ask them if they are affiliated with professional associations…such as NACAC, IECA, or their state ACAC. If not, ask why not…counselors in these associations have to adhere to certain educational requirements as well as ethics policies.
We used it for my kid last year bc it was a free benefit and I was impressed. You can’t get a single counselor working with you (you submit essays and different staffers review and comment), but I found all their counselors helpful – especially earlier in the fall (I think everyone got a little busier closer to January deadlines). You can get a list of schools based on you/your kid filling out what they are most interested in (and add schools you have already identified). They came back with a helpful chart that let us feel more confident in the research we had done already – had columns for things we specified and overall ratings for my kid’s likelihood of admittance based on stats (these were pretty accurate – but my kid wasn’t applying to many of the under 10% acceptance schools and was submitting all test scores (SAT and APs), which I think can make results a little easier to predict). We also maxxed out their essay reviews – we had 15 total – and found their comments detailed and helpful. We used one of those reviews to have them look at the activity list to get feedback on how to best describe activities in the limited space on the common app. I know a little about college applications as someone who has done alumni interviews (for 2 Ivy schools) for 25+ years; my husband also knows a fair amount bc/o his work (though really everything is changing so rapidly!) – and we just weren’t up for paying a bunch of money for a private counselor – esp bc/o my kid’s particular interests (a strong student but not interested in small liberal arts institutions, more focused on larger publics and wouldn’t ED anywhere). Kid was at a large public high school and the counselors there were helpful when my kid or I asked specific questions, but a lot was expected of the kids themselves in terms of staying on track with everything. Having someone else to offer my kid suggestions and to keep them on track (somewhat) was very helpful. Sadly, my husband’s office stopped offering the BH benefit this year, and knowing how hard it was to wok with my kid to get everything done, I’m not sure what we will do with the younger sib next year.
Great to hear. Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, we used it last year and I found it helpful. It was another set of eye’s on my son’s essay and they also gave feedback on his activities resume. They also did a “customized” college list for my son. It’s free through my husband’s employer. We’ll use it again this year for my other son.