Anyone Know a Well Known Private Grad School Counselor in the SoCal Area?

Graduate School
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<p>One of my friends had a very expensive private college counselor since 9th grade (this counselor only specialized in undergrad admission), and this year he literally got into every college he applied to HYPSMC, Wharton, Columbia (literally zero rejections). This counselor has a very impressive track record, but only does undergrad counseling. </p>

<p>I was wondering if CC knows of anyone in the Southern California area that has a very well known reputation or has a track record of excellence that does grad school counseling, especially for the biomedical sciences? If not, what are CCs opinions on private counselors? I only thought of looking into it after how well it worked for my friend. </p>

<p>If you don't want to post personal information, you can PM me the information.</p>

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<p>I can see a private counselor for Undergraduate admissions, but for grad school - we call those advisors no? I would imagine a PCC is good if they are a former admissions rep, or the like but who are the reps for grad programs - the actual people in the department. </p>

<p>You’re better served networking with someone in the field than hiring a catch-all counselor.</p>

3

<p>Don’t spend your money on a grad school counselor – a better path is simply to forge close relationships with professors at your school. These can be professors with whom you’ve done research, professors whose courses you’ve taken, or just professors you like. </p>

<p>These relationships will serve you much better in your grad school applications than any counselor could. For one thing, better relationships with your professors will enable them to write you better letters of recommendation, drastically increasing your odds of admission. For another, your professors will be, bar none, the best source of advice and information with respect to your application (to which programs you should apply/not apply, things you can do to improve your application, advice on your personal statement, etc.). </p>

<p>Your professors are the people sitting on the admissions committee for the graduate program at your school, so they know exactly what programs like yours are looking to see in applicants. This is very different from undergrad applications, where your high school teachers/letter-writers don’t have any insider information on the process, and a private counselor might be of use. In grad school admissions, you already have a (free!) source of extensive insider information in your professors.</p>

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<p>I don’t know which is more appropriate, adviser or counselor. I guess adviser is more professional sounding. </p>

<p>Anyway, as far as forging relationship with faculty, I already am trying to do that, and I know that is the most important thing, but I was just wondering if anyone knew of an expert who basically either is a retired faculty or has advised so many students that have gone on to top programs that he/she offers help. </p>

<p>Usually faculty at university have full time jobs, and don’t have time to help people, but I was simply asking for someone that has extensive experience with getting people into top positions. </p>

<p>I realize it’s easier to get one for undergrad admissions, but I was just thinking since I know pretty much every serious premed at small, top LACs have premed advisers through their counseling program. Since I go to a state school, I was just wondering if there was a private version of that, only for grad school instead that I could look into because I am really serious about getting into specific places and could use wisdom, insider knowledge, or things of the like.</p>

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<p>g0ld3n: You’re right that faculty you know are important but that they also will only give you so much help. And that’s a real problem with the application system because good students without enough information or help can fall through the cracks. There are indeed professional advisers who help students apply for graduate school (I’m one of them, and still tenured faculty at my university at the same time, so I know what’s going on inside academia). Grad school admissions tend to be far more mysterious and subjective on the part of admissions committees than the mass undergrad admissions to universities because grad programs focus on highly specialized work that requires appropriate faculty expertise for its supervision. Also, they usually get far more promising, truly excellent applicants than they can admit, so have to turn away perfectly capable students. So, personal relationships with faculty who know faculty in the departments you are targeting can make a huge difference since their letters of recommendation come from trusted colleagues. If you have a particularly supportive prof in your undergrad years or Masters program, they may also be willing to make a phone call or send an email to your target program, just to advocate for you and politely point you out to whomever they know there. Most grad students could use both the help of an impartial person/adviser/counselor/editor and of the faculty they know already.</p>

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<p>Thanks for responding, ProfSusan. What I meant was indeed the problem of good students “falling between the cracks,” and I’m trying to avoid falling through the cracks (assuming I’m even one of the good students). </p>

<p>The main problem is, not going to a small LAC will make it extremely hard to build quality relationships with more than 1-2 people and often times you have very little choice who that 1 person is except for whoever is willing to take you into his/her lab.</p>

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<p>

Sure, but one of the jobs of a faculty member is to advise students, both undergraduate and graduate. </p>

<p>I am very skeptical that any private “counselor” could have as much useful information for you as one of your professors, given that your professors are actually sitting on the graduate admissions committee for your program.</p>

<p>I didn’t go to a big state school, but I went to a major research university, and I had no trouble forging relationships with professors who cared about my professional development.</p>

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<p>Based on your location, do you go to Harvard currently?</p>

<p>I do agree with you completely, but I was simply looking for even more advice. More information can’t hurt. I was just trying to become as knowledgeable as I can to increase my chances.</p>

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<p>Yes, I’m a final-year PhD student in the Harvard BBS program.</p>

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<p>I just went through the application cycle by myself and have made some mistakes along the way, but I got into a solid school. Here is my advice:</p>

<p>1) Grad applications open in September in some cases, October in other cases. I would suggest that you create a spread sheet, with a list of schools that you would like to apply to, their GRE department codes, whether a GRE subject test is required, deparment website, application deadline, the program that you are applying to, the address of the grad school where materials are to be sent, and the phone number of the grad school. This will help to organize everything, because time is going to move faster than you think. I also made an unofficial check list for myself and taped it on the envelope that I would use to mail off my materials. My check list had that date my GRE scores were sent to the school, and other things like, was my SOP/transcript/research statement in the envelope. I purchased about 10 long, yellow envelopes (you don’t want to fold anything), wrote the address of the place I was to send my materials. Worry about postage when you take your apps to the post office to be mailed off. </p>

<p>2) Request transcripts early. Request more than enough transcripts than you will need to apply to schools. I would also advise that you scan a copy of your transcript as a PDF to upload to fellowship/grad school applications that require that your upload your transcript (UMICH Rackham Grad school does this for pretty much all of their programs). If you are applying to 10 schools, get 12 transcripts. Schools do misplace materials. A school misplaced my GRE scores, and my transcripts after my application was marked complete by the grad school. </p>

<p>3) Take the GRE early. If you are applying for the 2013 cycle, I suggest that you take the GRE before the semister starts in August. This will give you enough time to re-take if necessary. Also, some schools require a subject test. I think that the summer before the season is ideal to lock in these scores because the extra time to work on other aspects of your application. Also keep in mind that you only can send your GRE scores to a limited number of schools (like < 7) on your test day. You will probably need to call ETS to request additional score reports, and no they are not free and take ~10 business days to arrive at the graduate school via snail mail (even if ETS has an arraingment to deliver a “disk” with scores loaded onto it to grad schools (some schools actually have this arraingment) it still takes around two weeks.)</p>

<p>4) When the semister starts, contact LOR writers, and start your first draft of your SOP. There are books that can help with this. Also some schools require additional writing samples or research statements in addition to your SOP. Get cracking on this early. I literally wrote every week. I would e-mail my drafts to my friend who is a technical writer, and he would do some edits for me. Get some of your profs to read your SOP, and they can help with edits. You will have to write different SOPs for each school that you apply too. This sounds like alot, but not really. I developed roughly five skeleton openings that I used before I got into why I wanted to go to grad school, and why this school is a good fit, and who I want to work for. Also keep in mind, sending the Harvard SOP to Yale, or the Princeton SOP to Oxford, looks really bad. Or saying I want to work with Dr. Smith in Physics, when there is no Dr. Smith in that schools department looks horrible also. You have to keep these organized.</p>

<p>5) Aim to have your GRE score(s) locked in, your SOP finished, and your recommendors lined up to complete your applications before the end of October. Why the end of October? Well that is when many grad schools start taking applications, and it will give your LOR writer ample time to write letters, and it gives you ample enough time to find alternate writers if needed. Lets face it, Murphy’s Law is a reality. People get sick, they die, they go on maternity/parental leave. You don’t want to be waiting on a LOR during the Thanksgiving holiday, when you have a Dec. 1st deadline. Even if your deadlines are Jan. 1st, I still wouldn’t chance it, because your LOR writers will have to turn in graded at the end of the semister, and attend meeting, etc. Give them enough time. Applicatons have to arrive before, or on the due date.</p>

<p>6) After all of your applicatons have been submitted, check your e-mail daily to see if the grad school have sent you any notice, or if they need additonal documents. One school that I applied to required a SOP, and a research statement. About two weeks after submitting your appication, you were asked to write an additonal research statement detailing any relevant research experience. </p>

<p>7) After everyting is submitted, wait it out. You can possibly get into all of the schools you applied, or you may not get into any. You may only get into one, or two, or three out of 15. It is literally out of your hands at this point. You have done all that you can do. This is why you need a really polished application package. You don’t want any aspect of your application to disqualify you from contention (typos, putting the wrong school in your SOP, etc)</p>

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<p>scaleupchem has offered some great advice, but I’d like to clarify a few of his/her points.</p>

<p>1) Applications are now almost entirely electronic, so you won’t have to worry too much about snail mail unless your program explicitly requests hard copies of particular items.</p>

<p>2) Be sure to read the application instructions regarding the submission of transcripts. While many programs now accept transcripts in .pdf form (uploaded with the electronic application), others will want copies sent directly from your degree-granting institution. Additionally, some programs might request two copies of your transcript.</p>

<p>3) When you take the GRE exam (general or subject), you may request that your scores be sent to 4 institutions free of charge. Additional score reports may be ordered online (or by phone) through the ETS website. Check program websites for school and/or department codes so that your scores are delivered to the proper place. The GRE subject test is only offered in April, October, and November. (The subject tests are quite difficult, so plan ahead!)</p>

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<p>I do agree with you completely, but I was simply looking for even more advice. More information can’t hurt. I was just trying to become as knowledgeable as I can to increase my chances.</p>

<p>There is virtually no useful information that a private admissions counselor can give you that you can’t already find on the Internet, in books on the subject or by talking to your advisors. The only way you could get anything more useful than that is if you had a personal relationship with one of the professors on the admissions committee of the programs to which you are applying.</p>

<p>The only thing I could see getting professional help with (besides taking a GRE course) is crafting your statement of purpose, but you could hire an editor much more cheaply than you could hire an admissions counselor. Even better, you could go to your school’s writing center and/or ask a professor to look it over for you. That’s their job, and most people go into this profession because that’s something they want to do.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the great advice guys. I will take it to heart. Some of the stuff you’re telling me though is easier said than done at a large public school where there are thousands of students viewing for the same top professor’s attention.</p>

<p>Julliet, I completely disagree. </p>

<p>“There is virtually no useful information that a private admissions counselor can give you that you can’t already find on the Internet, in books on the subject or by talking to your advisors.”</p>

<p>Ya ok, I can say that about anything including my friend’s undergrad counselor without any iota of evidence to back up my crazy claim. </p>

<p>The reason I posted this thread was to see if anyone is actually well known around the area I inhabit and I greatly appreciate the additional tips that people have given me including your own. However, I think your claim that private help is as useful as a google search at most is pretty far from the truth, at least without any kind of evidence.</p>

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<p>How can you completely disagree when you can’t even find a private college counselor to talk to? What do you think a private admissions counselor is going to tell you? There’s no super-secret advice to get into graduate school.</p>

<p>You could say that about your friend. Really, you have no evidence that he couldn’t have done just as well without his counselor, if he had just found the same information online. You don’t know if what I am saying is far from the truth, because you haven’t found a counselor and you haven’t gotten into graduate school. I’m just sharing my advice, which jives with others - even if you could find a private graduate school counselor, it would probably be a waste of money because that information can be had by other means. But everyone has a right to spend their money the way that they want to.</p>

<p>Of course the stuff is easier said then done. They don’t let people who take the easy route into graduate school - it takes hard work and dedication to the craft. A private admissions counselor is not going to eliminate your responsibility to get to know your professors so you can get recommendations and experience.</p>

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<p>I wasn’t saying I am sure any private adviser would be helpful. It is likely though that he/she could be of some help. It makes reasonable sense to claim a person that makes a living out of helping people with that specific task can help them rather than claim without evidence or even anecdotal evidence of the contrary. But anyway, I’m not here to start a debate. I respect your opinion.</p>

<p>Also, I’m not trying to take the “easy route” by any means. I am just trying to get as much information about the system as possible so that looking back in retrospect in a couple of years I can minimize my chances of doing the “Man, I wish I knew ____ when I was an undergrad.” </p>

<p>So far, I’ve had that feeling about undergrad. Trying to avoid it for grad.</p>

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<p>I kind of skimmed this thread, so my apologies if this has already been said. However, I would imagine it would be very difficult to find a truly qualified “graduate school” counselor, outside of for fields such as law school, business, med school, or other professional programs. For graduate school, applications are typically tailored to specific programs in specific disciplines with specific faculty with specific research interests (sorry for so many “specifics!” :p). It’s a specific task – for each discipline. It would be impossible for someone to know about the research being done at each school in each department with the level of knowledge necessary to be able to advise accurately on each situation, as even the combined knowledge of professors within a given department may not reach this level. </p>

<p>I think as others have said, you should view your professors as the excellent resources and references they are, as they’ve gotten into the field, sat on committees that determined who was accepted into grad school in their field, and doubtless helped many others get into grad school as well, and are tailored to advise on your interests (if you plan to continue in the field they’re in, that is!).</p>

<p>Perhaps if you specified your field of interest, you’d be better able to find someone who is able to accurately assess your situation, if you still want an outside “insider” perspective. :)</p>

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<p>You will always feel this way, because no matter how prepared you <em>think</em> you are (even with a counselor by your side), you will always be wiser and more experienced in the future, and it is always easier to look back and see your mistakes and missed opportunities.</p>

<p>The only way I can see a private counselor being more helpful than reading information online is if it is their job to ensure you are motivated - kind of like a personal trainer of sorts - by having strict deadlines to get things done and keep you on track. As far as learning the “secrets” to getting into graduate school, there is very little if anything they could share that you couldn’t find online by reading about hundreds of other admitted students’ experiences. A counselor would be convenient - having most of that information in one place - but I don’t think they would offer any fresh perspective. They would just be a personal coach or cheerleader, motivating you and telling you what to do. But grad schools would probably prefer students who can do this on their own.</p>