<p>^^^That is one of the benefits many families find by engaging an independent college counselor. It can be hard for parents to work with their teens on this and the emotional baggage involved. Having an objective third party involved can help (even though the parent is still involved). It can ease the stress of the situation. Many find this aspect to really help with the dynamics involved.</p>
<p>I don’t understand. Part of the wow factor of attending a top 10 school is getting in on your own accord… If my parents paid my way into Harvard, it wouldn’t be the same. I’d rather be rejected. </p>
<p>oxo- most of the kids I know in real life whose parents have hired a college counselor end up at Adelphi or Hampshire Wittenberg or Beloit and colleges of that ilk. These are all fine institutions- so not a knock on the colleges- but the parents aren’t exactly asking “how can I find a college which will admit little Joey with the 3.9 GPA and 2400 SAT’s and how should he describe his Physics Olympiad medal on his application?”</p>
<p>These are kids who for some reason are not going to be auto-admits (or even squeak into) their own state’s flagship- maybe sky high scores but terrible grades, or fantastic academics but a non-violent disciplinary issue on their transcript, etc. Their HS naviance shows that the kid is likely to be admitted nowhere except for community college based on where other kids with their stats have been admitted mainly because kids in their HS usually go to college close by or in the general region.</p>
<p>So the parents hire a counselor who can help them with a national search. The counselor helps figure out the best way to present the kids strengths for a college which uses a very holistic admissions process. The counselor plays bad cop with the kid- basically helping the kid understand that senior year academics really matter (or junior year if hired early in the process). The counselor punctures the parents denial pretty quickly-- “your daughter may be a double legacy at Dartmouth but she’s not getting in to Dartmouth. So let’s look at other rural, snowy colleges which may be excited by her B average and 600/550/550 SAT scores.”</p>
<p>So don’t lose sleep over the kid getting into Harvard with a private counselor. That “packaging” works pretty well in helping a B student with some issues look more like a B+ student who has “overcome obstacles”. But it ain’t taking a kid destined for Hofstra or University of New Haven and getting them into a top 10 or 20 U.</p>
<p>And, BTW, if anyone wants to get a glimpse into real big-time “packaging” in terms of college aps, you should look into what is done for D1-level athletes in money sports like football and basketball! Even 10 years ago when we were involved, the marketing of these young athletes was big business. </p>
<p>Anyone who thinks that ANY kid that gets into Harvard, Yale or any other top school did it “on their own” is delusional. Now I am definitely not advocating paying money for a private counselor, but I didn’t have to, I was paying through the nose for her to get that from her high school GC.</p>
<p>The system is not fair. I came from a working class background, large failing public school, but I was blessed with a mother that pushed me to be the best. In 1978, under a totally different application philosophy from today, I applied to and got into Yale. I don’t remember either my GC or my teachers being that involved and beyond writing the check for my app, my mom was not either.</p>
<p>It is not “on your own” when at age 5 or 6 your parent puts you into the best school in your area. It is not “on your own” when your parent can fly you to Europe for the summer or put you in tons of EC. It is not “own your own” when you have parents that can leave their jobs and schlep you to out of town sports events, etc. Yes, there is the one in a million diamond in the rough that climbs their way into these schools (I was one of them), but the vast majority come from the same very comfortable middle/upper class cloth.</p>
<p>That is why I am so adamant about doing college counseling - for free - for students whose parents cannot afford to pay for it and are clueless to the possibilities. And, I am not trying to get these kids into the top tier, for some, just going to college at all will be a great feat. The playing field will never be even. But, it is not even in so many other things in life, why would anyone feel that higher education would be different.</p>
<p>@Tperry1982 I agree 100%. My son is a freshman at Yale, and although he sacrificed, worked, struggled and planned as well as any person could, he had his parents, his teachers, his friends, his family supporting him. His achievement is wonderful, but we acknowledge the advantage that his upbringing provided.
I’m an engineer, not a banker. I don’t have tens of thousands to spend on him, but while he was preparing for college, I did have all the time in the world to support him. We were thrilled and humbled to gain admission to such an amazing school, and look for ways to ‘pay it forward’.</p>
<p>@xiggi: " Inadequate prep is a better term and most of it is due to lack of interest or plain laziness…All one needs is a few bucks and the desire to improve."</p>
<p>That’s a pretty doggone big “all one needs” for a lot of families. Even aside from the idea that everyone can afford test prep (when you’re scrambling to pay the heating bill even a $20 prep book can be a big deal), a lot of families simply don’t know where to start. And it’s generally the schools with the least savvy parents that have the most overwhelmed/overworked/least available guidance staff.</p>
<p>Petrichor…I put aside household bills for her educational needs. Her college essay was about having to shower at the YMCA while getting ready for prom. Our water had been shut off. I made the choice for test prep materials over a water bill. Obviously was inconvenient, but she ended up at a top school and now med school. I would do it again. </p>
<p>“If my parents paid my way into Harvard, it wouldn’t be the same.” </p>
<p>Paying for a consultant and for SAT tutoring is not going to get anyone in to a top 10 school. The student will still have to be extraordinary and they will still have to do the work, end even then, there are no guarantees. </p>
<p>Really what you are doing by paying for those things is giving the candidate the best possible chance. When you are talking about a top 10 school, they may be able to polish up a diamond in the rough, but they will not be able to polish up a lump of coal.</p>
<p>
I did the following when he was growing up:
- Closely monitored what he was learning at school for the subjects which I happen to know something about (mostly math and physics - as I am an engineer too.) - At one time, my (quite young) nephew visited us and noticed what I was doing. He thought “I was enjoying reading my kid’s textbooks!”
- Solved (or at least knew that I could solve if I tried) the majority of problems in his textbooks in these few subjects that I am familiar with. But I almost never passed my answers (some just in my mind only) to him unless he asked me a question about it and he rarely wanted my answers. (Admittedly, this could become a very boring task for me most of the time.)
- Located additional materials for him to learn. These materials are generally a notch more advanced (but not by much) than what he was learning at school.
- Accompanied him to the majority (>95%) of his EC activities (they were almost always on Saturday so I could go.) I did not do anything there - just sit there.
- Tried to pass him some of the knowledge from my work. Not very successful here. (But it was more “successful” when he was younger. In one year, I received a Christmas gift from him: A computer game (a program) using the kid/LOGO programming language. He thought he had developed this computer game program - but actually it was a joint effort, with a lot of hand-holdings from me because he was likely in the second or third grade only.)
- Hunted for and introduced several music recording gears (both software and hardware) to him. When he was older, I basically just bought these for him to play with, but I myself did not learn anything about it. Some of these became too complicated for me.</p>
<p>I did not help him with his college application at all. (I do not think I would be capable of helping him.)</p>
<p>The last thing: We paid a lot for his pre-college ECs (a lot relative to our income) and paid full freight for two years for his college.</p>
<p>GA2012Mom - I am glad you were able to make that choice and I am glad that your child was able to rise above it. If this is the case, you should understand why this is not an option for all parents. I’ve had kids who did not have lights to study by or heat. Who grew up in shelters or being shuttled between relatives and the street. You made the choices you did, but everyone cannot.</p>
<p>I’ve juggled bills many a time to pay for something my kid needed for school or an extra curricular activity. I’m sure most of the parents on here have (except for some that are ultra well off). That is a choice we may, or are blessed to be able to make.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think news articles like this are nothing but tabloid fodder. Any family that is willing to drop $100K or more on a counselor in the belief that they will work some kind of rich-people’s magic and get their kid into Harvard is delusional. Unless, of course, the counselor simply doesn’t even accept clients whose kids aren’t already Harvard material. I could see that.</p>
<p>We’re working with a private counselor, and I know lots of other people who are as well, and it’s a much more normal scenario: just a few sessions to talk about what colleges would be a good fit, what deadlines D should set for herself for writing essays and getting her apps in, and some advice and editing of essays. This woman had an essay-writing workshop for a bunch of her students that was very helpful to D – she just had them all sit there and brainstorm ideas, narrow them down, draw up outlines, etc. </p>
<p>I don’t see the point of paying $100K to get a child into Ivy league. I know some people have this kind of money to burn, but still, wouldn’t that money be useful for something else? Is it that advantageous to have a child go to Ivy League over other colleges? I have found that the success of a student is not correlated to the school they went to, but rather their ability for hard work and perseverance. After all, aren’t there many successful and wealthy people that went to state schools, or similar schools? </p>
<p>I live in a NYC suburb and there is a service here that, for the mere price of $250 an hour, 3 times per week, will make your note cards, write your papers, and get you copies of tests if they have them in their possession. There are a group of very rich families using this service successfully and getting into very good schools. My friend’s daughter has a friend who started using the service and they essentially wrote her senior research paper for her. </p>
<p>I am quite upset that this type of service exists but there is nothing I can really do about it. The schools are aware of the service and are trying to crack down in whatever ways they can, but they can only do so much. I’ve told my kids over the years that life does not produce a level playing field, and that perhaps people who have their work done for them won’t be as well-equipped in life - but the situation, I’m sure, is affecting many students because if a couple of tutored students, or students who have the actual test, do very well on said test, then the others in the class are judged by comparison - the test doesn’t seem so impossible if a couple of students were able to do very well, even if others did poorly. (Interestingly, the foreign language classes seem to be the least affected - no doubt because the service doesn’t have enough native or proficient speakers who are willing to work for them!)</p>
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<p>I did not suggest that people had to rely on paid test prep. Actually I happen to think that most of what is offered in the 1000 range is uttely worthless, and especially when it represents an extension of the typical class setting. </p>
<p>The cost of buying the “adequate” books is a huge canard. For starters, editions of the “Blue Book” are widely available for a few dollars or available at the local library. The lack of interest trumps the lack of availability at a reasonable cost. And, when considering the cost of the next steps, the cost of the one book that is sufficient is trivial. Next time someone tells you they cannot afford to buy a SAT book, ask them to show you their … cellular phone! Lots of destitutes having no problem with buying the latest iPhone or Samsung. </p>
<p>I fully understand how negative the lack of good guidance can be, but it is also one that can be overcome through work and efforts. And, we should remember that most schools DO evaluate candidates within the context of their upbringing. </p>
<p>"(Interestingly, the foreign language classes seem to be the least affected - no doubt because the service doesn’t have enough native or proficient speakers who are willing to work for them!)"</p>
<p>I’d say it’s because there aren’t any shortcuts to foreign language proficiency, and most of the grade in a FL class is typically determined by work you do in person (on an exam or in-class graded conversations). Someone doing your Chinese homework for you every week is likely to wreck your grade, not improve it. It’s not like a big research paper where the important work is done outside of class.</p>
<p>If the high school is interested in shutting down the term-papers-for-hire, it needs to have more in-class writing assignments. People who are great writers outside of class should be pretty good in class, too. Discrepancies should raise investigation flags.</p>
<p>Hello all! I would just like to input my own personal opinion on this thread.</p>
<p>I am currently a senior in high school at a large public charter school in California (4000+ students). Last year, 5 students from our school got accepted into Harvard, and I believe 2-3 got into Stanford. I am unaware of other ivy’s, but we normally have great success with them. </p>
<p>With that being said, my school has 3 college counselors for a school of 4000 students. This means that each year, each counselor has to advise roughly 300 students through the college process. From personal experience, I find that my counselor’s help combined with internet research has more than sufficiently prepared me for the college application process. </p>
<p>Just by simply asking around and talking to other students, I would estimate that no more than 10% of students at my school hire outside consultants, and probably about 30% use outside SAT prep. </p>
<p>Personally, I have probably spent no more than $100 dollars on ACT prep books, and my score has made me comfortable with applying to highly competitive schools. </p>
<p>My point is, it is possible to be accepted to selective schools by simply using free resources available.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this offered any insight or not, but I thought I would share. Best of luck to all students and parents going through the application/waiting process right now!</p>