Hey guys does anyone have any experience with Ivy coach, Ivy wise, Top tier admissions or college consultant programs like this, how much help did you receive from them? Things like Essay brainstorming, extracurriculars plans etc. I know none of them guarantee an acceptance to an Ivy league School, but describe your experience with it.
No.
We consulted with a many people we respected locally. We were advised to choose a local consultant.
One, they have built a business in your community and would most likely be sensitive to bad outcomes and bad service.
Two, they tend to have more limited client pools and are directly working with you and your student.
Three You can also assess their credentials and personality in the initial evaluation phase.
It turned out to be an excellent decision and she offered all of the services you mention.
However. A top consultant will be incredibly and perhaps brutally honest with you and your student. If they say or make you think you are a shoo in for any ivy. Run don’t walk away.
And they do not write the essay in any way. Read it and suggest edits yes. Also ours would not call for specific advocacy but would check in with her contacts at various schools.
Not sure in your area, but here in New England the going rate for this particular and highly regarded consultant cost $5k. No other additional fees. Started summer before junior year and worked for the next two years with her. They created the dialogue and we moved a bit out of the way. We did meet with her as a family several times along the way.
Emailed at anytime. Which was helpful around submissions and decision time.
Do a search on CC for the names you mentioned. Lots of posts will come up.
I agree with @privatebanker . Better to use someone local.
Hi, not sure how to send a PM on this thread… would like to know who the new England consultant is, that you used? We live in NY…
@Carla620: You cannot PM anyone until you have 15 legitimate posts.
When I was applying, I went with a college consulting program called Crimson Education. I’m going to be honest- it was super expensive, but personally, getting into the college that was the right fit for me outweighed the costs so I went with it. It was definitely a gamble though, considering college admissions is so arbitrary.
I went with a package that offered me unlimited consulting on 7 schools of my choice, along with an extracurricular mentor to help me on a large project. My EC mentor wasn’t as good as I hoped since she didn’t have much experience on helping me build a nonprofit (which I wanted to do), so I personally wouldn’t recommend building up ECs with them. However, my essay editor and strategist were simply phenomenal- they were pros at refining my essay while not ruining my character and voice. I know with other essay editors, they make it so mature and formal that the essay doesn’t sound like it was written by a high school senior, which AOs see right through. But my essay editor just graduated from Brown, while my strategist was a Brown alum for several years already (its a shame I felt that Brown wasn’t right for me so I didn’t apply, otherwise they probably knew just how to get me into Brown), but truly without them, I don’t know if I am able to get the results I ended up getting.
And yes, my strategist helped me research and narrow down my list of colleges, while my editor helped my edit every single college essay I had to write. But I wasn’t limited to one essay editor- my own essay editor worked with me personally and helped me write a few drafts with her edits on it before she sent it to the Crimson’s central team of essay editors, who then gave their comments on it and sent it back saying whether it was good to go or still needed more oomph. I had my Common Essay sent back 3 times before it was finally approved.
They also helped me plan how to fill out my activities in my Common App to the minute detail and checked over the entire thing multiple times. I would HIGHLY recommend them for their college app strategist and essay editor service, but you might be better off looking elsewhere for tutoring services and extracurricular mentors.
Hope this helped, and feel free to peruse through what they have to offer via this link: https://pages.crimsoneducation.org/FBCrimsonCore.html?utm_source=digital&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_campaign=forums&utm_term=elaine